Gunpla Build - High Grade Zaku Mariner

You know what’s fun? Building Zakus. So let’s build another one:

This here is a deep cut, the Zaku Mariner from ZZ Gundam.

A Complicated Past

The history of this mobile suit is … a lot. This blurb from the official Gundam Unicorn site says it best:

An amphibious mobile suit with a complicated history. Originally created by the Zeon forces, it was captured and upgraded by the Earth Federation Forces, and then recaptured by Neo Zeon. It is currently used by Zeon remnants.

I’ll try and break this down as best I can.

When they say this was “originally created by Zeon Forces”, what they mean is that the Zaku Mariner began life as the prototype Zaku Marine Type

This was technically Zeon’s first attempt at creating an amphibious mobile suit, before the Gogg or the Z’Gok or any of the others. And apparently it wasn’t very good at its job, so only a few were made.

At some point after the One Year War, the Earth Federation got their hands on these prototypes. Some were handed off to the Titans, who renamed them as Marine Hizacks.

But the EFF also used them units as the basis for a new and improved amphibious mobile suit, which ultimately became the Zaku Mariner.

But according to the lore, the Feddies never actually got a chance to use them, and they were ultimately stolen back by Neo Zeon forces, who then put them to use during the events of ZZ Gundam. And after that, a few were used once again by Zeon Remnant forces during the events of Gundam Unicorn.

So that’s that. Or is it … ?

Why is it a Feddie Mobile Suit?

This whole history seems convoluted, doesn’t it? Why in the world would you take what is very clearly a Zaku, and then say it was built by the Earth Federation? At first glance it doesn’t make a lick of sense, especially if you dig a bit into the lore and discover that the Feds already had an amphibious mobile suit, the Aqua GM:

So if they needed a new model, why not just improve on that instead?

I did a lot of research into this topic, and I have an answer. In retrospect it seems so obvious - the Zaku Mariner’s tortured history is the result of production issues during the making of ZZ Gundam.

On the Mecha Talk forums, you can find this thread from 2011 in which a user quotes a post from some other, now defunct Gundam forum, written by the illustrious teacher, artist, and Gundam expert Mark Simmons. Here are most of the contents of that quoted post:

I was just looking at Model Graphix's "Gundam Wars II: Mission ZZ" book, and I noticed that there's a really fascinating four-page section in the middle of the book which discusses the planning process for the mobile suits that appear in the second half of the show...

First, let's back up to the beginning. Gundam ZZ had an unusually complicated planning process, full of last-minute rewrites and staff changes.

[...] The original plan for the second half of the series was that the Axis forces would stage an invasion of Earth using ballutes and HRSL capsules, landing a large force of mobile suits without any motherships or support vehicles. Designs were commissioned for a variety of amphibious mobile suits - the Zaku Mariner, the Gaza Mariner, the Methuss Mariner - which both sides would use to secure their splashdown sites and escort their landing forces safely to dry land. The mobile suit forces would then have to make their way over land in caravan formation; the Mission ZZ book notes that it's impossible to operate flying platforms like the Dodai and Base Jabber without a support base on the ground, so instead we'd have a lot of a ground convoys centered around vehicles like the Zaku Tanker.

At this point, the plan was that the Axis landing forces would consist largely of upgraded One Year War-era mobile suits. Specifically, these would be space mobile suits retrofitted for ground combat; for example, the Dowadge was originally supposed to be a ground version of the Pezun Dowadge, which is why it has the same name, and the original design for the Desert Zaku was based on the MS-06R High Mobility Type rather than the One Year War-era MS-06D Zaku Desert Type. Many of these Axis mobile suits, such as the Zaku Mariner, were meant to be variations of a new "final model" of the Zaku series known as the Zaku III. However, since the Zaku III itself hadn't been designed yet, the designers just assumed it would look pretty much like the standard Zaku II and figured they could match up the details later.

Then, at the last minute, the writers changed their plans and decided to just give all the spaceships Minovsky craft systems so that they could carry their mobile suits down to Earth. This eliminated any need for ballutes and HRSL capsules, not to mention amphibious mobile suits to secure the landing sites. And since the Axis ships would be loaded with the same mobile suits that had already appeared in the first half of the show, all the Dom and Zaku variants that were in the design process suddenly became leftover One Year War machines operated by Zeon remnants who had stayed behind on Earth. (Any postwar technology they possessed, like the huge beam cannon carried by the Dowadge Kai, was explained away as booty plundered from Federation bases.)

So there you have it. The idea of the Zaku Mariner came at a time during the show’s production when some things (like the invasion of Earth) looked different, and other things (like the design of the Zaku III) were still up in the air. Things changed, and in the end, they were left with a mobile suit design that no longer fitted within the context of the story, so they had no choice but to make some tweaks to its origins so that it’d somehow still fit in.

Having said that, I still assert that they could have come up with a simpler origin, something about Earth-based Zeon remnant forces upgrading Zaku Marine Types by themselves, rather than attributing it to the Federation. My guess is that that might have had something to do with the fact that the Titans were already depicted as using the Marine Hizacks (and Hizacks in general) in Zeta Gundam, so there was precedent for Zeon designs showing up in the EFF.

This is an important reminder that creating a fully coherent, logical, and perfectly thought out fictional universe is difficult if not impossible, as real world circumstances can and will get in the way.

About the Mobile Suit

The instruction manual for this model includes lots of flavor text about the Zaku Mariner’s history and specs. But since this is a slightly older kit, none of it is translated into English.

This gave me an excuse to try something I’ve been meaning to do - use my phone’s translation app to finally read some of this lore. Here now is my best effort at parsing this machine translation to find the juciest bits about the Zaku Mariner:

• The Zaku Mariner has a snorkel, but it is actually a camera. It is attached via a wire, and can float to the water’s surface for surveillance.
• The Zaku Marine Type could only dive to 400 meters, but the Zaku Mariner can dive down to 2,000 meters.
• The Zaku Mariner is not just a Zaku Marine Type with some new parts, but an entirely new design that's based on the Marine Type.
• There’s a line in the text about how the shape of a Zaku makes it easier to attach underwater equipment. I feel like this checks out - the existence of so many different Zaku variants is evidence that it is a highly versatile and adaptable design. Maybe this is the in-universe reason why the Feds chose this over the Aqua GM.
• The Zaku Mariner has a moveable frame and a panoramic cockpit, which means it’s actually a second generation, Zeta Gundam-era mobile suit under the hood.
• It is designed so that it can ditch it’s hydojet backpack, as well as its leg-mounted hydrojets, in order to conduct limited operations on land.
• There is a blurb in there about how the collapse of the Titans may have factored into how these units were ultimately captured by Zeon Remnant forces. It's not clear if this means that the Titans had them, or developed them, or if it simply means that the resulting chaos within the Federation was the cause.
• It explains how, even during the relative peacetime post-OYW, there was a need for amphibious mobile suits to do things like dredging seabeds, restoring river and port-based facilities, and aiding in the construction of underwater structures.

Weapons and Stuff

Most of the Zaku Mariner’s weaponry comes in the form of missiles. It’s only handheld weapon is a 4-tube Spray Missile Gun. It also has SUBROC missile launchers on its shoulders, as well as its backpack.

It’s final weapon (if you want to call it that) is a called a Magnet Harken. It’s a magnetic cable installed in the left arm, which can electrocute any target it sticks to. It’s the closest thing it has to a melee weapon which, now that I think about it, points out a potential weakness of this mobile suit; Once it’s out of missiles, it’s got nothing else to use. Not to mention that none of its armaments are particularly suited to land-based combat.

Appearances in Media

The Zaku Mariner first appeared in Episode 24 of ZZ Gundam. A whole squad of them is used by Neo Zeon forces to attack the crew of the Argama shortly after they land on Earth:

Some of them are piloted by Neo Zeon soldiers, while others are manned by desperate local fishermen paid by Neo Zeon to help out.

They end up firing a ton of missiles at both the Argama and the Double Zeta, but ultimately they’re entirely ineffective:

Later on, at least two of them show up in Gundam Unicorn, in the infamous fourth episode in which Zeon Remnants attack Torrington Base with a mishmash of old and outdated mobile suits. But both units are shot to pieces by the God Emperor, AKA the Byarlant Custom.

About the Model Kit

As you might imagine, when Gundam Unicorn came out, Bandai released tons of model kits from the OVA, including reissues and updated versions of mobile suits that appeared in Episode 4. These updated versions always have new boxart that clearly illustrates that it’s the Unicorn version of the mobile suit, rather than the original. For example, consider the Zaku I Sniper Type.

Here is the original box:

And here is the box for the Unicorn version:

In the case of the High Grade Zaku Mariner, the box states that it is the ZZ Gundam version, though the Gundam Wiki states that it’s based on the Unicorn version.

I think this confusion might come from the fact that the lineart for the ZZ Gundam version is not very good. The color is wrong, and the leg armor doesn’t look correct:

Meanwhile, the lineart for the Unicorn version looks pretty spot on:

But if you look closely at that lineart - as well as from this screencap from Unicorn - you’ll notice that the top of the chest is colored red:

Meanwhile in ZZ Gundam - as well as on this model - that section is colored yellow. And consider further that both the color and the armor design are correct on the boxart for the original 1980’s model kit:

In other words, they already nailed the design of this back in the 80’s, lineart be dammed. And aside from recoloring one or two bits, the Unicorn version is exactly the same.

Really, if this kit borrows anything from Unicorn, it’s the white missiles in the shoulders (in ZZ, those missiles change color from scene to scene, so it’s hard to tell what they were supposed to be).