Our girlypop propaganda mobile suit is ready to debut!
(Note: I used two different backdrops for this photo shoot, which are intermingled in the photos below)
If I were to grade this just as a mobile suit design, pink or otherwise, I’d have to say that I’m mostly impressed.
I still think it was lazy and ridiculous for SEED to just straight up reuse old Zeon designs, but if you’re going to make a new, modern update to the Zaku, this is pretty good way to go about it. It tweaks the design enough to give it it’s own unique vibe, but it still clearly recognizable as a Zaku.
My only complaint is that the clear piece that goes in front of the monoeye makes it hard to see the eye thanks to all the glare.
As for judging this specific variant, it looks just as good here as it does in the promotional photos, which is actually a small miracle considering how fragile Bandai waterslides tend to be. I couldn’t imagine getting this fairly rare (and fairly pricey) kit, only to have some of its big, special, unique markings get destroyed.
Earlier I was concerned that I may have gone too far with the panel lining on this kit. Having now seen the final result, I’ll say that the problem isn’t nearly as bad as I initially feared, but that I still could have used a lighter touch, particularly in places like the shield and the head.
I wanted to do some action poses, including some with the machine gun, but in the end I wasn’t really feeling it:
The different, swappable finger attachments kept falling off of the hands, especially when trying to extend the arms for two-handed weapon poses.
At a certain point I decided it wasn’t worth fighting it, and so I switched to dancing poses.
Except, I’m not at all well versed in how J-pop idols dance, beyond the some of the stuff that sometimes crop up in video games, so I’m not even sure if I did a good job with them:
But that’s fine. I always envisioned this model as being a shelf piece, versus something I wanted to pose a lot.
Conclusion
It’s fun, it’s cute, and it’s super pink. And it’s a decent Zaku to boot. What more could you ask for?