MSiA MS-06Fs Garma's Zaku II

Height: 10.5cm to top of head, 11.5cm to top of Commander's Antenna.

Articulation: 30 total points of articulation: Triple-jointed neck; 7 points in each arm - double jointed shoulder, ball-jointed shoulder armor, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball-jointed wrist; ball-jointed waist; ball-jointed main thrusters on back; 5 points in each leg - ball jointed hip, double-jointed knee, ball-jointed ankle, ball-jointed lower foot.

Accessories: Zaku Machinegun, Zaku Bazooka and mounting clamp, Heat Hawk, extra Hands x4, Garma Zabi's Dopp

Colors: Molded light rust brown, dark green, dark gray, and black. Painted black, yellow, gold, light rust brown, pink(cameras), and black ink(panel lines).

Release Data: Released January 16th, 2004 in Japan at a price of ¥1500. This item is no longer in production as of this review (February 22nd, 2005).

Gallery: 9 images.

Author: RAC

The Figure

One thing you can say about Bandai, they always strive to get the most out of a mold. Garma Zabi's Zaku II-FS is the seventh version of the Zaku Second Version mold, and the fifth MSV Zaku Second. It's my first experience with the Second Version Zaku, though, and it's nice enough that it wasn't my last.

The Head

The head sculpt is good, with the signature quadruple head-vulcans being molded in cleanly and painted very evenly. That's pretty impressive, as the vulcans are each probably less than half the size of the Gundam's. The neck joint is unique- it's a swivel joint mounted on a rounded hinge-joint, which also swivels. This allows you to tilt the Zaku's head in pretty much any direction you want. A nice improvement over the old Zaku II, whose head you could barely turn, let alone tilt, and better than most newer figures as well. The commander's antenna is fairly rigid, which I'd see as both good and bad- it will stay straight as it is, but if it is bent severely it'll probably stay bent just as well.

The Arms

The arms are standard Second Version fare, with all the hinges and double-joints that entails. The forearm can't quite lay flat against the upper arm, but it comes close enough that it doesn't really matter. Both the spiked shoulder armor and the shoulder shield are mounted on ball joints so they won't obstruct most poses. There's some really nice detailing on the shoulder shield that you might miss if you don't look closely. Due to the squareness of the shoulders, the arms don't lift quite as far to the sides as other MSiA, but it's more than enough to fit the Bazooka under the arm with ease, which again puts it one-up on the old Zaku-II.

The Torso

The torso is nicely detailed, and the waist has good swivel and a minute amount of tilt in all directions. The conduction cables move with the upper torso, so they don't restrict waist movement at all. The backpack cover is removable, as with the Gundam Second Version, which is a nice bonus. The thrusters are ball-jointed with a fair amount of movement, and don't seem to be in any danger of falling off.

The hip armor is very flexible and won't obstruct most poses, though as always there is the possiblity of warping in the long term. The skirt has three hardpoints to mount accessories on, one on each side and one in the back, though this Zaku can only use two of them at once.

The Legs and Feet

The legs have a good range of movement at the hips, and the hip joint seems to be set a bit lower than on many MSiA, which helps their clearance and lessens the possiblities for skirt-warping somewhat. The double-jointed knees allow the leg to bend nearly in half, though the shape just isn't right for a tight bend like the Gundam Second's legs can acheive. The conduction cables are flexible enough not to hinder the joint, or slowly push it out of the pose you desire. There are hardpoints in the lower leg to mount the Zaku Missile Pods, but those have only been included with the standard Zaku-II to date.

The feet by themselves aren't terribly flexible, but a second ball-joint between the top of the foot and the sole helps this a lot. It looks kind of odd- kind of like the Zaku is wearing dark gray slippers- but I'm not quite sure what else could be done with this leg design at this scale. The slipper-joints help posing quite a bit, so I'm more than willing to take function over form here.

Paint and Decoration

The overall decoration is very nice, and I like the green and light-brown color scheme for this Zaku. One thing that is kind of odd, however, are the hands: they're painted brown rather than molded, and don't quite match the rest of the figure. When you look inside the socket for each hand, the base color seems to be the same green as the torso. I can't quite figure out why this was done, and why the hands couldn't just be molded in the correct color in the first place. Of all the things to paint, fingers in particular are a big mistake- they get moved, pried at, and are generally the focus of more friction than any other part of a figure, and if paint's gonna flake off, this would be the place.

The panel lines are inked, and look pretty good, though to my eye they're not quite as sharp as some of the most recent reissues.

Articulation gets 8/10

Sculpt and Deco get 8/10

Accessories

-Zaku Machinegun

Unlike the gray of the standard Zaku weapons, this and the bazooka are molded in black. Nicely detailed, with a swiveling secondary grip and a removeable ammo drum. The grips are a little thin- not enough to cause the gun to slip out of the hand, but loose enough not to be a firm grip. This is probably good, with the painted hands and all. The handle can move about 180 degrees in all, so it's possible for the Zaku to hold it left- or right-handed. The drum is a bit easier to remove than I'd like, but probably won't pose much of a problem. It rolls well, though...

-Zaku Bazooka with mounting rack

Even more lefty-friendly than the machinegun, as both the secondary grip and the scope rotate almost 360 degrees. It fits in the hand a bit more snugly than the Zaku MG, and tucks under the arm with no problems, as I said above. The storage clamp plugs into the back of the Zaku's skirt, and the small notch fits into an indentation on the right side of the bazooka. It's a tight fit all-around, and it'll stay in place with no problem at all once you attach it.

-Heat Hawk

Garma's Heat Hawk is a unique design, not matching either the standard issue version or the version used by Ramba Ral or Garma's older brother Dozle. The detailing and paint job are excellent, except for a small smudge in the silver part of the blade. It's completely painted top-to-bottom, except for the plug that attaches it to the side of the skirt. It pretty much has to be stored on the left hip if you want it to be facing blade-down, but the Zaku's arm articulation allows it to reach across with relative ease. It fits the hand pretty well, though you may have to angle the handgrip slightly and wedge it in for a snug fit. I still have misgivings about the paint-on-paint factor, though, and how well it'll stand up to repeated use.

-Extra Hands

In addition to the standard fists, you get four: two hands with trigger-fingers extended, and two normal gripping hands. As I mentioned several times already, they are painted light brown rather than molded. Why they weren't molded in the proper color I don't know, but this means that the part of the figure that will arguably encounter the most friction and bending of plastic is coated in paint, which can peel or crack. It also means that the finish on the hands is slightly more matte than the rest of the Zaku, and the color is a half a shade closer to orange. It's a minor thing, but since Char's Zaku doesn't have this problem I suspect it must have something to do with the unique two-tone color scheme of this Zaku's forearms.

-Garma's Dopp

Also included in this set is Garma's custom Dopp from the original Gundam series. It seems to be identical to the green version first released in the US as part of the Deluxe Zaku and Vehicles set. This orange version is well-detailed and the panel lines that have been inked were selected carefully to add to the appearancce of the piece. The rather nondescript pilot figure underneath the clear canopy is orange with a dab of purple added to the head and upper torso to resemble Garma's pilot suit.

The clear canopy is really the only flaw with the piece, as the edges don't quite meet the nose of the Dopp correctly, leaving a noticeable seam. Other than that little detail, it's a nice addition. I like MSiA-scale vehicles, but I feel this has been included in lieu of more weapons, as there are a number of other Zaku weapons available from other versions of this mold. Still, it is something that's exclusive to Garma's Zaku, and for those who wanted Garma's Dopp, it's unlikely it would have been made any other way.

Accessories get 8/10

Closing Remarks:

Garma's Zaku is an attractive and poseable figure with a few quirks, most notably the mystifying painted hands. It has a solid accessory spread, with the two standard Zaku weapons and its own unique Heat Hawk. It could've had more, but it's always nice to have another MSiA-sized vehicle.

I paid roughly $18 for mine on import, and I'm pretty well satisfied- satisfied enough to have gotten Char's Zaku at a later date. If you're adverse to having multiple recolors of a single mold, you may wish to hold out for Char's Zaku, or even the standard F-type Zaku II, with their slightly larger arsenals and unpainted hands. However, Garma's Zaku is Very Good, and I recommend it to anybody looking to expand their Zaku or MSV ranks.

-RAC 2/22/2005