Kimi The Builder

Taking a break to break open a Zaku seed.

With the progress of the MG Ex-S Gundam still going at a very slow pace again this week I was considering of doing another Unboxing for this week, but was a bit uninspired to do one on the newer kits. However after seeing the first indications of the possibility of getting the MG Lunamaria’s Zaku Gunner this year. I figured why not this week I unboxed another kit from the HG Seed line up in anticipation of the soon (hopefully) announced release date of the MG Lunamaria’s Zaku Gunner?

So off the Gunpla Hobby shops, I went, confident that I will most definitely be bringing back the HG Seed’s Lunamaria’s Zaku Gunner kit. However, instead of bringing back the  HG Lunamaria’s Zaku Warrior, I brought back with me the Normal Variant of the HG Seed line. FML.

Oh before I forget! Kimi here, and today I will be doing an Unboxing and First Impressions of the HG 1/144 ZGMF-1000 Zaku Warrior (HG Gundam Seed No.18).

Release Date: November 2004

Retail Price: MYR RM 38.00* ( USD $ 9.10*)

*The price is subject to change, depending on the situation

I know it might be a little bit strange to some of you here on why didn’t I just get the Lunamaria’s, Zaku Gunner particularly since the Lunamaria’s Zaku isn’t really that of a rare kit, to begin with, and not to mention you do as well get alot of Zaku with the Lunamaria’s version when compared it to this, normal version.

Well, there are a few reasons for this. One of the reasons is that this kit quite frankly has been one of the hardest to get, and the only reason on why I was able to be getting these now is really thanks to the recent rebranding plan which includes the re-release of this kit.  So for sure, I would be getting this kit for the home base.

Secondly, is really because of this…

Ever since Bandai started to rebrand themselves, I always wondered if they actually made any modern changes at all to the rebranded kit, like for an instance, doing some translating in the manual or if they even made any improvements to the quality of the materials used there. Although I highly doubt that they did any changes to it, however, I was still hoping that they did actually do something to make the old kits to be more appealing to all of those first time builders.

True enough, after doing some research and comparing with pictures on the internet on the old and the new, I can confirm now that, they didn’t. The only thing that was changed here is really the colors of the logo and nothing more. Which I admit is a bit of a disappointment for me if I were, to be honest.

However, even with that said, I was still quite excited to unboxed this kit since it was still a kit that I have not owned and yes I was thankful because of the rebranding campaign I finally get to own one of the rarest HG kits that I’ve been wanting to get since the end of the anime, many years ago. Quite frankly I was surprised by their decision to re-release this instead of the others. But then again, looking at the possibility of us seeing the MG version being set for release, this might be a calculated move by the Bandai side…It might be so that they might have plans to release the MG variant of the normal version..

But that is not the only thing that I was surprised by.

I was as well surprised by the fact that this simple and as well very anime-ish box art is as well made by the same person that worked on the quite recently released HGUC R-Jarja’s box art, Mr.Morishita Naochika.

No wonder when I take a look it, there is some very familiar vibe to the art here. But somehow rather they still managed to make the whole thing looks good still Seriously, even though it might not have the same hyperrealistic look of the HGUC R-Jarja’s box art, but the fact that the illustrator just goes with a simple clean anime look for this box art, does make the box art looks look quite appealing to the fans of the anime.

I as well like that they go with the simple layout on the side section of this packaging as well. Though it lacked alot of detailed explanation of the capabilities of this kit and relied solely on the visual representation of what this kit could do, I feel what has been done here is good enough to convey the message through to the would-be buyers.

I do like what they do there but the good news doesn’t just stop there. Things were looking even better as I moved on to the actual unboxing.

Because as soon as I opened the box, I was really impressed by looking at the sheer quality of the HG Zaku Warrior’s Runners parts here. There aren’t extra sprues that I can see on the individual parts and what’s more impressive here is that I noticed that the color separation for this HG Zaku Warrior is really quite bloody impressive.

Because from what I can see here, it does seem like that I really don’t have to do alot of painting here in order to make the kit look good. Which I do think is a good thing for those new to the hobby, because I feel like it would encourage them to work on more kits.

Well basically if you want your loved ones to get into the hobby, this might be the one to get.

moving on…

The manual is as well a joy to go through, the lore here, just like we see with the HG Dom Trooper is really fun to see, with quite some pretty decent lore strewn on the front page and as well on the back and the middle section of this manual. I really like the fact that they used the kit itself as the actual model of the bulk of the lore bits, it does show how confident they are with how the kit looked.

Which in turn as well does make us as well quite confident with the kit and it as well really raises my interest to really start work on this kit!

Overall I do think this is quite a good kit. Despite the fact that the new blue logo didn’t do anything much to improve the kit, but from what I’m seeing here I still think that this kit worth getting. Even though this still my initial impressions on the kit, however from what I’m seeing here, I do admit that I do get the same HG Dom Trooper vibe here.

Which does lead me into believing that I am onto a winner here as well.

With that ends this week’s Unboxing and First Impressions for the HG 1/144 ZGMF-1000 Zaku Warrior (HG Gundam Seed No.18). What do you think of this week’s kit that I just unboxed? Do you yourselves have the same experience as I did with this HG Gundam Seed kit? I was quite surprised to find myself really enjoying my time unboxing this awesome HG kit, I guess after going through a rough time with the MG Ex-S kit this really helps me to really re-build that confidence to continue on with the build.

I really hope that I would be able to have a better building time this time around and I really hope that things would just improve as soon as I get back to work on it.

Anyways, we will be back again with more Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment on the next coming Wednesday and this Sunday Kimi will be back with most definitely the review for the MG 1/100 MSA-0011 [Ext] Ex-S Gundam Ver.1.0 (MG)! So do look forward to that!

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Ciao!