Model Specifications

Capsule
Bought this when I had a bad day at the office as an attempt to make myself feel better <grin>.

Cool mobile armor that is as large as a Master Grade. Retro look with minimal panel lines. Good construction and parts fit and quality is excellent - but poseability is a little poor. Recommended.

Kit Details
In General
The Zeong is often referred to as a mobile armor more than as a mobile suit because of it's massive size. This mech is certainly one of the classics with a design that one either loves or hates.

What can I say? I'm glad it was made into a kit and upgraded to HGUC standards. It basically looks cool displayed with the other 1/144 kits because it's so different.

You get 6 runners, 1 set of polycaps and the huge skirt molded in one separate piece by itself. Plastic is molded in 2 shades of pale blue (one darker and lighter), yellow, olive green, black and red. As noted by David in his first impressions, the colour for the kit is pretty good and definitely better than the earlier kits (even the MGs) - basically they are nice dark and rich shades which don't look as plasticky as kits from the earlier generation. As with the HGUC GM and others in this line, the plastic quality is also excellent, with a certain weight and finish that just makes you feel like you're getting your money's worth.

Oh, one of the runners (the B set) is molded not of the normal plastic but a material that lies somewhere between normal plastic and polycaps - I shall refer to this as the semi-polycap in this review... but more on this later.

Head Unit
Pretty complicated head with several parts - more than even some MGs. The head consists of 13 parts total with almost everything molded in the right color. 2 main pieces form the inside of the head - a lower piece that holds a semi-polycap and the 2 red side rocket units and an upper black rounded piece that the mono-eye fits on.

The mono-eye on this kit - like on most HGUC kits - is a lame sticker which I definitely intend to replace with a poseable eye. There is certainly enough space to do a little modification for this.

Onto this basic construction fits 4 outer 'armor' pieces - a lower face-plate, 2 side plates which house the nice long red antennae, and the top helmet that has 2 nice cut-outs to reveal the black rounded piece underneath.

The whole head looks great though the mono-eye sticker detracts from the realism factor somewhat. A nice touch is the base of the head which has some details to make it look like a rocket output - since in the cartoon the head is a mobile unit on it's own. Unfortunately, the semi-polycap sticks out in the middle of that rocket output which spoils the look a little.

I'll also discuss the neck assembly here since it's kinda part of the head.

On most HGUCs the neck assembly consists of a ball joint and a polycap but not on the mighty Zeong! The Impressive neck assembly consists of 8 parts! Basically there is an assembly that connects the head to the main body - so we're talking about a double jointed neck here. Neat! But even neater is that there are 2 pieces which form the collar of the robot that encase this neck assembly - these 2 pieces 'float' on semi-polycaps so that the all the joints are hidden, and when the head is posed several pieces move which looks nice and mechanical.

The result is a neck unit that can tilt back and forth about 30 degrees. This is just nice for the head to tilt backwards for the nice 'flying' pose.

Body Unit
The body construction resembles that of MG bodies as it basically consists of a base 'skeletal' structure with armor attaching over it. Unlike MGs however, the internal skeleton is obviously not meant to be displayed as there are no details at all. What you get are 2 assemblies connected by a pivoting polycap joint with armor over them. The joint allows the waist to tilt front and back but it's designed such that with the armor attached it can only tilt backwards - it's obvious that this joint was designed to allow for the 'flying' pose and not much else. The mech cannot rotate at the waist.

Many modellers have noted (actually complained) about the lack of panel lines on this kit and this is the most apparent here on the body unit. It is true, there are hardly any panel lines at all. While this gives the Zeong a very anime and retro look, a few more panel lines certainly would help the look of this mech... a recent modified Zeong with self-etched panel lines in the August issue of Hobby Japan (or Dengeki Hobby.. I can't remember which) proved this point - it was ultra-cool!.

However, that lack of detail is somewhat made up for by nice touches of details in the vents on the front and back of the body area, as well as at the neck and waist joint-area.

Arm Units
MG influences are definitely evident here. It's amazing just how much design of these kits has changed over the years. What impressed me is that instead of designing the various arm assemblies as left-half-into-right-half type pieces, most of the main visible pieces are actually designed like 'sleeves'. This eliminates ugly seam lines that require putty and time to fix. Except for a 5mm long seam on an almost invisible part of the upper arm, there are no other seams to fix - this is a plus point for this panel-line-free design.

The upper arm area just above the elbow joint feature nice details, but the elbow joint itself has very limited poseability. I suppose they had to allow for the detachable arm gimmick so they only designed the elbow as a single joint which only has about 40 degrees of movement - so don't expect your Zeong to salute you anytime soon or even scratch his nose.

These elbows have cylinder shaped extensions that look somewhat like gun-barrels. They slot into the forearm units and are held together via the friction provided by a semi-polycap rod in the forearm that slides into the 'gun-barrels'. The whole assembly allows for the forearm to be removed ALA the cartoon action sequences.

The hands deserve special mention. As far as I know, this is the first HGUC or perhaps first 1/144 scale kit with individual poseable fingers. Each finger is molded as one piece and attaches to the palm via a ball joint. Every finger is molded in a semi-curled position which gives the completed hands a rather realistic look. Unfortunately the lack of a mid-finger joint prevents the hand from doing a nice fist... but that's a small tradeoff for these nice, poseable hands. Another tradeoff is the fact that the curled fingers make it impossible to do a "I'm pointing at you and blowing you out of space!" type pose - you need at least a straight index finger for that.

One thing that disappointed me was the fact that all the fingers (including the thumb) have a hole molded on one side. There is no functionality for the hole and I'm guessing there are 2 possible reasons why they are there: (1) They were required for the molding process and (2) Bandai was trying to save plastic. The second reason is unlikely because the plastic they save out of that little hole is laughable... so I guess they are required for the molding process somehow. In any case, it's nothing a little putty can't fix and it's a job even a beginner can do. The hand connects to the forearm via a sturdy ball-joint. Oh! The ends of the fingers are drilled out to simulate gun-barrels which is a nice touch.

Most HGUCs and even MGs have one of 2 shoulder designs. Either the shoulder has an extension that slots into a polycap in the body or vice versa. The Zeong is somewhat different - it has 2 extensions on the shoulder armor and 2 polycaps - one in the body and one in the shoulder so it is the shoulder armor that connects the 2 parts together. The joint was designed with the same principle as the waist joint of the HGUC GM - the shoulder can be positioned snugly against the body with no gap in between, or you can pull the shoulder out a little and get a little poseability out of the joint for more dynamic poses - cool!

Leg Units
Er... this baby doesn't have any legs. Well actually the original mech had legs, but they were detachable and Bandai chose not to include any in this kit. While it might have been cool to have them, they would really have made the Zeong huge - almost the size of an MG. I have heard of someone grafting some MG DOM legs to the Zeong, but that's too expensive a project for me to do - imagine buying an MG just for the legs.

Correction: I was mistaken when I said that the original mech had legs. Thanks to Carl for pointing out that "In the show Zeong never has legs, Char needs him so bad he takes it when its 80% finished but 100% operational. So he fights RX-78 without legs, then is destroyed without legs. The Zeong that has legs is called Perfect Zeong, it is only in MSV which is only a model kit series and not official."

What this kit does have is a huge skirt that is molded beautifully. Details are crisp and the molding is flawless! There are even details on the edge of the skirt.

Beneath this skirt is another beautifully molded part that will mount all the 7 rocket units. Wanna know where all the panel lines and detailing have gone? Look no further. There are enough cool details here for the entire mech! We have pipes and vents and other cool stuff all there... in addition, the rocket units are simply amazingly detailed. The outer surfaces have such finely etched lines that it isn't even funny!

Each of the 7 rockets - 5 small and 2 large - are poseable, so your Zeong will have pretty good mobility in space... and with so many rockets it'll have the necessary 'horsepower' to take it anywhere in a jiffy!

Weapons & Accessories
This mech doesn't come with any real accessories that it can use. It does have a nice stand on which to mount and display the Zeong. The stand has a pivoting joint just under the connecting point to allow the model to be posed both 'standing' straight up or lurching forward in flight (the earlier-mentioned 'flying' pose).

The only other thing that is included is a 24-cm long bendable wire. The instructions say to cut this into 2 10-cm long wires with which you can connect between the elbows and the forearms to simulate the forearms being 'launched' in attack. Makes for some nice dynamic poses but I've never been a real fan of playing with bendable wires too much since it'll develop quite a few kinks after a while which look awful.

The Good
This thing is nice and big - while it isn't an MG Sazabi or Nu, it's large for a 1/144 kit and makes for a very nice display piece.

The underskirt details are impressive!

Articulated fingers are definitely plus points!

Parts fit and finish is top notch. The joints are all sturdy and the plastic is thick and weighty - it just feels good.

The included stand makes for some cool displays.

Double jointed neck is a nice touch.

Detachable forearms and head are true to the design.

Nice proportions - I think the head is particularly nice.

The Bad
The awfully ugly mono-eye sticker! I know Bandai would probably never read this review... but please, give us real mono-eyes! The fake looking stickers just don't make the cut.

Lack of detail - while I like the clean look, the Zeong would look better with a little more detail... especially on its body.

Limited poseability. This is mainly in the arms... but overall a huge armor like this probably wasn't meant to be very agile anyway... probably mechs like these are more like modern day idiot-proof cameras - just point and shoot! <grin>

No legs... okay, so I'm nitpicking. I suppose the inclusion of legs would probably pump the price of this kit up another 1000 yen or something so I'll live without them.

In Closing
I like this kit. While it's construction and quality is topnotch, I somehow feel that it's not much more than just a cool display piece. A nice addition to any collection, but somehow not as satisfying as the HGUC GM or even the Domtropen.

Send questions or comments to gunbase@hotmail.com.

~ This portion is a contributed review by David Bauer ~
minor editing by Gundam_Base

First Impressions...
The kit is not as "flashy" as the Gundam in terms of gimmicks but is a beautiful all around solid kit. It comes packaged in the biggest HGUC box I have ever seen. The kit is molded in a nice assortment of colors that seem brighter and more vivid than normal I thought I was seeing it through rose colored glasses so I took out my HGUC Bawoo (it's a bright orange!) and compared the two side by side. Sure enough the Zeong is brighter and the colors deeper!

Detail is just as good as the Gundam, Top notch. Features include, individual moving fingers, poly capped booster nozzles (they all can move) and I believe a swiveling waist. There is a length of rubber coated brass rod to pose the arms in their detached state. The rod is fairly thick so I don't think there will be any trouble posing them. A display stand is included.

After looking at the kit for a few moments it hits you just how big the Zeong really is. The head is darn near as big as the Gundams chest and torso!!! The armored "skirt" is a single flawlessly cast piece and is quite thick and sturdy. That is a another feature that grabs you about this kit. There is nothing delicate about. This is guy is THICK! and from the feel of the parts and the number of reinforcements incorporated into it this guy could take a great deal of damage (not that it ever will) Bandai still used the mono-eye sticker (yuck!) but from the odd eye track I am still trying to figure out how to install a LED, a ball socket perhaps?