Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack.
It's seriously huge... !!!!!

Head section

The massive Berserk Unit

The adorable little arm section

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Legs and feet (1/3)

Legs and feet

Tail

Almost all of the Berserk Fuhrer's outer armor is removable.

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Inner frame shots. Now THIS is a proper frame!!! It's better than the somewhat sloppy MG fra

Internal frame.
Now THIS is a proper frame!!!
It's better than the somewhat sloppy MG frames we've been seeing lately..

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (1/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (2/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (3/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (4/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (5/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Detailed shots of each part of the frame. The detail is outstanding. (6/8)

Detailed shots of each part of the frame.
The detail is outstanding.

The sole molding is incredibly precise too.

The legs have no fewer than 5 joints.

That's why it can reproduce both a fully extended pose and a fully folded pose.

Crouched down~ and stretched out~ Seriously, what an amazing frame.

One thing though.. unlike MG kits, there's no molding on the inside of the armor panels. ^^;

Removing the Zoid Core

The cockpit hatch opens in two stages.

When the mouth opens, the gun barrel is linked and pops out.

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - On the tail armor, there's a linked gimmick built into every single segment — lift the upper

On the tail armor, when you lift the upper armor,
the lower armor automatically spreads open along with it — this linked gimmick is built into every single segment.

The tail armor fully opened up.

The armor on the back of the neck works in a similar way.

Opening the verniers on the back of the legs

You can also lower the two stands on the back of the feet to improve stability.

Finger articulation

Neck range of motion

Tail range of motion

The impressively wide range of motion in the legs really stands out.

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The Berserk Unit mounted on the back has multi-joint arms on both sides, allowing for a pret

The Berserk Unit mounted on the back has multi-joint arms on both sides,
allowing for a pretty wide variety of deployment configurations.

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The three Buster Claws are normally held together with a locking pin, which you remove to sp

The three Buster Claws are normally held together with a locking pin,
which you remove to spread them wide open.

Opening the elongated verniers on the backpack side

A stand is included to display the painted pilot figure.

Leftover parts are minimal.

Sitting down and standing up~
The leg joints move through a really massive range..

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - This time, sitting down and standing up~ seen from the back. It's already huge, and with tha

This time, sitting down and standing up~ seen from the back.
It's already huge, and with that range of motion on top of it, the impact is just incredible.

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Rawr~ Basic action poses (1/5)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Rawr~ Basic action poses (2/5)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Rawr~ Basic action poses (3/5)

Rawr~ Basic action poses

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Berserk Unit attack ready! (1/3)

Berserk Unit attack ready!

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Berserk Unit deployment (1/4)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Berserk Unit deployment (2/4)

Berserk Unit deployment

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (1/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (2/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (3/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (4/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (5/8)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles. (6/8)

The massive Berserk Unit can be spread out at all kinds of angles.

Comparing it with the Gun Sniper really shows you just how big the Berserk Fuhrer is..

Even the Shield Liger is just a puppy next to the Berserk Fuhrer ;

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - Even the Genosaurer, which is on the larger side among Zoid kits, looks compact standing nex

Even the Genosaurer, which is on the larger side among Zoid kits, looks compact standing next to the Berserk Fuhrer..

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer - It holds its own in size even against the Iron Kong, the biggest and most expensive of the b

It holds its own in size even against the Iron Kong, the biggest and most expensive of the bunch.

The Berserk Fuhrer, said to be one of Kotobukiya's most ambitious Zoid releases, is finally out. I honestly wasn't sure what made it so ambitious... but after finishing the build, I was genuinely blown away! ^^

First off, the sheer size of it is way beyond what I expected. With Kotobukiya kits, the boxes are always big and the parts count is always high, but once you're done building, you often wonder where all those parts went — the finished model tends to come out surprisingly small. But the Berserk Fuhrer is different. This is one where the finished model actually turns out bigger than you'd expect from the box size, which makes it even more of a surprise. As you can see from the cigarette pack comparison above, and from the comparison with the Gun Sniper, this thing is genuinely massive.. Most people will be shocked when they see it in person rather than in photos.

On top of that, the legs have five joints and can go from fully folded to fully extended — a height difference of over ten centimeters — which makes the range of motion look absolutely enormous. The Berserk Unit on the back is also huge, and since it's connected with multiple joints and can spread out dramatically, a fully deployed pose can span over 50cm, easily filling my entire photo studio — the impact is incredible. And the Berserk Unit isn't just big; the Buster Claws can also bend at various angles, so you can pull off all kinds of different scene setups.

One of the Berserk Fuhrer's hidden charms is that it comes with a complete full-body mechanical frame. Previous Zoid kits have had something close to a full-body frame before, but honestly they always felt a bit rough compared to Bandai's offerings. The Berserk Fuhrer, though, is more refined than even the somewhat plain MG frames we've been seeing recently, and it delivers a proper full-body frame throughout. The armor removal also gives you a feel very similar to MG kits — I'm genuinely moved that Kotobukiya has put out something like this..

On top of all that, there are various action gimmicks all over the body — the linked upper/lower armor gimmick on the tail section in particular is excellent. There's also the leg stand deployment gimmick, the rear leg verniers, the two-stage opening cockpit hatch, and more — the array of flashy optional gimmicks is really impressive.

With a kit this big and with this many points of articulation, joint strength is naturally a concern — but this kit handles that surprisingly well, and the stability is better than you'd expect. Since the body is large relative to the small feet, you do need to balance the front-to-back center of gravity carefully, but once you get the balance right, it holds its pose pretty solidly. That's another thing that sets it apart from previous Kotobukiya kits, and it's genuinely impressive.

To sum it all up, this is a kit that stands out as truly exceptional even among Kotobukiya's lineup, and across the entire Zoid series it's fair to call it the biggest, most spectacular, and most refined masterpiece of the lot. It's remarkable that joint strength is this well-managed on something this large, and maybe because of that, the ¥8800 price tag actually feels like a bargain. A Kotobukiya kit that's finally worth every yen.

If you're a fan of Kotobukiya's Zoid series, this is an absolute must-build, and I'd also recommend it to anyone who's wanted to try Zoids but held back because of quality concerns compared to Bandai. Setting everything else aside, this is a model I genuinely want on my personal best-of list for mechanical plastic models — it's one I really love. :-)

Zoid HMM EZ-049 Berserk Fuhrer | 2012. 8 | ¥8,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.