Kit Review
Straight build
+ panel lining + decals
Size comparison with a cigarette pack
Upper body front and back
The wolf mark, Matsunaga's signature feature.
The blue mark on the spike armor unusually comes as a waterslide decal.
The decal is large and the surface is quite curved, so it's pretty tricky to apply...
If you zoom in, you can see it's on a bit of a mess. (OTL)
You really need to focus and take your time applying it carefully... but at the time I had to slap it on in the middle of a chaotic situation, so it didn't go on well.
(Hey! No excuses!)
Leg section
High Mobility backpack
Shin Matsunaga's Zaku II v2.0 has four main unique features.
1. Four markings added to the front skirt armor that look like something's poking out from the crotch area (;)
2. Redesigned rear leg section
3. Yellow stripe added to the right shoulder, and the inner shape of the shoulder shield is slightly changed.
4. Includes a Prototype Zaku bazooka with a differently shaped rear section
Outer armor removed
Internal frame
Upper body frame, front and rear.
100% identical to the existing High Mobility Zaku 2.0.
Leg frame
The only part of the frame changed for Matsunaga's unit is the rear shin area.
Weapons shot. The weapons feel a little on the sparse side.
It uses the same existing method of sharing the bazooka's center section and swapping the front and rear ends.
The Prototype Zaku bazooka included with Shin Matsunaga's Zaku II v2.0.
Only the rear magazine section looks different.
Due to the color combination, this kit ends up with quite a few leftover parts...
Articulation.
As expected with the High Mobility type...
The knee articulation is just sad thanks to those chunky legs T_T
Action pose.
The High Mobility type's knee articulation is a bit lacking, so ground poses don't come out all that dynamic.
Stand on!
"So what are you gonna do about it?" pose..
Heat hawk action
Bazooka action.
Two-handed action
With the standard 280mm general-purpose bazooka equipped
Together with the Zaku II Shin Matsunaga's unit v1.0.
In terms of the coloring concept... the 1.0 and 2.0 differ in the color combination on the rear and side skirts.
After digging into the official specs, naturally the newer 2.0 has the correct colors.
Just like with the Black Tri-Stars units, it seems like back in the 1.0 days they were too busy recycling parts to bother getting all the details right.
One fun thing to notice when comparing the 1.0 and 2.0.
The kill marks on the back of the right forearm have increased quite a bit.
Looks like he racked up more kills between the 1.0 and 2.0 releases.. (^^;)
Together with Johnny Ridden's unit, fellow High Mobility custom brothers.
The High Mobility Zaku 2.0 trio.
As the High Mobility trio upgraded from 1.0 to 2.0,
they all underwent a complete transformation to properly implement the coloring "correctly" according to the original specs.
Unlike the other High Mobility types, Matsunaga's unit has a slightly different right shoulder and inner shoulder shield design.
Comparing the spike armor across the High Mobility units, you can see the design combination is subtly different across all three.
High Mobility leg comparison. Look closely and you'll see all three are slightly different from each other.
Compared to the Black Tri-Stars High Mobility unit which looks similar at first glance,
you can see the rear shin design is completely different.
There are so many types of Zaku bazookas.
This Matsunaga unit unusually comes with a Prototype version.
The Prototype Zaku bazooka only differs from the 320mm bazooka included with the existing Black Tri-Stars High Mobility unit
in the rear magazine section. (The front section is the same)
At last, all five v1.0 Zaku II kits have completed their upgrade to 2.0.
The left column is 1.0, the right column is 2.0. ^^
The MG Zaku 2.0 series where the MSV variants really shine.
All 8 official MG Zaku 2.0 releases to date.
All 10 MG Zaku 2.0 kits including the 2 limited editions.
Having built 10 of these now, I can honestly put them together without even needing the manual... ;;;
Straight build