Kit Review

Straight build

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Upper body front shot. True to its 24k gold plating, the shine is on a completely dif

Upper body front shot. True to its 24k gold plating, the shine is on a completely different level from regular gold coating..

Wings

Head

Legs. The gate marks are a bit of a letdown;

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Shiny action pose~ (1/4)

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Shiny action pose~ (2/4)

Shiny action pose~

The Hyper Mega Launcher is just standard molded plastic

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Golden Waverider (1/6)

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Golden Waverider (2/6)

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Golden Waverider (3/6)

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Golden Waverider (4/6)

Golden Waverider

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - Looking at the reflective surface on the wings, you can really feel that luxurious sh

Looking at the reflective surface on the wings, you can really feel that luxurious shine that's on a whole different level from regular plated coating.

With the Hyper Mega Launcher attached

Clear and gold-plated option parts

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - This kit is based on the MG Zeta Coating Version rather than the standard version — t

This kit is based on the MG Zeta Coating Version rather than the standard version.
The manual, figure, and overall contents are the same as the existing coating version.

Coating version vs. Waverider comparison

This time, a comparison with the standard version..

All three MG Zeta variants together

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version - The gold-plated Zeta — a shame the photos don't quite capture it, since the shine is

The gold-plated Zeta — a shame the photos don't quite capture it, since the shine is just too intense to photograph well.

This is the MG 24k Gold Plated Zeta Gundam (1.0), one of the limited editions given out as prizes at the Modeler's Cup. Rather than being based on the standard MG Zeta, it uses the Zeta Coating Version as its base, so the manual, figure, and other contents are all from the coating version.

There have been plenty of gold-colored kits before — like the Hyaku-Shiki or the Hyper Mode Gundams — but this 24k Gold Plating series is in a completely different class from those simple gold color coatings. It's actually plated with real 24k gold mixed in, so if you put them side by side, the difference in shine is immediately obvious.

The biggest difference shows up when you cut the gates. With regular plated parts kits, the gates don't feel all that different from standard ones — but with this gold-plated version, there's a thin metallic layer deposited on the plastic surface, so when you clip the gates, the plating can sometimes flake off in thin layers;; It's a bit hard to put into words, but it's definitely a different feel from kits that are just painted or pearl-coated on the surface. It really does feel like true "plating" — the sheen flowing across the surface is just on another level.

The photos above don't really do justice to that unique brilliance of real gold, but put it in natural light and it sparkles like crazy. ^^; The sheer power of genuine gold plating — no regular plated kit can even come close.

You might expect a kit plated with actual gold to cost an arm and a leg, but the real-world price is actually within 10x the cost of the standard version. That's for the limited edition secondhand market, of course — depending on the original release price and circumstances, it can even drop to around 4x the standard version's price at the low end. The reason it's not as expensive as you'd expect for a genuine 24k-plated kit is probably... that while gold is mixed in, it's maybe not mixed in all that much?

Being a plated parts kit, the joints have stiffened up too, which cuts down on the looseness that was typical of the Zeta 1.0 — but the wings are still floppy. That's because the wing connection parts aren't coated.. whoops;

Anyway, it's a gloriously flashy limited edition gold brick that you could probably sell off if you ever fell on hard times. ^^;

MG Zeta Gundam ~ Gold Coating Version

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.