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| Since Zeta Gundam is the second Gundam series to have been produced, it is only normal that the number of mecha kits related to it be quite important. The very first Zeta kit was the 1/144 RX-178 Gundam Mk-II, released by Bandai in April 1985. This first series, which comprises nearly forty kits, in scales varying from 1/60 to 1/2200 (the Aghama A.E.U.G flagship), is of rather unsteady quality. Some kits, such as the 1/144 and 1/100 RMS-106 Hi-Zack and the 1/144 MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki, are very nicely molded and are quite accurate, while some others, such as the 1/300 MRX-009 Psycho Gundam and the 1/220 AMX-004 Qubley, are simply terrible. But most of the kits of this first series, such as the 1/144 ORX-05 Gaplant and PMX-001 Pallas Athena, find themselves in mid-range; not fantastic, but not so terrible that someone with a bit of talent may not be able to do anything with them. In 1990, an 1/144 HG kits of the Gundam Mk-II and Zeta Gundam, featuring full System Injection molding, where released. While the Mk-II was quite nice, the transformable Zeta, with its sloppy engineering, failed the test. From that moment on, we had to wait until 1996 to see a new kit of a Zeta MS...
This new kit was a 1/100 Master Grade MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam. Fully transformable, it was an Hajime Katoki (Gundam Sentinel, 0083, etc.) re-design. However, the kit, if superbly molded and very accurate, had structural problems that made it rather wobbly. The Gundam Mk-II 1/100 MG, which was released in late 1998 in two versions, Titans (black) and A.E.U.G (white), was a truly nice kit. The MG line later gave us the Super Gundam (the Mk-II with the G-Defenser), the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki (gold plated) and the AMX-004 Qubley. The 1/144 HGUC line has also given us some beautiful kits of Katoki re-designed Zeta MSs, such as the Gundam Mk-II, the Rick Dias (both red and gray version) and the Qubley. Surprisingly, Bandai listened to the demands of the modelers and released the PMX-003 The-O, a kit that had been long overdue (let us hope that a Zeta and a Pallas Athena are on the way...).
The 1/60 Perfect Grade line also offers three superb Zeta kits; the fully transformable MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam and two Gundam Mk-II (Titans and A.E.U.G versions). The Zeta is a FABULOUS piece of engineering and is plenty worth its ¥20,000 price. As we can see, the Zeta model kit franchise is far from dead and the upcoming release of the TV series in North America will very probably bring all these really cool kits to our shores...
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