HGUC MS-05 Zaku I Sniper

As much of my current experience with Gunpla lies in vintage kits, it was an interesting and refreshing experience when I built my HGUC Zaku I Sniper a few years ago. There’s no real reason for why I’ve avoided newer kits to a certain extent, but the differences between old and new high-grade kits are really astounding to me.

Seeing the new “Revive” kits that are being released got me to thinking about this a lot too, but the current engineering on Gundam kits is truly amazing. While older HG kits really do require a considerable amount of painting and detail work, a lot of new kits don’t really need this at all.
That’s not to say that newer kits look perfect sans paint or craft work, but the quality has definitely improved enough that I could see how a casual Gundam fan might be totally fine with the result of a straight build. My HG Kampeffer I got as a child looked so bad without any paint, cast in teal plastic with only a few decals to account for other details. By comparison, many newer kits really look fine right out of the box.

The basic engineering of newer kits like this Zaku Sniper are loads better too. I was expecting to have to do a lot of work removing seam lines, but surprisingly there was very little to do in that regard. Many of the parts pegged together in the natural seems of the kit, meaning there was really no need for filling and sanding the seems. As an art form, there’s almost no limit to what you can do while building a kit, but it’s definitely more accommodating to casual builders with kits of this quality.

As for the Zaku I Sniper, while it feels a little unoriginal in concept, I really like the classic MSV vibe it gives me. The choice of dessert colors contributes to that as well. The redesigned elements of the suit modernizes it a good deal too, while keeping an U.C. aesthetic I generally enjoy. It’s not totally retro though, as many touches like the backpack and the fact that it is a sniper unit feels a little “new school” to me too.

Aside from the main beam sniper riffle, the Zaku also includes a standard machine gun you see with other Zaku I variants. Pretty nifty, and I imagine this gives it a little more medium range potential. A heat hawk would’ve been nice, but the lack of it’s inclusion doesn’t hamper this kit any.

The concept of this one really screams to me of a suit that’d have a lot of personality. Given it’s just an old Zaku that’s been retrofitted for more reserved combat roles, I can only imagine how varied and battered the lot of these may have looked. It’s that sort of imagination that really gives me a desire to procure and build another one of these, which I may do at some point. If I do get another, I might check out the Gundam Unicorn version which also looks pretty good.

More on the Zaku I Sniper:

Gundam Wikia