HGUniversal Century

MS-06 Zaku II (21st Century Real Type Ver.)

The same great Revive Zaku II frame wearing a paint job Kunio Okawara himself signed off on.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

Zaku II · 1/144 · 2021

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2021

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the 2016 Revive HGUC Zaku II I already respect, reissued through Gundam Base with a hunter green and dark brown Real Type color scheme and a sheet of gorgeous water slide decals.

If you have never built the Revive mold, this is a genuinely great HG chassis with modern articulation wearing my favorite Zaku colorway. If you already own a Revive Zaku in any other release, you are paying a premium for paint and decals on hardware you have built before.

Best for: Zaku collectors who want the Revive frame in the 1980s Real Type palette, and anyone who loves a decal-heavy retro build over a sticker-heavy one

The full review

What it is

Under the retro paint this is the 2016 Revive HGUC Zaku II, and that kit earned its reputation honestly. The waist rotates a full 360 degrees, the elbows and knees are double jointed, and the forearms rotate independently from the upper arm so you get real shoulder to wrist articulation instead of the stiff first generation Zaku pose. What makes this specific release worth talking about is the color story. Bandai molded it in dark brown and hunter green with a supervising eye from original mechanical designer Kunio Okawara, and included a sheet of large water slide decals styled after 1980s Real Type box art instead of the usual dry rub stickers. Building it feels like assembling a museum piece of Gunpla history rather than just another Zaku.

The catch

This is a Gundam Base limited release, so the price sits above a standard HGUC and secondhand copies can run higher once it sells out. The wrist joints do not use polycaps, so they can feel stiff at first and the wrist parts have a tendency to pop off the forearm when you swap hand parts, a complaint that follows the Revive mold across every release of it. The water slide decals look fantastic but take real patience, they need to be cut, soaked, and slid into place rather than just pressed on, which is a slower process than most HG builders are used to. And if you already built any other Revive Zaku, from the original 2016 release to the Char's Custom or F2 variants, the frame underneath is identical, you are buying the same kit again in new colors.

Who it's for

Buy this if you love the Zaku II as a design and want the definitive early Gundam era grunt suit in the color scheme that started it all, or if you are a completionist chasing every Revive Zaku variant. It is also a fair pick for a newer builder who wants an HG with real articulation and does not mind a slower decal process over quick stickers. Skip it if you already own a Revive Zaku in any colorway and just want a green one, since you are mostly paying for paint and a decal sheet on hardware you have already got on your shelf. Skip it too if patience with water slide decals is not your thing, a standard sticker based Zaku will get you to a finished model faster.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

The build itself is a straightforward HG experience, gates are placed on visible edges in a few spots so cleanup matters if you want a clean finish, and the runners were slightly rejiggered from the original 2016 release so you can build either the standard Zaku II or the Commander Type head from the same box. Bandai even packed in a copy of the original Revive instruction manual alongside a dedicated decal placement guide, which makes the extra decal work easy to follow rather than guesswork.

The engineering strengths are all inherited from the Revive mold: the mono eye moves by shifting a small rib on the back of the head instead of being a fixed sticker dot, the shoulders and hips give a properly aggressive Zaku stance, and the proportions read far better than the original 1990s HG version. The decal sheet is the standout accessory here, it is sized and styled to recreate 1980s Real Type box art rather than being an afterthought, and paired with the swappable antenna parts it lets you build either the classic Zaku II or a closer stand in for the Commander Type.

Lore & trivia

01This release was distributed exclusively through Gundam Base as a limited item starting January 8, 2021.
02The Real Type color scheme traces back to Kunio Okawara's original mechanical designs, and this kit's palette was directly supervised by Okawara for the reissue.
03The kit is built on the 2016 Revive HGUC Zaku II mold, the same frame used across releases like the Char's Custom and MS-06F versions.
04The included decal sheet uses water slide decals rather than the dry rub stickers typical of most HG kits, matching the vintage box art aesthetic it is paying tribute to.