HGUniversal Century

MS-06F Doan's Zaku

A battle-worn hermit's Zaku, molded scar tissue and all, for the price of a normal HG.

MechaGrade Score

3.7/5

Zaku II · 1/144 · 2022

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2022

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is a character kit doing character-kit things right, and I like it a lot more than I expected to.

The battle damage isn't a paint job I have to fake, it's actually molded into the armor, so the beat-up look is baked into the plastic from the moment you clip the runners. It won't out-articulate a modern HG, and the whole point of the sculpt works against a super clean finish, but as a snapshot of one specific, scarred mobile suit it nails the assignment.

Best for: One Year War fans and Cucuruz Doan's Island watchers who want the movie's beat-up Zaku without repainting a stock kit from scratch

The full review

What it is

This kit exists because of one very specific scene: a deserter Zeon ace fighting a Federation squad with rocks and bare hands on a jungle island, driving a Zaku so patched together it barely looks like a Zaku anymore. Bandai leaned all the way into that, sculpting the gouges, scrapes, and mismatched armor plates right into the parts instead of asking you to paint them on. Building it feels like assembling a prop from the film rather than a stock grunt suit. It comes with a heat axe instead of the usual heat hawk, a small exclusive decal sheet, and the general HG-era snap-fit ease that makes the whole thing a relaxed evening build rather than a project.

The catch

The molded damage is all one plastic color per part, so out of the box the scars read as texture, not a battle-worn palette. If you want the gunmetal-and-rust look from the film you're picking up a brush (Testors weathering sets get recommended a lot for exactly this). Stickers are limited to eye stickers and a couple of leg/foot accents, which is fine, but don't expect color-separated armor trim. It was also a Bandai online shop (P-Bandai) exclusive, so it shows up used or resold at a premium more often than it sits on a regular shelf, and articulation tops out at normal HG range, nothing like an RG or MG's frame.

Who it's for

Buy this if the movie or the original episode means something to you and you want the specific, lumpy, over-armored Zaku that Doan actually piloted, not a clean stock Zaku you'd have to butcher yourself. It's also a genuinely good practice piece if you're learning weathering, since the sculpt gives you battle damage to work with instead of a blank slate. Skip it if you want a poseable display centerpiece or a pristine paint-scheme Zaku, the whole design leans into wear and tear by nature, and hunt around before paying scalper prices since it isn't a standard retail SKU.

The build story

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

Assembly is straightforward HG snap-fit, the parts count stays modest and gate placement is typical Bandai, nothing that fights you on cleanup. Where it gets interesting is handling the damaged armor sections, since those gouges and mismatched plates are molded features you have to clip and seam carefully or you flatten the texture that makes this kit worth building in the first place.

The heat axe stands in for the usual heat hawk and is the one accessory that really sells the character, along with the small exclusive decal sheet made just for this release. Color separation on the damage itself is minimal since it's single-color plastic per part, so anyone chasing the on-screen rust-and-gunmetal look is doing it with paint or weathering powders, not out of the box.

Lore & trivia

01The kit depicts Cucuruz Doan's personal Zaku II from the 2022 film Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island, a remake and expansion of the 15th episode of the original 1979 TV series.
02In the original 1979 episode, Doan fights Amuro's squad without any weapons at all, disabling a Core Fighter and a Zaku II using only thrown rocks and hand-to-hand combat.
03The 2022 film was directed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, the original series' character designer and art director, who returned specifically to give the maligned episode a proper retelling.
04The kit was released as a Bandai Hobby Online Shop (P-Bandai) exclusive in July 2022, so it was never a standard mass-retail HG release.