HGUniversal Century

MS-06S Char's Zaku II EneKey Ver.

The best 1/144 Char's Zaku Bandai has ever made, wrapped in a giveaway box you'll probably never find on a shelf.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

Zaku II · 1/144 · 2020

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the 2020 HGUC Revive Char's Zaku II under a promotional skin, and the underlying kit earns its reputation on its own merits.

I built the standard Revive version this is based on and came away impressed by how much the proportions and posability improved over the old-school HGUC Zaku, all in a kit built for beginners. The EneKey branding is the whole reason this variant exists (it was a Japanese ENEOS gas station lottery prize), but strip that away and you have a genuinely excellent 1/144 Zaku underneath.

Best for: Zaku completionists and Char's Custom collectors hunting a rare variant of an already-great HG kit

The full review

What it is

At its core this is the 40th Anniversary HGUC Revive tooling of the MS-06S, the kit Bandai used to prove a 1/144 Zaku could still feel fresh decades after the original mold. I liked how the shoulders, waist, and knees all got real range instead of the stiff, minimal joints older Zaku kits shipped with. The monoeye, the spike shoulder, the heat hawk, everything reads as unmistakably Char's Zaku the moment it's assembled. The EneKey branding comes from a Japanese ENEOS gas station promotion tied to their EneKey payment card's first anniversary, where about 4,000 winners received this exact kit in place of the standard retail box.

The catch

The wrist joints skip polycaps entirely, which keeps the part count and price down but leaves the hand pegs feeling looser than I'd like, and more than one builder reports the wrist peg detaching or snapping outright when swapping hand parts too aggressively. Seamlines show up mainly on the forearms and the weapons, so plan on a little cleanup there if you care about a smooth finish. Because this was never a retail SKU, actually owning one means chasing secondhand listings rather than walking into a hobby shop, and pricing on the resale market has nothing to do with a normal HG price point.

Who it's for

If you already love the standard HGUC Revive Char's Zaku II and just want the novelty of the EneKey box for a collection, this is worth tracking down. If you're new to Gunpla and just want a great Zaku to build, buy the ordinary retail Revive release instead and save yourself the hunt, the plastic and the experience are identical. Skip this one if you want a kit you can simply order without digging through Japanese secondhand marketplaces, because that's the only real way in.

The build story

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

The build itself moves fast, snap-fit assembly with a low part count that never gets fussy, and the gate placement keeps nub scars off the visible surfaces on most pieces. The main cleanup falls on the forearms and the heat hawk and shield, where the seamlines are most noticeable if you want a fully smooth finish.

Where this kit earns its reputation is the range of motion. The rotating elbows and the added waist and torso movement let the Zaku hit dynamic Char's Custom poses that the earlier-generation HGUC Zaku simply couldn't manage. The tradeoff is the wrist joints, which skip polycaps and can feel loose or, in a few reported cases, detach at the peg during hand swaps, so I'd handle those parts gently.

Lore & trivia

01This EneKey Ver. was never sold at retail. It was distributed as a lottery prize to around 4,000 winners through Japanese ENEOS gas stations to mark the first anniversary of their EneKey electronic payment card.
02The ENEOS and Gundam collaboration campaign that spawned this variant featured a stop-motion commercial of Char's Zaku II refueling at a self-service station, built with a detailed diorama shot over several days.
03The kit underneath the EneKey branding is the 2020 HGUC Revive retool of the MS-06S, released to mark Gunpla's 40th anniversary with reworked proportions and articulation over the original 1980s-era HGUC Zaku II mold.