HGUniversal Century

MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam Ver. Hiroko Moriguchi

The Revive Zeta engineering wrapped in a love letter to the song that started it all.

MechaGrade Score

3.9/5

Zeta Gundam Ver. Hiroko Moriguchi · 1/144 · 2022

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2022

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the same excellent Revive-era HGUC Zeta Gundam mold everyone already likes, dressed in a color scheme with real meaning behind it.

I like it more than I expected to going in, because the blue recolor isn't a gimmick slapped on for novelty, it is Hiroko Moriguchi's own concept translated into molded plastic. Strip away the theme and you still have one of the better transforming HG kits Bandai has put out. Add the theme back in and you get a kit with a story worth telling on the shelf.

Best for: Zeta Gundam fans and UC collectors who want the definitive HG Zeta engineering with a genuinely meaningful color story instead of just another remold

The full review

What it is

This kit is the 2017-era Gunpla Evolution Project (Revive) Zeta Gundam remolded in a custom blue palette that Hiroko Moriguchi herself picked out, tied to her 1985 theme song Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete, which translates loosely to From the Aqueous Star with Love. She won the concept through a fan vote Bandai ran alongside her Gundam Song Covers 3 album, and the blues on this kit are meant to evoke Earth as a water planet rather than just look flashy. Building it feels like building the well-regarded standard Revive Zeta, which is to say confident and satisfying, just in a palette that carries actual sentiment instead of being an arbitrary premium recolor.

The catch

The engineering underneath is still the same Revive Zeta, which means the same known limits apply. The torso ball joint gives a nice ab crunch but push it too far and the upper body pops off, the slim new waist rotates but not the full 360 degrees, and the wings still lean on stickers for some of the color separation rather than molded plastic. The transformation into Waverider mode still uses the notorious plastic filler block that longtime builders love to complain about. None of this is unique to the Hiroko Moriguchi version, but if you were hoping the special colorway also came with upgraded articulation, it did not.

Who it's for

Get this one if you already love the Zeta Gundam and want a version that means something beyond a repaint, or if you collect Gunpla tied to Gundam's music history. It rewards people who know the backstory of the song and the vote that produced it. Skip it if you just want the cheapest, most poseable HG Zeta on the shelf, since the standard-release Revive Zeta gives you the same core kit for less and without hunting a limited print run. This is a kit for people buying the story as much as the plastic.

The build story

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

Assembly follows the standard Revive-era Zeta Gundam experience, which builders have generally rated as confident and clean for an HG, with better parts fit than the older non-Revive molds. Runner planning splits the new blue tones cleanly enough that gate placement stays sensible, though as with most HG kits some patience with sprue cleanup around the smaller frame parts pays off in the final look.

The standout here is what the color choice does for the finished pose. Because the blues were picked to represent an idea, water and Earth, rather than to look shiny, the finished model reads as more cohesive than a lot of novelty-color special editions. Articulation-wise you get the Revive Zeta's known strengths, a real ab crunch and improved waist movement over earlier tooling, plus the Waverider transformation via parts replacement for a second display option, though the frame limits mentioned above still apply exactly as they do on the standard release.

Lore & trivia

01Hiroko Moriguchi debuted as a singer with Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete (From the Aqueous Star with Love), the theme song for the original 1985 Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam anime, earning her the nickname the Gundam Goddess among fans
02This colorway was chosen by fan vote in Bandai's Hiroko Moriguchi x Gunpla Grand Voting project and won first place
03The kit was bundled as a limited Gunpla set with Moriguchi's Gundam Song Covers 3 album, released March 9, 2022, in a box priced at 8,800 yen featuring artwork by illustrator Tsukasa Kotobuki
04The base mold is the 2017 Gunpla Evolution Project (Revive) HGUC Zeta Gundam, one of Bandai's engineering showcase kits for slimmer proportions and improved transformation