HGBuild Divers

PEN-01M Momokapool Ver. Zaishin

A penguin built for cuteness, repainted for luck, and somehow one of the most fun small kits I've put together.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Momokapool Ver. Zaishin · 1/144 · 2018

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2018

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

I went in expecting a novelty shelf filler and came out with one of the more genuinely satisfying HG-tier builds I've done this year.

The Zaishin colorway (red and gold, playing off the God of Wealth theme) is a gimmick reskin of the standard Momokapool, but the sculpt underneath is doing real work: triple-jointed elbows, swiveling shoulders, and knees that bend past 80 degrees on a body the size of a coffee mug. It won't out-pose a proper HG Gundam, but for a kit built around "kawaii power" instead of firepower, it holds its poses better than I expected.

Best for: Gunpla builders who want a quick, cheerful palate-cleanser kit or Build Divers fans chasing the event-exclusive colorway

The full review

What it is

This is the red and gold Ver. Zaishin recolor of the Momokapool, the penguin-motif suit that the character Momo built in Gundam Build Divers using an AMX-109 Kapool base kit. Bandai leaned all the way into the joke: the whole design language is round, waddling, and deliberately silly, right down to the little companion unit, Petitkapool, that rides alongside it. Building it feels less like assembling a war machine and more like putting together a toy that happens to have real mecha engineering under the paint job. The nine runners go together fast, and I was smiling by the second one because the parts snap into a shape that is instantly, obviously a penguin.

The catch

This is a recolor of an existing mold, not a new sculpt, so if you already own the standard white Momokapool there is nothing structurally new here, you are paying for the red and gold Zaishin plastic and the God of Wealth theming. It was sold as an event-exclusive (Gundam Docks at Hong Kong, later a Year of the Pig re-release), so secondary market pricing runs well above a normal HG. The markings are sticker-based rather than molded, and with five different eye-sticker options to choose from for both Momokapool and Petitkapool, getting the placement clean takes patience with a small kit that does not forgive wobbly application.

Who it's for

Grab this one if you collect Build Divers kits, want a fast confidence-building project between bigger builds, or just want something on the shelf that makes people laugh before they notice the engineering. Skip it if you are chasing display presence or combat-pose versatility, this suit was never designed for either, and skip it if you already have the standard-colorway Momokapool and are not specifically after the Zaishin red-and-gold scheme, since you would be paying event-exclusive prices for a repaint.

The build story

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

The nine-runner count keeps this build short, and gate placement is forgiving for a kit this size, nothing here needs the nerve of a small RG. Parts snap together with a satisfying click and the round penguin shapes read clearly the moment you connect the first few subassemblies. The trickiest part of the whole build is patience with the sticker sheet, since you're choosing between the default color-coded eyes and four alternate pairs (plus a mono-eye option) and misplacing one on a face this small is obvious.

The engineering is the real surprise: shoulders swing forward, arms swivel on ball-and-socket joints, elbows are triple-jointed, and the thighs swing and rotate independently before the knees bend past 80 degrees. That adds up to a suit that can hold a waddling, arms-out pose or a seated one without drooping, which is more than I expected from something built entirely around a cuteness gimmick rather than combat articulation.

Lore & trivia

01The Momokapool is based on the AMX-109 Kapool from Zeta Gundam and Char's Counterattack, redesigned in-universe by the character Momoka with a penguin motif and built specifically around 'kawaii power' rather than combat stats.
02The name Zaishin (財神) is the Japanese rendering of Caishen, the God of Wealth in Chinese folk religion, tying the red and gold colorway to a Lunar New Year theme.
03This colorway first sold at Gundam Docks at Hong Kong III in August 2018 as an event exclusive, then was re-released in February 2019 across China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan for the Year of the Pig.
04The kit ships with a smaller companion figure, Petitkapool, which shares the same five-option eye-sticker sheet as the main unit.