MGUniversal Century

Riko's Mass Production Zaku II

A proven MG Zaku wearing a loud, lovable drama tie-in paint job that either clicks for you or it doesn't.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Zaku II · 1/100 · 2024

GradeMG

Scale1/100

Released2024

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the excellent MG Zaku II Ver.

2.0 engineering underneath a genuinely divisive yellow, orange, green and white color scheme, and I think that split is the whole story. Once I stopped judging it as a UC military Zaku and started judging it as a character-goods kit for the Mass-Produced Riko drama, I had a great time with it. The frame, articulation and part fit are all inherited from one of Bandai's best-loved Zaku molds, so the bones here are genuinely great even when the paint job is an acquired taste.

Best for: Zaku II Ver. 2.0 fans and Mass-Produced Riko viewers who want the definitive MG frame in a bold tie-in colorway

The full review

What it is

This is the MG MS-06J Zaku II Ver. 2.0 mold recolored and re-decaled to celebrate the third season of the Japanese drama Mass-Produced Riko: The Life and Assembly Diary of the Last Plastic Model Girl, with the yellow, orange and green scheme designed and signed off by Yuki Yoda, the actress who plays Riko. Building it feels exactly like building the base Zaku II 2.0, which is a compliment. The shoulders swing forward on a real ball-and-hinge setup, the waist has a forward swivel on top of the ball joint, and the mono-eye actually tracks with head movement through a tiny internal gear. It is a fun, confident build wrapped in a costume most Zakus never wear.

The catch

The color scheme is the sticking point for a lot of builders. The yellow can make thin parts look almost translucent under bright light, and the orange reads flat and a bit toylike rather than military. You also get several sprues in near-identical yellow and orange, so it is easy to grab the wrong part if you do not sort by runner letter first. A few builders flag short weapon-holding pegs that let the rifle wobble or pop loose in the hand, and the ABS shoulder joints show visible ejector-pin gate marks that need cleanup if you want a clean finish. None of this is a flaw unique to this release, it is baked into the Ver. 2.0 mold, but the bright colors make cleanup marks more noticeable than they'd be in classic Zaku green.

Who it's for

If you already like the Mass-Produced Riko drama or you collect P-Bandai character tie-ins, this is an easy recommendation, the engineering is genuinely one of the better mid-2000s-to-2010s MG designs and the novelty markings and drama logo decals are a nice touch you will not get on the standard release. If you are a strict UC purist who wants your Zaku in classic olive drab or Char's red, skip this one and grab the standard Ver. 2.0 instead, since the appeal here is almost entirely about the crossover, not a new spin on the mobile suit itself. As a P-Bandai exclusive it is also going to run you more than a standard retail MG, so factor that into whether the novelty is worth it.

The build story

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

The build itself is a straightforward MG Ver. 2.0 experience, snapping together with confident part fit and no fiddly surprises structurally. The main build-specific annoyance is color sorting since this release ships several runners in close variations of yellow and orange rather than one clean color per runner, so it pays to lay everything out by runner letter before you start clipping. Gate marks on the ABS shoulder joints and along the dynamic pipes are visible enough that you will want a hobby knife and some sanding if you care about a contest-clean finish, a known quirk of the base mold that becomes more visible in these brighter colors.

Where this kit earns its keep is the frame underneath. The shoulder joint lets the arm swing forward for a proper two-handed rifle grip, the double-jointed elbow and individually articulated fingers give real hand posing, and the waist's forward swivel plus ball joint combo lets the whole upper body twist believably in a dynamic pose. The skirt armor panels are ball-jointed and swing out of the way on their own, which is the kind of quality-of-life detail that turns a fussy pose into a five-second adjustment. Add in the drama's own custom decal sheet and logo markings alongside the usual Zaku accessory loadout, and you get a kit that looks and plays like a proper MG despite the novelty paint job.

Lore & trivia

01This kit is a P-Bandai exclusive built on the MG MS-06J Zaku II Ver. 2.0 mold, released in December 2024 to tie in with the third season of the drama Mass-Produced Riko: The Life and Assembly Diary of the Last Plastic Model Girl.
02The color scheme was personally designed and supervised by Yuki Yoda, the actress who plays the drama's protagonist, Riko Komukai.
03It followed an earlier HG 1/144 version of the same Riko-colored Zaku released in 2023 for an earlier season of the same drama.
04The kit includes markings referencing the drama's fictional plastic model shop, Yajima Model Shop, alongside the show's logo.