MG 1/100 Gunner Zaku Warrior Lunamaria Hawke

This is the Master Grade 1/100 Gunner Zaku Warrior (Lunamaria Hawke Custom). 🙂 This mobile suit comes to us from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, and is piloted by Lunamaria Hawke. A variant of the Zaku Warrior equipped with the Wizard System's EX-A1 Gunner Wizard on its back. The Gunner ZAKU Warrior is specialized for artillery strikes, and its main weapon is the M1500 "Orthros" high-energy long-range beam cannon mounted on the Gunner Wizard. This beam cannon is the strongest ranged weapon available to the ZAKU Warrior and grants it impressive firepower over long ranges, capable of destroying any mobile suits or mobile armors within its line of fire.

I’ve always liked the Zaku Warrior, and after watching Gundam SEED Destiny, I decided to pick up the Master Grade version of Lunamaria Hawke’s Zaku Warrior. This one comes with the gunner backpack, but you can remove that if you just want to display the Zaku without it. It also includes the machine gun and heat hawk. I had mixed feelings at first about this kit, due to how thin the box is for a Master Grade, but I found the build to be quite enjoyable, and the finished build looks really nice. 🙂 The inner frame isn’t as detailed as some other Master Grade kits, but it provides a really good range of articulation, ensuring that this kit will have no problems striking tons of great action poses. One pleasant surprise this kit has is that the pipes for the legs come preassembled.

For the most part, this is a pretty solid kit, and while my issues with it are minor, I definitely have a few. First, due to the collar area, the range of side to side movement in the head is very limited on this one. Next, in order to move the monoeye, you have to remove the top of the head and move it manually, giving it more of a High Grade feel than a Master Grade feel. My last issue is that I feel like Bandai kind of cheaped out on the inner frame of this kit. It few like they did the bare minimum to give it Master Grade level articulation, but skipped a lot of the fun mechanical gimmicks that Master Grade kits are known for.

All in all, this is a spectacular looking kit, and it only gets better with the included marking decals. The inner frame may not have as much detail or as many gimmicks as most modern Master Grade kits do, but I feel like that can be overlooked due to the range of articulation and how nice the kit looks once you have it all put together. I definitely think that this kit is worth having for any fan of Lunamaria Hawk, as well as any fans of Gundam SEED Destiny. 🙂