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1/144 Zollidia
General and Technical Data:
Series: Gundam Victory
Title: 1/144 Zollidia
Release Date: May 2000
Suggested Price: ¥ 500
No. of Parts: 117 + Film Stickers
Plastic Colors: Red, Black and Grey
Gimmicks: None
Introduction:
The Victory Gundam 1/144 models are cheap. They are no-grade. They are old. Those are three strikes--and they're pretty big. Fortunately for us, these models are exceptionally well-made. They're detailed, colorful, and very-posable and come with a ton of accessories. In short--they're a perfect deal.
Head:
The Zollidia is molded in two colors: dark gray and black. The head, which is black in the anime, is (of course) molded in a bright red. It looks hideous, but if you paint it black it looks rather cool and you can see several of the details a lot more clearly--plus, having actual red plastic for the insect-like eyes is a lot cooler than any flimsy sticker could ever be.
Torso:
The torso will require painting to look right, as nearly the entire front half of it is molded in bright red. All you really need is a single black permanent marker and you can make it look pretty good. The backpack is pretty simple and pretty cool, with two vertically-mounted bell-shaped rocket thruster than can rotate at pretty wide angles. Unfortunately these, too, need to be painted from red to black, but once they are it looks pretty cool. The most noticeable feature of the Zollidia's torso is the Gatling cannon that slides under the mobile suits right arm. It can move around pretty well, and since you have the pictures I don't need to tell you just how cool it looks.
Arms:
The arms are pretty boring and require some painting to look right. Even after they're painted, they lack certain details. There's not much to say about them that you cannot already tell by looking at the picture.
Legs:
The legs are pretty well-made for a no-grade model. Though the knees only have a single joint, the feet can rotate to either side (as well as up and down) freely, and the legs themselves are heavy enough to give the Zollidia a low center of balance which makes posing the model very simple. Each leg has a pair of rocket thrusters on the back of the calf--these are molded in bright red which looks rather ridiculous--but if you take a small bit of time to paint them they end up looking pretty cool.
Weapons and Accessories:
You have a machine gun which is a solid piece of red plastic (which will need to be painted) and a beam shield that is, ever-so-sadly, a single piece of red plastic. The beam shield is well-molded and fits into place on the Zollidia's left shoulder armor rather well, but it looks pretty bad, being bright red and all. Given that the other NG 1/144 Victory models have transparent beam shields, I really can't see why they chose to mold it the way they did. There's also a movable "claw" and Gatling gun mounted on the back of the torso, and a solid red-plastic beam saber. You'll notice that the beam saber in the picture is clear; I used the spare beam saber from the 1/144 Zoloat.
Conclusion:
The Zollidia has quite a few flaws, but fortunately most of them can be solved by the simple act of painting a few key parts black. It's cheap, it's posable, and it can look really cool. The only possible reason I can see NOT to buy it is if you're too lazy to paint it--even if all you're doing is running over it with a permanent marker. It's not as good as the other Victory models, but the Zollidia is still a solid purchase.
Rating: 4/5
