It's taken them a long time to release this but the wait's been worth it.

Anyway, the box art's pretty nice and the sides of the box show what the kit is capable of doing.

I won't go into a lengthy writeup of what this kit can or cannot do, but instead, here's a synopsis as to what has been majorly changed more or less, since the first release. For a more detailed visual explanation, you can always go to dalong.net

1. Conductive cables are now in segments, allowing for fast and easy buildup. Some sanding's still involved though but now, you don't run the risk of losing several through carelessness.
2. Weapons are now as good as seamless. The two halves to form a bazooka are now a thing of the past. Each segment of a bazooka is molded as one complete piece, to be joined together in parts which are natural panel lines or couplings in this case. Same applies for the given machine gun.
3. Two styles of the upper head are included. I cannot remember if this is the case for the earlier release, but here, you can either use the commander's head(with slot for antenna) or regular grunt's head.
4. Torso is now split into upper and lower segments, which does allow a much better degree of motion compared to the first release. The upper torso connects to the lower one by means of a single large ball joint.
5. Shoulder armour is now one complete piece, with inner frame separated(also one piece). It's a simple matter of slipping on the inner skeleton, the outter armour and then the spikes. No more nasty seamline running down the middle of the shoulder armour that risks getting sanded out of shape.
6. Head unit is an improvement over even the Zaku F2 kit, being almost seamless in the built product.
7. Arms and legs now feature a full internal skeleton. The arm units are now mostly slip on outter armour while the feet now features separated front and rear sections for the heel and front foot.
8. Hands now feature the familiar one index finger, three fingers and thumb, each one with their own ball joint so you can still separate them and position them whichever way you like.
9. The outter armour of this regular Zaku II now features "correct" lack of thrusters at the back, and a thruster-less sole of the feet. The same goes for the backpack. No more putting up with generic molds for the feet and backpack to model a regular grunt MS and the Char's version(which features more thrusters in the anime).

Overall, this release is certainly a huge improvement over the original or even the F2 release. On the back of the manual, a fully builtup image of the kit is shown. Some have argued that the proportions look off from the anime but frankly, the anime is way past 25 years old and if this kit is going to offer an updated look, I'm all for it.

My impression is that, the asking price of 3500 yen is definitely reasonable when you consider the huge leap in construction quality and articulation. I now eagerly await the Char's customised version.

Recommended!