[REVIEW] 1/100 Vintage Real type Zaku I Reissue Unboxing

I recently joined an an online FB activity my Mecha Swat called "Raise Your Flag" <>. He's sending out Zaku kits to various people across the globe and have them paint the kits in their country's colors. What a way to bring the community together.

I decided to join but instead of getting a kit from him, I got my own since I wanted to do one in 1/100 scale and also so that more people can join this event.

For my entry, I went with the recently reissued vintage 1/100 Real Type Zaku I. I wouldn't call this rare since this is a reissue of an older kit Bandai once produced. Beside the obvious difference in proportion. I expect the build process for this kit to be a bit different since the way they design these kits might be different with how they do it today.

I still haven't decided on a color scheme which will use only my country's colors(red, blue, white, yellow, event's requirement). So for now let's see what we have inside the box.













Looking at the manual, for a vintage design and engineering this kit looks a bit complicated. This isn't your regular HG style kits. Joints are designed quite differently.



A welcome surprise was the inclusion of water-slide decals out of the box. Quite plenty too. Why can't Bandai do this on a regular basis?







Parts come only in 3 runners, each with its different color.







Upon closer inspection of the parts, it becomes apparent that more effort will be needed for this kit. For starters, nubs are as big as they can be. Also parts are not designed to snap fit together. Pegs are only used to guide the alignment of parts and glue is required to join pieces together.



If I'm understanding this correctly, this kit was either designed or 1st released in 1982.

This project will be exciting since this is quite different from the kits I've previously built. And this will be a good way to improve on my basic building skills.