Hasegawa 1/72 VF-OD 'Macross Zero', previewed by Scott Van Aken

Macross Zero is set in 2008 A.D., one year before the events of the original Macross series, depicting the final battles of the U.N. Wars between the U.N. Spacy and the Anti-UN forces, and is also set in the South Pacific, where a gigantic alien spaceship crash landed 9 years earlier. Amidst the violence, a U.N. Spacy F-14 KAI pilot named Shin Kudo is attacked by a strange enemy aircraft that can transform itself into a robot. Crash landing on Mayan Island he learns that this remote island and its peaceful native inhabitants hold a great secret linking them to the alien space ship and would become the focus of the war, whether they like it or not. Shin eventually returns to his carrier fleet and joins the Skull Squadron, who also operate brand new transforming fighters, the VF-0 Phoenix. He trains and engages Anti-UN forces operating from a converted ballistic missile submarine as both sides fight to locate and control alien artifacts, with the peaceful and agrarian Mayan caught in the middle of the war.

THE KIT

I have purchased and built kits from this series before and pretty well know what to expect. If you have built any of Hasegawa's newer modern jet fighter kits, then this one will seem quite familiar other than the overall shape.

The cockpit has two seats with a pair of pilots and uses decals for instruments. This fits into a separate nose section that is split horizontally. The nose gear well is built into the lower nose section. A separate windscreen and canopy are provided and the canopy can be posed open. Some clear sensors fit into the nose and I'd leave those off until after painting.

Next the rather complex exhaust is built up followed by the main fuselage halves onto which a central exhaust is attached. Next are the intakes followed by building the two main engines which when the vehicle switches to the robot mode, will be the legs. In airplane mode, these 'legs' will contain the main landing gear. The thrust vectors will be the 'feet'.

The last steps are fairly straight forward where all the previous subassemblies along with the wings and several fins are attached. The space canon is then plugged into a central section. I realize this sounds confusing, but it will all come together just fine.

Instructions use the usual Gunze paint references that are the norm with Hasegawa. There are two camouflage options. One is the box art plane in a blue over grey with the blue needing to be mixed. The other is a low visibility grey upper. Unlike most kits in this series, the decal sheet is very straightforward as there are not the usual large color decals one often sees. The fairly large sheet provides a number of options so you can get somewhat creative with yours.

If you have any interest in aircraft from this series or just want something a tad different, then you should consider this or one of the other Macross aircraft.

KIT #:	65718
PRICE:	$34.00
DECALS:	Several options
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	2020 tooling. 113 Parts.