In my apparent quest to revisit every Zeta Gundam design, I now present the Nemo. In my defence, this was not a conscious choice, and seems to be a reflection of what Bandai ships to my part of the world.
The Nemo is a relatively obscure mobile suit, despite being only the second/third "good guy" grunt in the franchise. Technically. Kinda. Speaking in narrative terms, if not absolute terms. Depending on how you feel about the Rick Dias and such. Zeta was the first proper Gundam sequel, and the franchise tropes hadn't quite solidified yet. Functionally, it was an off-brand GM, built to outperform the contemporary Hizack and GM II. As such, the Nemo gets the basics right. Its the classical sword & board style of a Federation mobile suit; no stupid gimmicks, just solid design with newer tech. Its origins are possibly more interesting than the suit itself. It was made by Anaheim Electronics for the painfully named Anti Earth Union Group, AEUG, the protagonist faction of Zeta. Shady arms dealers amongst other things, Anaheim was a duplicitous conglomerate known for selling weapons to both sides in any given conflict. This was a habit that made the Universal Century tangibly worse, even if it was to be a net good in the Nemo's case. Said mobile suit is described as having various zeon-style design traits despite its appearance, a side-effect of Anaheim buying up expertise and arms companies after the One Year War ended. As well as other shady goings-on too messy to go into here. While performing well enough, and having a few spin-offs, the Nemo basically disappeared after Zeta. With the Titans gone, and AEUG absorbed back into the Federation, the Nemo was somewhat redundant. You don't need, really, a knock-off GM when you have the real thing. It effectively married back into the GM lineage, and wasn’t heard from again until Gundam Unicorn presented the act of prolonged fanwank that was the Torrington Base battle. Which prompted this kit.
My honest reaction when opening the box was a decidedly unfiltered "oh you mother-fucker". There is an utter indictment of a sticker sheet. Nothing I haven't seen before, or should be surprised by, but this is exactly the sort of thing that makes a gunpla unfun. The worst example are those shoulder vents which need five, I repeat, five (5) each. Either mould them in black, or just don't bother at that point. The leg thrusters need four each too. There is no red in this kit, that's all stickers. And why is there a yellow sticker for the head when we have a tiny sprue already in that colour? What budget cut or executive oversight mandated this? And its got a lot of polycaps too, should that be a deal-breaker.
So, the Barzam is looking pretty incredible right now. But does the Nemo do anything well? In fairness most things when not involving stickers. There's a frankly excessive 7 hands included with this kit, and the fundamentals are sound. The backpack thrusters are colour separated to an extent, and balljointed, for example. Stickers aside, its a decent kit for it's time, and compares well to more-modern grunts. It's got a fairly involved construction too, not a full inner frame, but there's more going on than it looks. The sad thing is, while the Nemo would have been a fantastic candidate for the Leo/30MM style of construction, its not gonna get that treatment as this kit is good enough, even with the stickers.
I gave this my standard weathering job, and used silver paint behind the visor. There's some interesting detail there. It turned out OK, but I think I’ll take a break from Zeta.
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