Concept and Development
The original concept of the Zaku was simply a disposable underling, with its name derived from the sound of a huge man (or many soldiers) walking and the Japanese term 雑魚 (zako), meaning "inferior fish" (the term also signifying expendable grunts).
The Zaku later became better known as a common military machine, symbolizing the realism of the Mobile Suit Gundam series. While in previous manga and anime giant robots tended to be the tools of protagonists or villains (often in a monster of the week format), the Zaku was portrayed as nothing more than another weapon such as a tank or fighter plane that was assigned to pilots.
The Zaku is the first mobile suit to feature its parts (a damaged head) and is shown in 3 of the 4 box arts in the 1/35 U.C. Hard Graph line of plastic models made by Bandai, which heavily resembles real battle fields. This militaristic development did not start just recently, but actually started on the first release of Gundam series models in 1980, where military modellers at that time were amazed by the 1/144 scale Zaku model being so natural when placed in World War I and World War II 1/144 models, and modellers started to build them like AFVs.
The popularity of the first batch of the models spawned the Mobile Suit Variations where the mecha designer Kunio Okawara started designing variant mobile suits that could perform different tasks or adapt to different combat zones (for example a Zaku specialized for underwater operations).
The MS-06 Zaku II unit then became the unit with most variants (22 alone in the first MSV all having its own model compared to titular machine RX-78-2 Gundam's 3 variants). It could be said that the Zaku is the origin of MSV. The Zaku also had redesigns and variants created by other mecha designers, like the famous Katoki Hajime, who designed the MS-06F2 Zaku II Type F2 for Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory and redesigned the Zaku II Ground Type and Char's Commander type Zaku for the MG (Master Grade) number 97 and 98 Zaku Ver. 2.0, Yutaka Izubuchi, who is famous for his designs in Patlabor designed the MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai for Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket.
The design of the Zaku II influenced the later designs of the RMS-106 Hi-Zack in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam and AMX-011 Zaku III in Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ. The RMS-116H Hobby Hizack, not a military-use but a personal entertainment suit, which appeared in Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack is also a descendant of the Zaku. Its descendants continue to appear, even in Manga stories like the OMS-06RF RF Zaku in Mobile Suit Gundam F90.
Read more about this topic: MS-06 Zaku II
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