Welcome to the second review of Girlpla Guide Weekly! (Which we totally did not decide to call it just now, shut up.) This week, we’ll be talking about our first garage kit here, the GUST Anby Demara Movable Model garage kit! (Link to their Booth here.)
We want to use this weekly review series to discuss things we probably would normally not discuss in the normal scope of the rest of the website, such as garage kits, weird model kit tat and individual kits within toylines and we figured we’d start off strong with this one.
We may also use these reviews to discuss other things, such as site news. In this case, we’ll be confirming that sometime this week, there should be articles on:
- CangToys Samael
- Link Travelers
- Aqua Shooters
We would also like to take this time to confirm that we are still looking into improving mobile compatibility, though as this site is a bit of a side project right now, this may take a while.
Also, if by any chance you have NOT played Zenless Zone Zero, this review WILL spoil the ever-loving hell out of story developments in it, so go read up a story review of it on the off-chance your social media hasn’t somehow spoiled you on everything that happens in it.
Overview
In case you are not terminally online and have hobbies that do not revolve around playing gacha games, Zenless Zone Zero is one of the various gacha game offerings by Chinese mobile game giant miHoYo (also known as HoYoverse, under which name most of their games are distributed outside of China, or Cognosphere for those of you in the know). The developer started small in 2011 with FlyMe2theMoon for iOS, before starting their bread and butter, the Honkai series in 2012 with Zombiegal Kawaii and making a name for themselves with Honkai Impact 3rd in 2016. Since then, Shaoji and his fellow writers have slowly lost their minds gooning to Raiden Mei, Yae, Elysia and the rest of their creations, going from the absolute peaks of Final Lesson and Lament of the Fallen to trying to manifest Elysia tulpas in reality by giving us yet another expy of her in the form of Remielle.
Zenless Zone Zero (allegedly)1 is not connected to the Honkai multiverse, being a separate game launched in 2025. Focusing on the sibling team Phaethon formed of brother Wise and sister Belle, the game’s story revolves around Phaethon as a Proxy guiding clients taking excursions into the Hollow, an alternate dimension that encroaches upon the city of New Eridu and trying to find the truth behind the fall of old Eridu with the help of their allies and the mysterious AI Fairy, all while running a video rental store (which is the most based thing about this game because god do I miss Blockbuster).
Or, at least, that’s what the plot started as until it rapidly devolved into everyone trying to rail the MC again like nearly every other Hoyo game since, and including Genshin Impact. Very specifically Wise. (We’d say Belle, but really, the majority of the fanbase isn’t imagining Astra/Belle as God intended. I’ve seen the porn and wish I didn’t.)
Yes. I have opinions on Hoyo’s game design paradigm. We’ll rein it in. For now.
Anyway, Anby was the original poster girl for the game, featuring everywhere from the logo to the initial promotional material. In-game, Anby is part of the Cunning Hares, a ragtag bunch of misfits who take Hollow commissions, featuring an ex-biker robot, Temu Super Sentai fan and possible war criminal, an ex-con artist, a super soldier turned burger-powered blender and the one normal person who just likes money a lot. (God I love Nicole.)
Based on our limited understanding of Japanese, GUST has been around producing garage kits a while, with instruction manuals on their Note from 2021 and an X account dating from 2010, producing kits for the model kit-centered event AK-GARDEN and Volks’ Hobby Round events.
Of late, they’ve also started producing garage kits for sale for Zenless Zone Zero, producing kits of Anby, Nicole and Seed (both her and her robot). These kits are usually sold for one day a year during Booth’s Tonari no Mokei Festival (also shortened to TON or Tonamo); if you’ve missed them, they’re gone forever. This Anby was their contribution for Tonamo 9 alongside the Seed duo, released on June 14th 2026.
As an aside, this is actually the second version of Anby GUST has produced; the first Anby, released for Tonamo 8, came with a plastic printed skirt, while this Anby (dubbed Anby ver 1.5) has a cloth skirt with slightly updated legs to improve movement.
Construction and Engineering
As this is a garage kit and we’re generally not familiar with production methods used in the garage kit world, we won’t be too harsh or exacting on GUST’s work here. We will, however, be upfront, in case those of you reading intend to see what they’ve got up their sleeve for Tonamo 10.
First thing to note is that none of GUST’s kits have any joint parts; you WILL need to buy a separate set of joints to build them. GUST specifically recommends the Hobby Base Premium Parts Collection Joint Links for all of their builds. If you do not have one to hand and you’re fortunate enough to have bought a GUST garage kit, please make sure you have one.
Anyway, these garage kits are not for newbies or the inexperienced. While, mercifully GUST provides you with most of the parts in the color as they are in Anby’s design, you will need to cut down the joint parts to fit properly. You will also need to have glue (both cement and super glue) on hand to make the parts fit together; these are definitely not snap fits.
The material is also not the same as a snap-fit builder used to retail kits will be accustomed to, being as it is a 3D-printed resin set. However, actual difficulty aside from these isn’t too hard to sort out as GUST leaves reasonably detailed instructions on how to put together their kits found here.
Articulation is also as good as one can expect from these kits; we have our Anby roughly posed as she is in her default pose and assuming you haven’t absolutely screwed how your joints parts were cut, she’ll have a fairly good range of movement.
Aesthetics:
Not making us have to paint almost all of Anby to get her colors right is a blessing for which GUST should receive all Nobel Peace Prizes until the end of time. You will have to have some paint on hand to get some details right, such as the straps and black parts on Anby’s shoes and the dots on her jacket. We will, however, dock some points for the waterslides, which didn’t quite slide as expected.
However, when all the decals are in place, you have what is probably the closest we’re ever getting to a poseable Anby figure because miHoYo are cowards and won’t give us, say, a Firefly plamo or SHF Anby.
Ease of Acquisition:
Don’t bother; GUST sells these kits once a year for Tonamo, never restocks and will not sell them on any other day from Tonamo on their Booth. Anby’s asking price ¥12000 (roughly £45/$62), while reasonable for a hobbyist not making much cash back from their work, is enough to ensure that these purchases should not be taken lightly, and this is on the lower end compared to the rest of their collection.
Personal Verdict?
We honestly had quite a lot of fun building GUST’s Anby kit, and if by fortune we somehow find his Nicole kit second-hand we’d love to give that one a try and reunite the sisters. As it is, we don’t recommend GUST’s work to anyone who isn’t already a fairly experienced builder, but if you want to dip your toes into the deep end of the pool, you won’t regret catching their work once a year, especially if you’re into Zenless Zone Zero.
Here’s hoping next year they hit us with a Nicole 1.5 so we can get our hands on one.
Overall score: We won’t score this kit. It would be unfair of us to rate GUST’s work to the same standard as mass-produced products made for sale at retail; a hobbyist doing their work for fun should not be held to the standard of a company with the resources of factories, multiple teams and decades of experience. We will keep this standard for any garage kits that we review in future as well.
Up next:
We had originally intended on covering Koyomi Takanashi’s Winter variant, but instead, we’ll be reviewing another kit, Megami Device’s WISM Assault/Scout, followed by Grapple/Snipe the week after.
Stay tuned for next week’s Girlpla Guide Weekly!
- Allegedly because since they said this they then dropped a bunch of expies from the Honkai games and then, if leaks are to be believed, are probably putting Robin from Star Rail in the game. So much for that one. ↩︎
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