30 Minutes Sisters

Construction and Engineering

For beginners, look no further. 30MS is your go-to.

Firstly, the low skill floor needed to assemble a Sister or the average Fantasy kit makes it very easy for a beginner to assemble the kits and whet their appetite; the time and skill required to assemble a kit is fairly minimal, often only requiring a pair of nippers and a steel file, optionally including a hobby knife. 

The complex engineering tricks used by other manufacturers is absent in the Sisters line, making assembly very straightforward even without a guide. Moreover, the simple structure does not sacrifice the kits’ articulation, with many 30MS kits being as articulate as their Gunpla cousins or even other girlpla lines owing to using ball joints.

More experienced modelers or those accustomed to customization will however find these kits rather simplistic and lacking in complex tricks that make other kits a joy to assemble.

The kits use cheaper manufacturing methods and builds that allow Bandai to manufacture these kits en masse at the cost of quality; in particular, people interested in Rishetta should be aware of a manufacturing defect in early kits that cause her head to be too tight for the neck joint, causing a whole host of broken neck joints unless properly filed and sanded down. It should also be noted that early kits were also significantly more fragile than later reprints; as such, be wary of kits of unknown printing date or of known printing date corresponding with the initial release dates of Rishetta, Tiasha and Luluce to be safe.

Aesthetics:

Look no further than 30 Minutes Sisters for all your customization needs. The average Sister is designed to be easily modified, coming with various ports or connectors to add armor pieces to, not to mention being able to fit any limbs that use the industry standard 3mm peg, or accessories that fit the Sister’s hands.  Custom kitbashes of Sisters/Missions, Sisters/Fantasy or even Sisters and High Grade or Figure-rise Standard kits are very common on the Internet, and even combinations with other lines like Megami Device and other 1:12 kits are not unheard of.

In particular, Acerby and Spinatia from the Missions line are favorites; Acerby in particular shares a designer with the early Sisters, Fumikane Shimada (also known in the girlpla sphere for his work on Busou Shinki, Frame Arms Girl and Megami Device, and known to the wider world as the character designer for Girls und Panzer, Strike Witches and Kantai Collection).

As such, it is incredibly easy to modify a Sister whose appearance does not appeal to you, or even create a custom Sister all your own. This does not even account for aftermarket and third-party parts, using parts from lines with similar scales such as Megami Device, or even retrofitting non-model kit accessories such as ball-jointed doll clothing for use with the Sisters.

However, this ease of customization comes at the cost of complexity. Many of the early kits (kits released between the original wave of Rishetta/Tiasha/Luluce to llshana) are considered relatively plain and simple by the modeling community, and are often heavily modded to compensate for their simplicity. Later kits (such as Yufia, Shuremi/Sourei and Marical), as well as the Lily, Dahlia and Freesia re-releases of Luluce, Tiasha and Rishetta, avert this simplicity and have fairly detailed designs while also being still as customizable as earlier kits.

Furthermore, 30MS are among the only model kit lines – certainly one of the only major lines – to not use Machineca. This means that customizing this line with non-Bandai parts is going to be difficult, as most aftermarket and third party parts are built with the assumption of using Machineca or other standards used by Kotobukiya, not Bandai, though with the wealth of parts provided by Bandai and with compatibility in architecture with both itself, Figure-rise Standard and Bandai’s High Grade kits, Sisters does not lack for customization options.

The aesthetics of the line are fairly middling; while we have a soft spot for the Sisters, they are generally considered significantly more boring-looking than most of their competitors without significant modifications. However, the more modest designs of most of the Sisters make them more appealing to both us writing here and to those more avoidant of the hornier aesthetics common to mecha musume kits.

Ease of Acquisition

Sisters kits are very cheap and easy to get your hands on in comparison to other girlpla kits; the basic Sisters (any Sister that has a 00 in its name) will be significantly cheaper than, say Megami Device or Sousai Shoujo Teien kits of similar complexity, while Option Part packs will be even cheaper than that.

Unfortunately, some of the kits are locked behind P-Bandai; these kits tend to possess even more parts than their upgraded variants but are nearly impossible to get outside of Japan or countries with dedicated local P-Bandai partners.

Be wary of the effect customizing your kits will have on your wallet; Option Parts and other Option Kits will often bump up the value of a kit closer to its competitors. Furthermore, upgraded and Premium Bandai variants of the Sisters will often cost about as much as a normal kit from a different line, but possess significantly more complexity and parts than their default variants.

As a general rule of thumb, earlier Sisters will cost something like ¥ 2000  (about £10 or $13) while more complex or collaboration Sisters will cost towards the ¥4000 mark (£20/$25).

Personal Verdict?

Overall, if you’re looking to get into the girlpla side of modeling or you haven’t even touched a model kit before, there is no better line to start with than 30 Minutes Sisters. The price point, customizability and low skill ceiling all add up to make these kits ideal for both beginners and experienced modelers interested in custom models.Their cute aesthetic also lets them be more generally appealing to the public than more hardcore mecha musume lines.

However, what holds this line back is its relative simplicity being unappealing to the experienced modeler, lack of compatibility with non-Bandai parts, and being generally less sophisticated than non-Bandai girlpla, both using Machineca and otherwise. More advanced modelers will generally prefer Megami Device and the other Kotobukiya offerings.

Personal Recommendations:

We recommend the following Sisters:

• Tiasha and her variants (Powerari-Palyton and Far-Farina). Very easy to get with a very simple, yet cute design, Tiasha has been our favorite for building custom Sisters off of using parts from other Sisters.
  
• Yufia; one of the most detailed kits from the line, her character design courtesy of BUNBUN (Sword Art Online, Yuki Yuna is a Hero) and knight-themed aesthetic (being cross-compatible with the Fantasy subline and even having a Magus variant released with Fantasy parts) made her a favorite of ours.
  
• Sourei and Shuremi, the oni twins; with cute and soft designs courtesy of Anmi (Arknights, Fate/Grand Order, Girls Frontline) and a distinctly traditional Japanese aesthetic not found elsewhere in the line, these two stood out as favorites to us for aesthetics alone.
  
• Neverlia; the most adult-looking of the line, Neverlia’s understated yet elegant design stood out to us as proof positive that you can make a girlpla simple in appearance, yet still striking and as cool as her more complex and visually louder counterparts.
  
• Rydira; her techwear aesthetic (reminiscent of Arknights and other similar works), combined with her free helmet and skateboard gives her a unique silhouette and appearance among her fellow Sisters and arguably across lines as very few other kits possess similar aesthetics.