Q: How do I use this guide?
It is an overview of most of the model kit lines on the market and many of the one-off kits that exist, mixed in with our opinions of them, with some comparisons between each line. As such, please use other sources in your research aside from us if you want something more in-depth. We take no responsibility for lost money or poor experiences if you took us entirely at our word.
This is not a guide for how to build girlpla (or any model kit); there are a whole host of blogs and tutorials that can do that for you. It is not a guide meant for those who are experienced in the hobby; you will have by this point done your own research and will not need to refer to this. It is not an objective review or description of any model kit or line of model kits, though we endeavor to provide as much reliable and objective information as possible.
This site will also be regularly updated with new information as we find it or conduct further research into the hobby. As such, please treat this as a living document with any information in it subject to change when newer/better information is found.
Again, we stress this; this is not a 100% objective source, and we do have our biases and may make errors. Please cross-reference and employ good research practices.
Q: With that out of the way, what is girlpla?
Freedom.
But if you were looking for an actual answer, “girlpla” is the colloquial term used to refer to a specific kind of model kit that is designed to resemble an anime girl and we will occasionally refer to them as bishoujo model kits. They are also called mecha musume (mecha girls, or girls wearing mecha-inspired armor and carrying mecha-inspired weapons), largely because many of them are based around that specific aesthetic (such as Frame Arms Girl and Megami Device), though an increasing amount of lines are not explicitly based on this aesthetic, such as Sousai Shojo Teien and chitocerium.
These kits are often designed with the idea of modifying them either with pre-existing sets of smaller add-ons sold separately, additions or replacements of other parts from other kits (a practice called kitbashing), or through use of external tools such as paint, putty and even 3D-printed parts modeled by computer and added to the final build.
Q: Why would I build these things?
Several good reasons, actually, and ones that might intrigue you and even inspire you to pick up a kit of your own.
Firstly, the assembly process is, weird though it might seem, therapeutic. When days are hard and the mind needs to be emptied, losing your head in the puzzle of a kit, whether you’re treating it as a puzzle to be solved, or you have a specific outcome and appearance in mind is just as a good a way as any to empty the mind of nothing save the tools in your hands and the plastic before you.
Secondly, most girlpla have the advantage of not being based on a specific franchise, being largely original characters to that line, which leaves no pressure for those who want to get into modeling, but are not interested in the military technology side of the hobby. Conversely, if you’re looking for licensed characters from existing franchises, kits tend to be cheaper than their figure counterparts, and an increasing amount of franchises have started making their main characters available as model kits to build alongside traditional action figures. For the budget-conscious individual, a model kit of their favorite character might be worth the trade-off of set-up time.
Another reason the fanfic authors may relate to; we have a great many OCs in my head, but hardly the skill to draw them. With a model kit, some imagination and the right tools, however, we can create whatever OC we want without needing to learn how to draw.
This point neatly brings us to the final point; creativity. With the right tools and time, a girlpla can be easily modified to shape her into the perfect result. If you aren’t a fan of the male gaze, then a few alterations can save a kit for you such as paint, added parts or even clothes. Want a mecha girl but there’s not one that tickles your fancy? Buy another kit with the parts you need and get to customizing. The sky is your limit and this article will be full of images of the results of our work.
Q: Great. You’ve convinced me. Where do I get one?
Unfortunately, as most girlpla lines are not as popular in the West as they are in Japan, your best bet is to rely on online retailers such as AmiAmi and HobbyLink Japan, though if you’re fortunate, some physical stores will hold small stocks or be willing to special order them. The Useful Links section contains a list of stores that sell girlpla (and other anime and anime-adjacent merchandise) as a mix of both physical and online retailers.
Q: Uh, actually, you missed {line of girlpla}!
If I’ve missed one in this expanded version of the guide, please do not hesitate to ask. We will try to cover this topic as exhaustively as possible, covering recommendations and the general minutiae of girlpla as humanly possible.
However, I am no expert on either girlpla or assembling model kits. I have compiled a list of useful links at the end of this guide, in order to assist you in being able to further do your own research and get further into the topic. We will also occasionally cover, for the sake of completion, kits that we do not own; we will add a disclaimer reflecting this when this occurs.
Furthermore, as a rule of thumb, I will only do a write-up on a line that I have built more than one of. I will occasionally cover lines under this amount when the line’s architecture is sufficiently similar to something else (such as the MS General kits and PLAMATEA/Valkyrie Tune), or when there ARE only two kits in that line, but in general, we will not break this rule except for one-off kits.
Also, as a further preface, we may refer to kits that copy certain other kits without permission. While we cover them without judgment and may even praise the quality of these kits, be aware that this practice is controversial among some parts of the modeling community and therefore be wary of praising these lines of kits too highly.
Q: What if I want to contribute?
If you’d like to contribute a write-up or a correction to this guide, please send me an email at info@girlpla-guide.moe and I will get back to you as soon as possible and within a week at latest. I especially welcome contributions to kits that are obscure or expensive, and will not reject write-ups for counterfeit kits – while they are counterfeit, it still makes sense to me to include them if only to warn people from using them. We do request that you keep to the templates for kit lines or one-off kits as established in here.
However, I WILL reject contributions for the following:
- Hexa Gear: While Hexa Gear is a very good line, it is also beyond the remit of what this guide is willing to consider as girlpla, even if Kotobukiya does recommend its use for equipping its girlpla.
- Individual reviews of kits within pre-existing lines: If you wish to add your channel that reviews individual kits in here, I would be happy to accommodate you. However, we are only interested in general overviews of model kit lines and short reviews of one-off kits with no associated lines – reviewing all kits within a toyline is beyond the remit of this guide.
- Non-girlpla kits: There are significantly more resources and guides made specifically for non-girlpla model kits that are aimed at those audiences. This is not the venue for them. If the kits are within a gray area (such as Gene Interference or Starflower Lily), we may consider it acceptable.
- Garage kits: Please do not use this guide for garage kits. We have no intention of providing reviews or write ups on them in a formal sense, even if they are more established outfits such as MADHANDS, Muscuto or Genei post-2018. Those kits are very difficult to get my hands on, very expensive, and more importantly, not likely to be encountered by the average person looking to buy them from retailers. However, we may cover them in our weekly review posts.
- Non-articulated model kits (i.e. Hasegawa Egg Girls or Armor Girls): While these are strictly speaking girlpla, these aren’t really what we’re looking to talk about in here and not within this guide’s remit outside of where they are relevant historically.
- Non-model kit content (i.e. action figures, PVC figures, Assault Lily dolls, non-plamo blank bodies); while I do have collections of BJDs, MJDs and action figures, these are only of interest to this guide when they directly affect girlpla history.
- Guides relating to modifying kits: Useful, but not the focus of this guide. We will however accept links to those guides.
- Model kit accessory lines: As above. We will accept links to these, but we won’t be otherwise dealing with them.
Any contributions and corrections will be credited to their contributors unless requested to stay anonymous. I also reserve the right to reject a write-up or contribution for being low quality, inaccurate or for any other reason I see fit, and also reserve the right to edit any contributions or corrections as I see fit. I will endeavor to let you know of any reason I will turn down a contribution, however.
I will also take suggestions as kits to review, but as we are a one-man team doing this entirely out of pocket, if I feel the kit would be out of our budget to build, I will let you know as soon as possible.
Q: Can I ask you for advice on where to get a kit or how to build them?
Sure, shoot me a comment or send me an email at the address listed above.
Q: How do you conduct your research?
While the good folks at r/MegamiDevice have been invaluable in our search, we conduct our research with a combination of English-language sources such as websites and old articles, as well as machine-translated websites and old articles (cross-referencing the translations with reliable English sources where possible). Sites like zimmerit.moe have also been crucial to our research, especially looking back into girlpla history prior to the 00s.
However, we are limited in our capabilities (being as we are a single man running this site) and very keen on expanding our information bank, so we are always keen to take on information and corrections to our articles from people who are significantly more fluent in Japanese or Chinese than we are.
As such, please use other sources for your own research in combination with our site. We cannot 100% guarantee that everything we say here is objectively true and we are always attempting to improve the reliability of the information on this site. We have no interest in presenting ourselves as an objective source of anything except maybe our own opinion, and taking our writing as gospel is like biting into the Onion for news, but we also have no interest in spreading deliberate misinformation.
Q: Can I join your team?
We’re literally one guy doing this for free as a side-hustle and spitballing into the abyss. There is no team to join and we couldn’t pay you even if there was. You can, however, contribute if you’d like.
Q: Are you sponsored by any of the companies whose products you talk about?
Nope. I am entirely doing this out of pocket and on my own initiative. You can probably tell by the immense amounts of jokes I crack at various company’s expenses. I also have no plans to change this, either; I don’t think Kotobukiya, Bandai or GSC is ever going to be happy with someone being very unfiltered about their thoughts about their products, whether those thoughts are good or bad.
However, if it turns out they’re down for someone being that level of unfiltered about their products, they know where to find me.
Q: Do you have a Patreon or something to donate to?
Not at the moment. Maybe if this site gets big enough that people actually WANT to throw money at me to keep running it, sure. Otherwise, nah.
Q: Do you use any AI to generate content?
Absolutely fucking not.
If we ever do, we’ll add a disclaimer, but I do this for the love of the game, not to let some clanker take my fun away.
Q: Are we affiliated with {site} or {company} or {person}?
No. We are a singular hobbyist sharing our knowledge (and the knowledge of community elders) with the rest of the world. We are not, and have no plans to be, affiliated with any other website, company or otherwise and will maintain our independence.
Unless the money is very, very good. This is an expensive hobby, dont’cha know.
As an aside, should you see our information on any site that isn’t this one, the original subreddit where we uploaded the first public version of this guide or anywhere else; unless we made a post indicating we’ve collaborated with someone, that probably isn’t us, so avoid that place as much as possible.