Welcome to the twelfth review of Girlpla Guide Weekly!
Let’s get right into talking about Kuon Yakushiji’s Maria Kagaribi variant!
Overview
As per last week, in-universe, Kuon portrays Maria Kagaribi, the protagonist of Megalomaria, which in Sousai Shojo Teien’s lore, is a TV show, alongside Sana Akabishi (who may or may not have connections with SANAT, the evil AI antagonist of Hexa Gear). In a first for SST, rather than the default variant (Kuon’s Touou High outfit) being released first, Kuon’s Maria Kagaribi variant was released first in July 2025 with Kuon herself releasing in September that year.
Construction and Engineering
Unlike Touou High Kuon, Kuon’s Maria variant sports fairly different engineering from the rest of the line, with heavily articulated hair, a unique design to accommodate her stockings and high boots combo that are incompatible with the rest of the line, and an articulated skirt. While these are great for action poses – fitting for the variant of the kit that intends to portray the protagonist of a tokusatsu – these are terrible for anything else. We would also like to note the lack of a non-articulated skirt option, which would’ve improved customisation somewhat; alternatively, a soft material skirt akin to that of the Maria Dress Code variant would have been better than the fixed pose of the articulated skirt.
From a quality or difficulty standpoint, there isn’t much to comment on; aside from being a bit trickier to build even if you are already familiar with Sousai Shojo Teien, Maria Kagaribi is still a Kotobukiya kit with all the quality that implies, and a Sousai Shojo Teien kit with all the ease of construction that implies.
Aesthetics
As Koyomi’s strongest soldier, we honestly that Kuon’s Maria variant is one of the best-looking kits in the entire line, with her very striking black/red/white palette looking incredibly cool. Her Blizzard Actress counterpart also looks very striking, trading the black and red for white and blue. Truthfully, if it wasn’t for the articulated skirt being only poseable one way, this would be easily the best looking kit in the whole line, but the action poses you can do with this kit are a sight to behold.
Ease of Acquisition:
Retailing for ¥8250 (£39/$53) like her Touou High variant, Kuon’s Maria Kagaribi kit is available wherever Kotobukiya flogs its wares, with her Dreaming Style version locked to Kotobukiya’s own stores or the secondhand market.
Personal Verdict?
Honestly, she’s one of the best model kits in the entire line; our only real issue with the kit was, again, the skirt. If there had been a non-articulated skirt option or the skirt was similar to that of the Dress Code version, this would almost be a perfect kit. Regardless, if you’re really into Sousai Shoujo Teien, this is one of the few kits we would say comes close to a must-have.
Overall score: 9/10; one of the best kits in the entire line.
Up next:
Next week will be our final week looking at Kuon and all her variants; this time, we’ll be looking at the Dress Code variant, hopping away from Sousai Shoujo Teien to check out Megalomaria!
Tune in next week for the next Girlpla Guide Weekly!
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