DISCLAIMER: There are known bootlegs of Frame Arms Girl that made the rounds a few years ago and may still be lurking (such as Pretty Armor). Be wary.
Overview
Frame Arms Girl is a model kit line focused heavily on creating mecha musume counterparts to Kotobukiya’s Frame Arms mecha models. An anime adaptation was released of the line in 2017 featuring the girls, which itself received a collaboration with Sousai Shoujo Teien featuring Ao and Bukiko as model kits in 2022 and 2023.
In addition to the primary line (which is VERY expansive, with 70+ kits before counting the various variants and recolors), there are more than a few sub-lines. MegaHouse’s Desktop Army has chibi-sized versions of the kits, while Kotobukiya creates their own Hand-Size and Grand-Size kits depicting smaller (1:24) and larger scale (1:7) versions of the girls respectively.
There are also crossover kits with both mecha properties such as GaoGaiGar and Brave Exkaiser, as well as non-mecha properties, with kits of Hatsune Miku, Wonder Woman and the Dark Magician Girl from Yu-Gi-Oh!.
As a final aside, Frame Arms Girl was one of the toylines that launched the modern-day girlpla scene alongside Megami Device; Gourai was the culmination of Kotobukiya’s in-house model kit development that can be traced through kits like KOS-MOS Ver.4, Valsione and RACaseal, and was greenlit due to Kotobukiya’s Hidehiko Nouchi feeling that Kotobukiya’s toymaking techniques had matured in the wake of developing the KOS-MOS kit.
Construction and Engineering:
The kits are also not especially difficult to build for those with some experience with modeling, with two specific kits (Innocentia and Materia) devoted towards making custom Frame Arms Girls, making the kits a potential base for customization – memes of whole hordes of Innocentias and Materias being acquired abound, and the average girlpla modeler is liable to have at least one of the two in their collection.
However, earlier kits of the line (i.e. Gourai, Stylet, Magatsuki) show their age with questionable design and quality. Some of these earlier kits have newer variants built with better engineering – partially because more or less every kit is an experiment developing better work – and benefitting from better quality plastic, Gourai and Magatsuki in particular. Later kits also benefit from modern techniques and quality, leaving no gap between it and Kotobukiya’s other offerings.
Overall, the line also isn’t particularly spectacular from an engineering standpoint aside from a few standouts – this line’s real main appeal is the aesthetics.
Aesthetics:
Frame Arms Girl leans heavily on the mecha origins of Frame Arms. As such, people who are fans of mecha musume would find this line very attractive. The most popular kits like Gourai, Stylet and Baselard constantly receive reprints, making them very easy to get ahold of either new or second-hand to add to your collection. Moreover, with more than 70 base kits and variants, there will be at least one Frame Arms Girl to your taste.
Design-wise, the kits lean on the lewder side, being scantily clad beneath their armor, which can be unappealing to those who desire more modest or practically armored kits, though the line is diverse enough to have a few kits that might have broader appeal to those less attracted to such things, such as Wilber Nine or Baselard.
Furthermore, as a base for customization, Materia and Innocentia now have multiple blank bodies on the market to compete with, with 30 Minutes Sisters kits beating them out for cost and Sousai Shoujo Teien being more generally useful due to being truly blank bodies. However, being Koto kits, they’re still a solid option if one does not wish to employ Sisters kits, and certainly they beat out PLAMATEA’s Ichika for quality.
Ease of Acquisition:
Like nearly every other non-Bandai kit, these kits suffer from pricing issues when looking for them outside Japan – getting them from a Japanese retailer is always going to be a better idea.
However, given the huge amount of kits in the toyline, giving a general price estimate is nigh-impossible; older kits like Gourai or simple kits like Innocentia and Materia will generally retail for ¥ 2000 thereabouts (£10/$12), whereas Grande Scales and Kagutsuchi-Kou can easily exceed ¥ 10,000 (£46/$62)
We recommend AmiAmi for hunting these down. However, you will almost never run out of stock – the line’s enduring popularity ensures that short of the end of the world, you will never truly run out of Gourais, Baselards or Durgas to put on the shelf.
Personal Verdict?
While this line is a mainstay of girlpla collections, we personally were not a fan of the line as a whole as we aren’t a huge fan of the specific way in which Frame Arms Girl interprets mecha musume.
However, do not take this as a judgment on quality; the kits are generally decent at worst and great at best, and most of the community will swear by this line. Kotobukiya almost never misses with a model kit, and Frame Arms Girl is no different. This line would especially appeal to lovers of mecha musume or the average girlpla fan. And, of course, the historical value of the first edition of Gourai as arguably the start of the modern girlpla boom shouldn’t be understated.
Personal Recommendations
Among the kits we did like, we would recommend both Durga and Baselard alongside their variants; the former strikes a balance between sex appeal, coolness and decent engineering, while Baselard has a cute design that resulted in us getting her Hand Scale variant and both of her Megami Device versions (Animation and Magical Baselard).
Official Site: https://www.kotobukiya.co.jp/en/title/framearmsgirl/
https://fagirl.com/ (For information on the anime, in Japanese)
Leave a Reply