Overview
Lord in Heaven, anything but these kits.
Gundam Build Fighters is a 2013 spinoff of the ridiculously successful Gundam franchise, centered around Sei Iori, a young Gunpla builder who wants to become a Gunpla Fighter succeeding in the setting’s Gunpla Battle tournaments. The series was a smash hit and was followed in 2014 by the sequel anime Build Fighters Try, Build Divers in 2018 and Divers Re;Rise in 2020, which slowly pushed the setting further and further into the future.
Naturally, Bandai decided to make model kits of the Gunpla featured in the series. Unfortunately for us, we will be only covering the girlpla in this line; the various Fumina, Gyanko and Chinagguys and, of course, Loheng goddamn Rinko.
For a small historical aside, these kits do represent Bandai’s first foray into girlpla after abandoning it after the flop of the Armored Girls offering from their B-Club brand in the 80s, This would not be their first mecha musume toys, however; Mika Akitaka, legendary for his MS Girl designs since the 80s, would get his wish of MS Girl toys with Armor Girls Project in 2012. For the sake of categorisation, we will also call these MS Girls; their official name, however, would be Gunpla’Cos Heroines.
This, is, however, a terrible name.
These kits are roughly contemporary with Kotobukiya’s Frame Arms Girl, with Super Fumina, the first of the lot, releasing in November of 2015 (Gourai having released in May). They even had none other than Fumikane Shimada of Busou Shinki and Megami Device fame working on mechanical design. For all the good that did them. Tanaka Touji was responsible for the physical side; Touji, at least prior to the 20s, was largely known for his PVC figures, having designed figures for all sorts of franchises ranging from Lyrical Nanoha, Arknights, Sword Art Online and, of course, Gundam.
Fortunately for fans of the characters, Fumina from Try, alongside most of the main female characters from Divers, would get Figure-rise Standards that were significantly better in every possible way. (Sorry, China, Gyanko and Rinko fans.) Bandai’s path to proper girlpla practice was not as straightforward as Kotobukiya’s; their Figure-rise Standards would remain a solid second place to Kotobukiya’s offerings in the late 2010s, Girl Gun Lady would remain an interesting, but failed experiment, but by their next collaboration with Shimada, Bandai (and Touji) would have finally gotten their stuff together and create 30 Minutes Sisters, a true competitor to Kotobukiya’s throne.
Construction and Engineering
As far as most of these kits go, they are very solid mecha kits; Bandai does have a fairly good track record with mecha parts, and as far as the mecha portions of these kits are concerned, they did an excellent job on those by the standards of mid-2010s technology.
Sadly, that is where the fun stops.
As girlpla, these kits are absolutely terrible, even for 2012. While these aren’t the absolute WORST kits ever – largely because Bandai can put together a pretty solid mecha kit – no tampo-printing in lieu of absolutely insane practices (such as color-separated eyes, a practice that would only really bear fruit in the late 20s once being able to articulate eyes became possible, and transparent plastic lenses) make these things absolutely horrific.
Aesthetics
Even in the mid-2010s, where the only other game in town was Kotobukiya or Bandai’s Figure-Rise Standard kits, these things were STILL absolutely horrific in appearance. Cheap-looking with faces only a mother could love, Bandai had a LOT to learn before they could make real girlpla that didn’t live squarely in the uncanny valley.
We do have to give it to them that the mecha portions of these mecha musume are solid and you can definitely see what they were going for, enough that experienced modelers have managed to redeem some of these kits.
Ease of Acquisition:
These are their primary redeeming factors. As HG kits, these kits are fairly cheap, originally retailing at somewhere around the ¥2000 (£9/$12) mark. Secondhand supply of these things is plentiful and can range from roughly that price point to almost three or four times as much for the limited editions.
Personal Verdict?
While these have significant historical value as Bandai’s first foray into girlpla kits in the modern sense, and comparing these relatively primitive designs based out of their mecha experience to their decent-to-great modern Sisters-derived designs, MS Girl kits are pretty average at best. You can definitely make them look good, but just grab a modern HG and a Sister if you need it that badly, as some modelers have done.
Personal Recommendations:
Gyanko, the least bad of a bad bunch.
Official Site: https://bandai-hobby.net/site/gundambuildfighters/ (in Japanese)