I got a bunch of model kits for the holidays, but this is the one I chose for myself with my spending money. That doesn’t mean it’s my absolute favorite among the bunch, but it’s certainly one of them.
This here is the SD F-Kunoichi Kai from the newly released web series Gundam Build Metaverse.
About Gundam Build Metaverse
And the premise is pretty interesting too. The main character is, weirdly enough, an American living in Hawaii, rather than being Japanese (though to be fair, his grandfather moved to the States from Japan). He joins his world’s version of GBN, where he runs into different characters from all the previous Build shows. In theory, it’s a great way of bringing a bunch of fan favorite characters together without having to worry about it all making sense.
Unfortunately, the execution of Metaverse left a lot to be desired. At only three episodes long, it simply didn’t have enough time to tell a satisfying story, or give all of the cameo characters enough screen time to make fans happy.
I also thought most of the new mobile suit designs were pretty crummy as well. They’re mainly variants of each character’s previous Gunpla. And they don’t feel like strict upgrades to those previous designs. They’re just … different.
Honestly, the only redeeming thing to come out of the show is this very model kit, the F-Kunoichi Kai.
A Few More Notes
In addition to celebrating ten years of Build shows, Gundam Build Metaverse was also a stealth advertisement for other Bandai ventures.This includes the real life Gundam Metaverse the company is trying to build. Unfortunately for Bandai, there are a few problems with that project ...
- Their real life Metaverse isn't quite ready yet (it was only available briefly, as a sneak preview of sorts, while the show was premiering)
- The real life Metaverse has pretty steep PC system requirements that will ensure that most fans can't use it regardless
- The Metaverse as it's been implemented in real life is nowhere near as cool as the one depicted in Gundam Build Metaverse, and certainly not as cool as GBN as it is depicted in the Build Divers shows
- The whole "metaverse" thing is something only corporations actually want (or at least they think they want it)
All of this is to say that Metaverse served as a pretty lousy ad for the Metaverse.
The show also served to stealthily promote a number of Bandai's product lines. Two of the model kits - the Lah Gundam and the Build Strike Exceed Galaxy - are explicitly meant to promote the Entry Grade line of Gunpla, while another kit - the Plutine Gundam -is meant to explicitly promote Ecopla.
Forcing these kits into these specific product lines appears to have informed their design, and not necessarily for the better. As impressive as the Entry Grade line is for its price point, it still limits the complexity of any given kit. And while I don't think the Plutine was necessarily limited by being an Ecopla, it does inform it's rather boring color scheme (since Ecopla are deliberately made out of a limited selection of mostly dark colors).
Ironically, by forcing these kits into these boxes in order to promote product lines, Bandai ended up limiting their potential, thus making them rather poor examples of each product line. I know we Gundam fans jokingly refer to shows and movies as being glorified commercials, but there's a limit to how much that should be true, and Metaverse flew right past that limit.
About the Gunpla
The F-Kunoichi Kai is the latest and greatest mobile suit piloted by Ayame, who was originally one of the protagonists of Gundam Build Divers.
Like Gundam Build Metaverse, Build Divers was another garbage fire of a production, but Ayame herself was one of the few bright spots. In my opinion, she’s the only character in Divers who gets anything resembling a character arc, which makes her the only character one can become invested in.
But while Ayame was cool, I never did like her Gunpla, the Zeromaru:
I like the idea of it - a ninja themed SD Gundam that can combine with a robot bird to grow to 1⁄144 scale size:
But I have some issues with the execution:
- To my eyes, it looks less like a ninja and more like a samurai
- It’s based on the Unicorn Gundam, and quite frankly I’m sick and tired of how many kits (and custom kits) we get based on mobile suits from Unicorn and Gundam 00.
In Gundam Build Metaverse, the tables are turned so to speak. Ayame doesn’t get to say much due to her limited screen time, but she now sports a much cooler Gunpla:
There are two reasons why I love this thing:
- It looks like a Kunoichi wearing purple and pink, meaning it’s a Gunpla-ified version of its owner. That’s such a simple idea, but I also think it’s an extremely cool idea, one that we don’t often see.
- It’s based on the Gundam F91, one of my absolute favorite mobile suits.
- Side note - unlike some customs, you can really see the F91 in this design. It’s in the feet, the legs, the chest, and even the shield emitter on the left wrist.
Compared to the Zeromaru, it’s a much more ninja-y design, based on a much cooler mobile suit. That’s a win-win in my eye.
Plus, it’s just so CUTE!! I mean look at it!
Weapons and Stuff
Most of this Gunpla’s weapons and abilities are ninja themed variations of the original F91’s own techniques. For example, the F91’s back mounted VSBRs are now VSBR Kunai. They can still fire shots, but they can also turn into either short or long blades for close combat.
The F91’s wrist mounted shield emitter now emits a beam shuriken.
It also has a short sword mounted (Which doesn’t have any analogue. It’s just a classic ninja weapon).
The F-Kunoichi Kai has a technique based on the F91’s Hyper Mode1. It is called Shinobi mode, where it emits the same little wings out of its shoulders; however, instead of the mask moving away to reveal a full face like on the F91, it instead gains yet another mask:
Finally, it has a super secret Ninja art called the “Scramble Technique”. This is a play on the F91’s ability to peel off tiny layers of armor to create “afterimages with mass”. But these are no ordinary afterimages. Each one has the bottom half of the F-Kunoichi Kai, but their top halves resemble the classic heroes of SD Gundam Scramble - Musha Gundam, Knight Gundam, and Command Gundam.
Once they appear, these images can fight independently, turning any fight into a potential 4-on-1 affair.
A Punny Name
Japanese culture has a penchant for making puns that revolve around the fact that certain words sound the same in certain contexts. Not only is this the genesis for this Gunpla's name, but in fact may be the reason for its existence at all.If you think about it, the clues are right there in front of us. That is to say, why would a Gunpla based on the F91 be named the F-Kunoichi? It has to do with the fact that in Japanese, the phrase "nine and one" is pronounced something like "Kyu no Ichi", which sounds an awful lot like Kunoichi. The word is a drop-in replacement for "91".
According to the Gundam Wiki, this pun led to one of the mecha designers from Gundam Build Divers drawing an unofficial sketch of the F-Kunoichi back in 2018, with the noncanonical explanation that this was the Gunpla that Ayame used back when she was in middle school, before building the Zeromaru:
However, the joke was considered too good to be left unofficial, so it was make into a real Gunpla (with the middle school origin story becoming canonical).
Appearances in Media
The F-Kunoichi Kai only appears in the first episode of Gundam Build Metaverse2, participating in a friendly 2v2 battle with the show’s protagonist and a few of Ayame’s pals from Gundam Build Divers. It’s not much, but at least it looks cool for a little while.
About the Model Kit
There is so much to talk about regarding this model.
Note 1: As a Cross Silhouette SD kit, the F-Kunoichi Kai can use the special Cross Silhouette inner frame, which improves both the size and the articulation:
However, unlike most Cross Silhouette models, this one comes with the frame, rather than forcing you to go buy it separately. Thank goodness for that.
Note 2: You can apparently combine this kit with the real life Musha/Knight/Command Gundam models to recreate the Scramble Technique.
Note 3: Like other Cross Silhouette models, this comes with multiple swappable decals for the eyes, including this adorable set of sparkly eyes:
This is just another example of the Gunpla imitating its owner, as Ayame makes the exact same face in Build Divers Re:Rise Battlelogue while fangirling out about her favorite Gundam boy:
Note 4: As you might expect from a modern SD kit, this one requires a lot of color correction, even if you use all the included decals (of which there are many!). In particular, there is a ton of gold trim for which there are simply no decals.
A(nother) Girly Gundam
This is the year in which I've built quite a lot of female coded Gundams. Between the Engage Zero, the Ilfrith, and the Woundwart, I've assembled plenty of kits with some combination of manicured nails, wide hips, and hourglass figures. But I think the F-Kunoichi Kai might beat them all:- It has a ponytail
- It has long eyelashes coming off its eyes, which is Cartoon 101 for quickly/lazily depicting a female character
The F-Kunoichi Kai has the same feature, except its mecha designer took it a step further. The chest juts out because it has a pair of Gundam boobs. I didn't notice them myself until I saw them mentioned in a Youtube comment, but they're there if you look close enough:
Regardless of whether or not that detail needs to be there, their presence means that this is by far the most feminine Gundam I've ever seen.
About the Build
I used my spending money to buy a new marker to help with the color correction …
… however, it wasn’t until I got home that I realized that it was White Gold instead of regular gold. And after doing some tests on the kit’s purple runners, I discovered that my existing gold Gundam Marker looked much better. Hopefully I won’t use it all up on this build, as it would be nice to have a standard gold marker for use on future kits. As for this white gold marker, I suppose I’ll find a use for it _some_where. At least I didn’t spend my own money on it.
I also bought some Tamiya masking tape:
This is the “good stuff” that people use to mask up their models instead of the regular blue painter’s tape I’ve been using. Hopefully it will come in handy when it comes to doing the color correction.
One last note. As you can tell in the illustrations, the Kunoichi has some grey body parts that look like the sort of chain mail undersuit that ninjas are often depicted wearing. I plan on panel lining and gloss coating these parts.
Other Thoughts
I made this meme to use in an earlier draft of this post, but after a few edits it didn’t really fit anymore. But I put work into it, dammit, so I’m dropping it here so it doesn’t go to waste.
