i mentioned in my diary a while back that i'd had the chance to pick up plamax's sophia f shirring model kit from the kojima x bic camera near my house. i've liked this character for a while, ever since i saw her figma in an anime store a couple years ago. she's so energetic and personable looking, and of course i love the color palette. that shade of blue is my favorite. i don't find myself buying many figmas, or figures in general these days, so i was happy to see that she's available in model kit form instead of just the figma and scale figures. i feel like plamo are more enjoyable than figures, because they're kinda like a puzzle where you get a toy at the end as a prize.
my first impression pulling the runners out of the box, is that the face plates were painted super cutely, and sophia's energetic design was obvious even from just those plastic parts. i was also really excited to notice the "JORUNNA PARVA NOVA" text screen printed on the clear plastic parts-- because that means ms. sophia isn't just any bunny, she's a sea bunny, which rules actually. i looove sea slugs.
building the kit went pretty smoothly. while i am personally a diehard kotobukiya fangirl, i would say that max factory kits are generally just fine, on par with bandai at least. some of the tolerances were a bit tight when popping the clear styrene parts into the slightly more flexible ABS, like in her ears. clear model kit parts are almost always a pain in the ass, though. however i do think the effect is worth it, in most cases.
unfortunately, speaking of tight tolerances, one of the ankle joint pegs got stuck and sheared off when i was assembling her foot and leg.
i've had girpla parts break on me here and there, it's not totally uncommon with these delicate kits. usually the kotobukiya kits include some extra joint parts like this for exactly such an issue, but this kit only had enough joint parts for the two ankles.
i decided to try the spare parts ordering option. i've never been able to do this before since i didn't live in japan until this year; normally if i need replacement girlpla parts, i search for "junk" on mercari to buy people's leftover runners or bits. this time, all i had to do was hop onto the max factory/GSC site, enter my info, and then reply to their email with a photo of the filled out order card.
i got the confirmation from GSC that my info was correct, and the part was in stock. the payment for the part is done by cash on delivery, so i set aside the 1430 yen for the part, shipping, and the COD fee. then, all we had to do was wait....
and wait..........
...............and wait.
in actuality, it was only about one week from getting the confirmation email for submitting my request, to the part arriving at my door... and that includes an extra day because i missed the delivery because i was away from home, dicking around in yokohama (of course![]()
). they took four days from confirming my order to shipping, and the original estimated delivery was just one day after they shipped.
from there, all i had to do was clip out the parts and assemble her foot and leg. the tolerances on the hole in the foot were still really close, and i struggled a bit with inserting it without simply breaking the part again. i shaved less than a mm from the inside, and it popped into place perfectly.
now she can do all sorts of things; surfing, bunny hopping, or whatever else she wants. (or i guess she should be, slithering?? swimming? instead of hopping, since she's a sea slug haha.)
overall i had a lot of fun building this kit, and i'm glad i tried the parts ordering service. i've been a bit intimidated by the process, but it turned out smooth and convenient. (tbh "everything went better than expected :)" has been my experience with pretty much everything in japan, from immigration to govt offices to utilities.) idk how i'd score this kit on a numerical scale, or if i even wanna do that going forward. i would say it's most of the way as good as a kotobukiya kit, but falls just shy of those in terms of engineering and plastic quality.
i'm looking forward to the tiger armor version kit that's coming out later this year!
my first impression pulling the runners out of the box, is that the face plates were painted super cutely, and sophia's energetic design was obvious even from just those plastic parts. i was also really excited to notice the "JORUNNA PARVA NOVA" text screen printed on the clear plastic parts-- because that means ms. sophia isn't just any bunny, she's a sea bunny, which rules actually. i looove sea slugs.
building the kit went pretty smoothly. while i am personally a diehard kotobukiya fangirl, i would say that max factory kits are generally just fine, on par with bandai at least. some of the tolerances were a bit tight when popping the clear styrene parts into the slightly more flexible ABS, like in her ears. clear model kit parts are almost always a pain in the ass, though. however i do think the effect is worth it, in most cases.
unfortunately, speaking of tight tolerances, one of the ankle joint pegs got stuck and sheared off when i was assembling her foot and leg.
i've had girpla parts break on me here and there, it's not totally uncommon with these delicate kits. usually the kotobukiya kits include some extra joint parts like this for exactly such an issue, but this kit only had enough joint parts for the two ankles. i decided to try the spare parts ordering option. i've never been able to do this before since i didn't live in japan until this year; normally if i need replacement girlpla parts, i search for "junk" on mercari to buy people's leftover runners or bits. this time, all i had to do was hop onto the max factory/GSC site, enter my info, and then reply to their email with a photo of the filled out order card.
i got the confirmation from GSC that my info was correct, and the part was in stock. the payment for the part is done by cash on delivery, so i set aside the 1430 yen for the part, shipping, and the COD fee. then, all we had to do was wait....
and wait..........
...............and wait.
in actuality, it was only about one week from getting the confirmation email for submitting my request, to the part arriving at my door... and that includes an extra day because i missed the delivery because i was away from home, dicking around in yokohama (of course
from there, all i had to do was clip out the parts and assemble her foot and leg. the tolerances on the hole in the foot were still really close, and i struggled a bit with inserting it without simply breaking the part again. i shaved less than a mm from the inside, and it popped into place perfectly.
now she can do all sorts of things; surfing, bunny hopping, or whatever else she wants. (or i guess she should be, slithering?? swimming? instead of hopping, since she's a sea slug haha.)
overall i had a lot of fun building this kit, and i'm glad i tried the parts ordering service. i've been a bit intimidated by the process, but it turned out smooth and convenient. (tbh "everything went better than expected :)" has been my experience with pretty much everything in japan, from immigration to govt offices to utilities.) idk how i'd score this kit on a numerical scale, or if i even wanna do that going forward. i would say it's most of the way as good as a kotobukiya kit, but falls just shy of those in terms of engineering and plastic quality.
i'm looking forward to the tiger armor version kit that's coming out later this year!