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There are plenty of model kits available from different manufacturers that let people build up different heroines. You could get a Bandai Sword Art Online Figure-Rise Asuna or a Gundam Build Divers heroine. If you go to Kotobukiya, you can get a character from the Frame Arms Girl or Megami Device Line to build. Frame Music Girl Hatsune Miku is one of the earlier Frame Arms Girl kits, though she’s still rather easy to find. Unfortunately, due to the age of the kit and the advances the company has made since, it ends up being a fun build that results in a rather brittle figure.
I picked up Frame Music Girl Miku after putting together two Megami Device figures. (Asra Ninja and Bullet Knights Lancer, for those who might be curious.) I had a lot of fun with those, loved that these were kits that didn’t have to be painted if you didn’t want to, liked how they basically only needed nippers, a file, and teasers for the water-based decals, and appreciated that they didn’t need glue of any kind. While the Frame Arms Girl line tends to be less expensive than the Megami Device one and involves fewer bits and pieces for looks, I wanted to go with this to compare.
In general, the build wasn’t all that dissimilar. This is another kit where theoretically, you could and should be able to snap everything together. (However, due to the sizes of many of her bits and pieces for her speakers, microphone, ahoge, and cowlick, I would recommend having some glue on hand.) There are a few decals, namely for the keyboards and visualizer options on her sleeves. A lot of the pieces were smaller than parts involved in the Megami Device kits I’d encountered, so tweezers are a must. She comes with three different face plates, which you can swap after the build is complete, though I’d exercise extreme caution when doing so as the microphone attached to her “headset” is incredibly small and will pop off if you don’t glue it in place.
But while all these small parts are nice and all, I quickly discovered some issues with this particular kit’s design. As with many of these models where you’re building a Figma-like figure, you’re starting with different parts and building areas up. So Miku’s head was first then her chest and shoulders. After that, her torso, hips, and skirt. From there, her arms, legs, and the speakers that attached to her skirt. But the problem is, there were issues with joints and connections throughout the process. I was excited to initially see these points of articulation, but once the Frame Music Girl Miku was actually finished, there were one of two prevalent issues.
One is that certain joints didn’t seem to hold. In particular, the ball joint connecting her upper chest would detach from her torso during most attempts at posing. I was afraid to try and pop it in too tightly, for a reason I’ll get to in a moment, but at the same time this is not the sort of kit where you could go and apply glue recklessly. The skirt is also a problem, as each ruffle is its own piece and can 100% drop off if you touch it too much while putting her into sitting positions. Getting overzealous means you’ll lose proper posing possibilities.
But then, this early Frame Arms Girl kit had an issue I’d never had with any Kotobukiya kit prior to this one. The joints were actually too stiff. So much so that when I first began posing her for pictures during the documentation process, one of her pigtails just… popped off. (You can see it in the picture above, which also shows how Miku’s shirt collar has a habit of coming undone. Which, as you can imagine, I was hesitant to glue due to it being near so many hinges.) To Kotobukiya’s credit, the company was immediately responsive and sent me a whole replacement runner after I got in touch about the issue. But I’ve since been hyper sensitive any time a joint shows the smallest amount of resistance in a way I haven’t with the Megami Device kits I’ve built.
Which is a shame, because this kit does result in a really gorgeous, highly detailed figure. It is one of the ones that falls into the 201-400 part ranges, so it is does offer a bit to keep track of. I really liked how some of her accents on her uniform were actual additional parts, rather than decals. The skirt also has a fun flair to it. While whoever builds it would definitely need a kit with nippers, files, and tweezers to put it together properly, you don’t have to do any painting and the directions are easy to follow. It’s a fun activity for an afternoon or two. Just the finished product definitely feels like an older kit. After I built Frame Music Girl Hatsune Miku, I did my best to get her into one position I was happy with, then left her like it because I was too afraid to occasionally change things up like I do with the other models I’ve built.
Frame Music Girl Hatsune Miku is one of Kotobukiya’s $59.99 kits and she has been available since 2018. Should you consider getting this, or really any of this company’s kits, I recommend having a pair of nippers for cutting parts from the runners, a file to get rid of any rough edges after removing a piece, at least one pair of tweezers, and perhaps some glue.
