Gunpla Build for Kids - Hello Kitty x Gundam Zakus

Your 3 year old daughter has a burgeoning interest in giant robots. She enjoys trying to play with your model kits. One day she tells you “I want a pink one”.

She has a twin sister who loves giant robots even more. She really likes trying to play with your “Gingums”, as she likes to call them. There’s no way she’ll let you get away with giving her sister a pink Gingum without getting her something too.

Also, they both like kitty cats. What do you do?

In my case, I broke open the wallet and dropped … well, a decent chunk of change on these:

About Hello Kitty Zakus

Back in 2019, Bandai and Sanrio began the “Hello Kitty x Gundam” collaboration to celebrate the franchise’s 45th and 40th anniversaries respectively. The collab has seen all sorts of merchandise, including a model kit of Hello Kitty dressed up as Gundam:

The two kits I got for the kids are the same thing, but for Zakus.

Before getting them, I sometimes wondered exactly what came in the box. The promo photos don’t do a great job of explaining, and as it turns out, it isn’t just Hello Kitty dressed up as a mobile suit.

First, you get a Zaku. It is actually just a standard Cross Silhouette SD model, just like the SD Gundam Unicorn I got back at the start of the year.

I suppose, though, that calling it just a standard SD Gundam is selling it short. There is an impressive amount of detail on this thing:

The head in particular is excellent. The monoeye is a combination of a foil sticker and a clear red piece, and together they really shine. What’s more, they even managed to add in detail depicting the mechanical track that the monoeye moves on:

And yes, they didn’t forget the little switch that lets you move the monoeye around:

Of course, there are also lots of panel lines to fill in should you choose to do so.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that this thing is the same as a full size Zaku, but I appreciate that it tries so hard to capture as much detail as it can.

The Zaku also comes with a crazy amount of accessories. You get all the standard Zaku weapons, in addition to leg mounted missile launchers, and each piece of gear is lovingly detailed:

All in all, it is an extremely impressive showing, and we haven’t even got to Hello Kitty.

Speaking of which, here she is:

A few fun facts about this model:

• The color of her outfit matches the color of the Zaku she comes with. This one has green overalls, but the other one has red
• She has no decals at all. Her eyes, nose, and whiskers are all plastic
• She comes with an apple she can hold onto (and which you can make to look like a Zaku head via decals)
• She also comes with an apple shaped display base
* Her legs can “pop out” and swing forward so that she can sit down

It’s not a complicated model, but it looks fantastic. I mean, that’s Hello Kitty. And it can do all the things Hello Kitty can do. It can wave, it can sit, and it can tilt its head. It’s perfect.

Rounding out the package are a few final parts to allow you to attach Hello Kitty’s head to the body of the Zaku:

First you get an alternate set of shoulders. These have longer pegs upon which to attach the shield and shoulder armor, as this creates the necessary space for Kitty’s head.

It also comes with an extra neck piece that not only helps raise the head away from the body (again, to help it fit).

Finally, you get a giant Zaku helmet with adorable kitty ears:

Yes, it has an attachment point for the bow, and yes, you can take the clear visor piece off.

If you want, you can use an included decal to give her a monoeye:

Final Verdict

This one is a bit hard to judge. I have nothing but good things to say about it, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth thirty bucks each.

On one hand, the quality of this package is extremely high. The Zaku itself is one of the nicest SD’s I’ve ever seen, and Hello Kitty couldn’t be better. I’m also pleased that, due to the way these models are engineered, the parts are all very big and chunky. I’m sure my kids will break something eventually, but so far both sets are holding up perfectly.

And they’re both enjoying them far more than I expected them to. They absolutely love the idea of having a Hello Kitty that can essentially play dress up, in a way that allows them to play with their dad and his Gingums¹. Buying these wasn’t cheap, but so far it’s been an even better decision than I predicted.

On the other hand, I spent more on these two kits together than I spent on the Real Grade Nu Gundam. Heck, for the cost of these two kits, I could have gotten the Real Grade Hi Nu Gundam. When I think of one of these Hello Kitties costing half as much as these tremendous feats of engineering, it starts to look like a bad deal.

But I’m not convinced that this is the best way to assess the value of a model kit. That is to say, thinking of value purely in terms of “plastic per dollar” or “complexity per dollar” is not helpful. For one, these aren’t measurements we can easily quantify; it’s all based on gut feelings, and your gut may see it differently than mine.

Secondly, does the fact that the Hi Nu Gundam is orders of magnitude more complex than this Hello Kitty mean that the former is orders of magnitude more shelf worthy than the latter? I don’t think so. I could put this Hello Kitty on a shelf at home, at work, anywhere, and I guarantee you that passersby would stop and admire how cute it is and how nice it looks. Because it does look great. It may not be as complex or as intricate, but it nails the look of the character. That alone has worth (even if that worth is just as hard to quantify as “plastic per dollar” or whatever).

Further complicating things is that, in the eyes of my children, these aren’t models that go on the shelf never to be touched. They’re toys to play with. Heck, if we didn’t have rules in place², they’d probably carry them around all day like it was a stuffed animal. My one daughter repeatedly asks me “why you buy this for me?”, and when I tell her why, her eyes light up. You can tell she feels like the most special person in the world.

Can you put a price tag on that? I mean, you can - I wouldn’t drop $3000 on something just to get that reaction - but $30 seems positively cheap for the amount of joy they’re generating.

All of which is to say that the value of something like this is also based on what you intend to do with it. If you plan on putting one of these on the shelf and leaving it be, then maybe $30 is a bit steep. But if you (or someone else) wants to treat it as a toy - or if you see yourself frequently picking it up to adjust its pose/swap accessories/swap heads - then there is a lot of fun to be had here.

Other Thoughts

File this under “completely unnecessary but cute little touch”, one of the runners is shaped like Hello Kitty’s head, and one is shaped like her bow: