HGBuild Fighters

HG-02R Rick-Do Gyanko

A Dom-plated MS Girl that proves Gunpla doesn't have to look like a robot to earn a spot on the shelf.

MechaGrade Score

3.8/5

Rick-Do Gyanko · 1/144 · 2018

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2018

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is one of the strangest, most charming HG kits Bandai ever pushed through Premium Bandai, and I mean that as a compliment.

It takes the Hyper Gyanko MS Girl base and re-skins her in Rick Dom armor, and the result is a genuinely fun build that photographs better than its goofy premise suggests. It's not a technical showcase and it's not for everyone, but if you go in knowing what it is, it delivers.

Best for: builders who already like the MS Girl line and want a Rick Dom themed curveball on the shelf

The full review

What it is

Rick-Do Gyanko takes the Hyper Gyanko frame, an MS Girl figure built around Tateo Sazaki's Gyan obsession, and dresses her in newly molded Rick Dom parts: a Dom-head headband, the old Gyan shield repurposed as hair scrunchies, Dom leg armor worn as boots, and a chest piece that folds in a scattering beam gun. She comes with a beam bazooka, giant bazooka, and heat saber, and thanks to the long bazooka arm units on her back, both guns can be posed independently at the same time. Building her feels less like assembling a mobile suit and more like dressing a action figure, and that novelty carries the whole kit.

The catch

The base Hyper Gyanko frame uses a softer KPS plastic in the chest and leg joints to get natural, organic poses, and builders report that same softness leads to durability problems over time, especially at the arms, hands, and head, where parts can work loose or pop off after repeated posing. The shoulder joints in particular don't love big, dramatic poses; push too far and the arm unit can separate from the body rather than flex with it. This is a Premium Bandai exclusive, so pricing and availability run higher than a standard retail HG, and the whole concept (a Dom cosplaying as a magical-girl-style figure) is a hard sell if you're only after mobile suits.

Who it's for

Buy this if you already have a soft spot for the MS Girl kits, want a novelty piece that stands out against a shelf of standard mobile suits, or you're chasing the full Gyanko variant set. Skip it if you want a conventional Dom kit for army-building or serious posing under stress; the joint durability issues mean this one rewards gentle handling over aggressive dynamic stances. It's also not the easiest kit to track down since it never had a wide standard retail run, so budget extra time and money if you're hunting a copy.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

Assembly leans on solid snap-fit engineering with clean gate placement and no serious seam lines to fight, which keeps the build itself relaxed even though the parts are unusual. The eye and expression stickers (shared with the Axis Angel MS Girl kit) let you set her face after the fact, so there's no rush to commit to one look during assembly.

The standout engineering is the KPS soft plastic at the chest and leg joints, which gives this figure a range of natural motion you don't expect from a 1/144 HG price point. Color separation on the Dom armor pieces (headband, leg-boots, shoulder plates) is handled through molded plastic rather than paint, and the weapon loadout of beam bazooka, giant bazooka, and heat saber gives real posing variety for the part count.

Lore & trivia

01Rick-Do Gyanko debuted in Gundam Build Fighters: Battlogue as a build by Tateo Sazaki, a member of the Gyan-obsessed Sazaki family, and marked the first time he used a motif other than the plain Gyan.
02The kit reuses the original Gyan's shield as decorative scrunchies for her pigtails, folding an old part into new fashion rather than discarding it.
03It first released in January 2018 at 2,700 yen through Premium Bandai and got a reissue in February 2021 at 2,750 yen.