HGBuild Fighters

Petit'gguy Chara'gguy Gyanko

A pocket-sized cat costume kit that swaps its own head to become two different characters.

MechaGrade Score

3.4/5

Petit'gguy Chara'gguy Gyanko · 1/144 · 2017

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2017

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This one is a novelty kit and I mean that as a compliment.

It is not here to test your engineering nerves, it is here to make you smile for the fifteen minutes it takes to build it. The head-swap gimmick between the plain Petit'gguy face and the Gyanko (Kaoruko Sazaki cosplay) face is the whole reason to own it, and it actually works well. Just do not expect Master Grade fit tolerances out of something the size of your thumb.

Best for: Build Fighters fans and Petit'gguy collectors who want a cute, fast, low-stakes build alongside their main kits

The full review

What it is

This is one of Bandai's Petit'gguy mascot kits dressed up as Gyanko, the cat-costumed alter ego of Kaoruko Sazaki from Gundam Build Fighters Try. Four small runners, one sticker sheet, and a display base get you a roughly 3.5 inch figure with a ball-jointed head, rotating cat ears, and swing-jointed limbs. The party trick is the extra head part in the box, so you can build it as plain vanilla Petit'gguy or as the Gyanko cosplay version and swap between the two whenever you want. For something this small it is genuinely charming to hold, and the proportions land exactly where you want a mascot kit to land, round, huggable, a little dopey in the best way.

The catch

Parts are tiny and the sticker sheet is doing real work on the face and detail accents, so if you hate stickers on gunpla this will bother you here more than usual since there is no molded-color alternative for those bits. The ball joints at the head and limbs are functional but not confidence-inspiring, they hold a slight tilt rather than a real pose, so do not buy this expecting HG mobile suit articulation. It is also priced like a real HG for what amounts to a chibi accessory kit, which stings if you were expecting a full-size model in the box instead of a companion piece.

Who it's for

Grab this if you already like the Petit'gguy line or you are a Build Fighters Try completionist who wants Gyanko on the shelf next to your actual mobile suits. It is also a nice five-minute palate cleanser between more demanding builds. Skip it if you are looking for your next serious build, if sticker-heavy faces are a dealbreaker for you, or if you have never heard of Build Fighters Try and just want a good-looking HG for a normal price, your money goes further on an actual mobile suit kit.

The build story

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

With four runners and one sticker sheet, this is about as fast a build as gunpla gets. Gate placement is forgiving because the parts are simple rounded shapes, there is nothing here that punishes a rushed nipper cut the way small MG parts can. The trickiest part of the whole build is just being careful with pieces small enough to lose in the carpet.

The head-swap mechanism is the actual engineering highlight, both heads peg into the same socket so switching identities takes seconds and does not loosen with repeat swaps in the short term. Ear and limb ball joints give the figure a little life in its resting pose even though full posing is not the point. Value is fair for what it is, a display piece and character tie-in, but weak if you are mentally pricing it against a standard HG mobile suit kit.

Lore & trivia

01Gyanko is the cosplay alias of Kaoruko Sazaki, younger sister of Susumu Sazaki (Strayblack) from the first Build Fighters Try tournament arc
02Kaoruko's team, Song Dynasty Vase, is themed around the YMS-15 Gyan, which is where both her cat persona and the Gyan wordplay come from
03The Petit'gguy Chara'gguy line reuses the same small mascot body across many character skins, letting Bandai turn Build Fighters cast members into cheap, quick companion kits
04This kit includes the parts to rebuild a plain, generic Petit'gguy head, so one box can represent either the mascot or the Gyanko character