Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Megami Device SOL Hornet - Detail shots (1/4)

Megami Device SOL Hornet - Detail shots (2/4)

Detail shots

The face can be swapped out with 3 different expressions.

Two beam sabers and 5 sets of soft-plastic hands are included.

Attach the accessory parts to the beam gun and you can mount it on the side of the waist.

Quite a few leftover parts remain.

Articulation of the limbs and backpack

The feet are so small that a stand is pretty much required.

Beam gun firing pose

Double beam saber pose

Body and accessories separated

Base body

Base body articulation.
Look closely and you'll notice a gimmick where the entire shoulder rotates 90 degrees and folds forward.

Megami Device SOL Hornet - Poses of the bare figure (1/3)

Poses of the bare figure

Dressed up in the mechanical armor

Poses in mechanical armor mode

Air Force type mechanical armor poses

Together with the previous kits, Assault/Scout and Snipe/Grapple.

Following up on Frame Arms Girl, Kotobukiya's ambitious Megami Device line has released its third kit — the SOL Hornet. This one has a noticeably different concept from the first two kits; rather than offering multiple combat-ready female characters through a bunch of swap-out parts, it comes in a configuration that's much closer to a straight Frame Arms Girl.

The basic approach of layering various armor pieces over the base body is similar, though. You can dress up the cute feminine base body into a full mechanical armor look complete with a helmet, and optionally add an Air Force type backpack on top of that. The overall package is simpler than the previous kits, but since you can selectively apply armor to individual sections, you can still pull off quite a variety of different looks.

Overall articulation and joint strength are both pretty impressive — no loose or easily-falling-off parts, so it's a very pleasant kit to handle. The shoulder gimmick in particular, where the entire shoulder rotates horizontally and swings all the way forward, is a joint structure I've never seen before, and it moves so naturally that it seems like a really well thought-out design.

The Air Force type backpack has plenty of moving parts and can be arranged in all sorts of configurations, though the weapons are on the simple side — just a beam gun and beam sabers. The proportions are great out of the box, and with solid articulation and part retention, posing it is genuinely fun. The face parts follow the typical swap-out style but are put together a little differently from your usual girlplas. There's even a separately included gum piece that comes pre-painted, which makes for a surprisingly three-dimensional face.

It probably would've fit right in as a Frame Arms Girl release, but either way the quality is excellent — if the style appeals to you, this is a great girlpla that'll leave you very satisfied. :-)

Megami Device SOL Hornet | 2017.6 | ¥4,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.