No Gunpla Girls Allowed: How Gundam Build Fighters fails its female cast

“Gunpla is for everyone.”

That’s the ethos behind 2013’s Gundam Build Fighters and its sequel, Gundam Build Fighters Try. In a world where high-tech Gunpla battles reign supreme, anyone can build a Gunpla model kit and become a Gundam Battle champion… in theory. In practice, the two shows end up undermining that message through the treatment of their female cast, and accidentally saying a lot about trends in shounen and the Gundam franchise in the process.

CHINA, THE CHEERLEADER

From the start, Gundam Build Fighters was very different from its predecessors. Gundam as a franchise was built on a foundation of science-fiction and political drama, with roots in the classic anime space operas of the 1970s and ‘80s. While Gundam Build Fighters is still a science fiction series, it is first and foremost a shounen battle tournament show. This genre shift was meant to appeal to a younger audience (to convince them to buy more model kits), but that shift in genre and audience brought with it some of the simplistic, ingrained sexism that has plagued shounen anime for decades. Where previous Gundam shows were just as likely to feature girls and women as heroes and villains at every level, the girls of Gundam Build Fighters are largely relegated to the sidelines. Nowhere is this more evident than with Kousaka China.

China is a friend and classmate to the show’s protagonist, Sei. She is an intelligent, responsible, and creative girl, serving as both class representative and president of the art club. From the start she demonstrates a fondness for the Bearguy, a cute and cuddly Gunpla that became a mascot for this particular series. She paints them, makes a customized Gunpla version of one, and even dresses up as one in the end credits. Through her, the show could have shown some of the ways creativity and model kits can mix outside of competition, but she’s never given the opportunity to do so.

Why would she? The writers knew what her role was from the start. She’s the Childhood Best Friend. She’s Sei’s love interest.  The only reason she got into Gunpla in the first place was to get close to him. That’s just what you do when you’re a young woman who is close to a shounen protagonist, a role that has been affirmed through decades of repetition. Her place can only be in the audience, fretting for Sei while others explain the rules of Gunpla Battle to her. It’s not that she isn’t capable of competing with others. When she does try her hand at it in a casual girls-only tournament, she wins second place. She does this without compromising her creative spark, explaining the modifications to her custom Bearguy in the same way one might explain the backstory for a beloved childhood doll.  Despite all this, the show views her not as a creator but a cheerleader, merely an accessory to the real star of the show.

AILA, THE ETERNAL VICTIM

Gundam Build Fighters was not just a vehicle to sell children on Gunpla model kits. It was also made to be a loving tribute to the Gundam franchise itself. It features all sorts of character cameos, references, and mobile suits from across the franchise, and more than a few characters draw upon familiar characters from Gundam’s past. That includes Aila Jyrkiainen, a fellow Gunpla battler whose backstory draws upon some of the more regrettably regressive parts of Gundam’s legacy.

Aila is one of the few female rivals Sei and Reiji encounter at the World Tournament, a Finnish girl clad in a futuristic bodysuit and helmet with a fearsome (and undefeated) Qubeley Papillion.  It’s only towards the end of the show that the tragedy of Aila’s life is revealed. She was a homeless orphan with the ability to see the energy that powers the Gunpla battles, giving her a form of precognition. She was taken in by the Flana Institute as a child, forced into isolation and an endless array of experiments. The battle suit she wears not only boosts her powers but allows her handlers to take control of her at the slightest sign of weakness.  Any resistance she makes is met with the threat to return her to the streets to starve. She isn’t even allowed to take ownership of her victories, as her prizes are given instead to the grandson of the founder of the institution that imprisons her.   Aila feels more like a tool than a person, and it’s only through the support of Sei and Reiji that she overcomes her conditioning and rediscovers her love of the sport.

Aila fits into a character archetype I call “The Tragic Newtype Waif.”  This is a role first defined by Mobile Suit Gundam’s Lalah Sune and later codified by the likes of Zeta Gundam’s Four Muramase and ZZ Gundam’s Elpeo Ple (whose QubeleyMk. II was a likely inspiration for Aila’s Gunpla).  It’s most frequently associated with Universal Century stories, but examples can be found in AU shows such as Gundam X’s Tiffa Adill and Gundam Seed Destiny’s Stella Loussier. It’s a character type I’ve come to hate because it’s predicated entirely in victimhood. The lives of these girls are defined by the suffering they endure at the hands of powerful men. They possess incredible psychic power and piloting skills, often at the expense of their mental health. Their ultimate purpose is to be love interests for the young male protagonists, damsels to be saved or slaughtered as motivation.

It’s especially frustrating because it’s not like the creators didn’t have plenty of positive female characters from the franchise to draw upon. There are talented, heroic pilots like Zeta Gundam’s Emma Sheen and Christina McKenzie from 0080: War In the Pocket. Characters like Gundam Wing’s Relena Peacecraft, Turn A Gundam’s Dianna Soleil, and Gundam Seed’s Lacus Clyne are more peaceful alternatives, who make up for their lack of battle prowess with persuasion and political power. Maybe they should have looked more closely at Aila’s most obvious influence: G Gundam’s Allenby Beardsley.  

She too was a Scandinavian girl forced to fight in a tournament through the use of mind control for the sake of a shady organization, but once Allenby breaks free from her conditioning she gets to redefine herself. She gets to show off the friendly, playful personality she always possessed and uses her fighting skills for a more noble cause of her choosing. We do get glimpses of Aila’s curious nature and love of food throughout Gundam Build Fighters, but it’s always framed as merely a temporary escape from her suffering. She never gets a chance to redefine herself—no sooner is she freed than she’s pushed to the sidelines alongside China to serve as a cheerleader and love interest for Sei’s partner Reiji. Even when she is free, she is still a prisoner to her legacy.

KIRARA, THE FAKE GUNPLA GIRL

While Sei, Reiji and their male rivals compete for the sake of science, skill, and national pride, the girls around them tend to compete for pettier, more personal reasons that sometimes inadvertently reinforce negative stereotypes about girls and women in fandom. Nowhere is this more evident than with “Kirara” (aka Mihoshi), a self-proclaimed “Gunpla idol.”  

When Kirara is not singing about Gunpla, she competes in battles with her own pink Gerbera Tetra.  Her image is that of a super fan with sex appeal, but her true motives are purely mercenary. For her, Gunpla is merely a gimmick to boost her career. She brazenly uses her sex appeal to get free model kit labor or as a distraction so she can sabotage her opponent’s kits. Kirara is a minor villain, one meant to evoke the two-faced femme fatale villainess Cima Garahau from 0083: Stardust Memories. While the show forgives her fairly quickly for her actions, it’s much harder to forgive the insidious subtext of her story.

Anyone who recalls online discourse in the Gamergate era will shudder at the phrase “fake gamer girl.” It was the subject of much discussion and mockery then, and while it’s much less commonly used than it was a decade ago it still gets lobbied at female creatives to this day. It’s a misogynistic fallacy that presumes any woman within gaming (or any other nerd-friendly fandom) must be in it for the sake of clout, money, or sex instead of sincere passion and interest. It posits women as intruders whose very presence must be questioned and repelled at all times in all spaces.  It’s an attitude that has sadly infiltrated anime fandom, particularly when it comes to Gundam and other mecha anime.  Female fans get accused of not knowing the “right” trivia or liking the “right” shows, of being interested only in shipping the pretty anime boys within them, and just generally not being “proper” fans.

Kirara’s story would seem to affirm this spiteful, sexist notion. She is quite literally a fake Gunpla girl, someone who fakes her fandom knowledge, actively exploits her looks to get her way with men, and must cheat to compete on the same level as the protagonists. It’s an outright ludicrous idea to pretend such a thing could exist if you know anything about the history of Gundam fandom. Girls and women have always been some of Gundam’s staunchest supporters, dating all the way back to the original series in 1979. Popular entries such as Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed owe their success in part to their fervent fujoshi fandoms. Even now, young women flock to recent entries like The Witch From Mercury and GQuuuuuuX because they see elements of themselves reflected in leading ladies like Suletta Mercury and Amate “Machu” Yuzuriha. To imply that these fans could ever be interlopers (be they malicious or merely misguided like Kirara) is an offense to the very fandom this show is meant to celebrate.

TRY-ING TO MOVE FORWARD WITH FUMINA

At first glance, Gundam Build Fighters Try seems to be learning from the mistakes of its predecessor. There are more female characters in general and more of them are actively involved in Gunpla Battle, thanks to the switch from one-on-one battles to teams of three. The most obvious change is that the show starts with a female protagonist: high school student Hoshino Fumina.  

Fumina is a skilled Gunpla builder who is struggling to keep her school’s Gunpla battle club open.  The first few episodes follow her as she mends her broken friendship with Yuuma Kousaki (who is a talented artist, like his older sister China) and ropes in the enthusiastic new student/martial artist Sekai to form a new team. She proves herself to be a flexible and supportive team leader, an approach which is reflected in her choice of Gunpla. Initially her focus is on supporting her teammates, using her SD Winning Gundam not just as a support unit but reassembling it mid-battle into performance-boosting tools for the other two team members.  After a mid-series encounter with the woman who inspired her in the first place, Fumina is inspired to modify her kit into the Star Winning Gundam. Its powerful weaponry and scale-shifting “real mode” allow her to take a more active, offensive role in competition, but she still retained the ability to swap parts with her teammates to boost their abilities.  

As the show progresses, its focus shifts steadily away from Fumina and towards Sekai. More and more of her scenes emphasize the romantic tension between the two, pitting her against rich girl-turned-ally Kaoruko “Gyanko” Sazaki and rival team leader Shia Kijima in an informal harem. She also routinely deals with microaggressions from other boys in her community, be it the pushy president of a competing plastic model club or the competitor who fixates on her to the point of building a model kit in her image wearing a maid uniform. 

A greater focus on this could have highlighted some of the relatable struggles of being a young woman in fandom, but mostly it’s played for humor at her expense. Meanwhile, the ladies of the previous series appear only in brief cameos (if they appear at all), disconnecting them from this new generation of Gunpla battlers. That’s not even getting into the real-world character merchandise for Fumina, which puts an uncomfortable amount of attention on the curves of a fourteen-year-old anime girl. When it comes to female representation in Gundam Build Fighters Try, it often feels like it’s taking two steps back for every step forward.

I sincerely believe that Gundam is for everyone who wants it, regardless of gender. That’s why the casual sexism of Gundam Build Fighters and its sequel still stings over a decade later. It feels like an insult to the many talented and passionate female Gundam fans I’ve encountered over the years. They express their love for the franchise in so many ways: they make art, write fiction, record podcasts, edit videos, run websites, translate supplemental materials, and build and customize their own model kits. Some of them might even go so far as to write essays about Gundam for feminist anime websites, if simply to share some of that passion with the world. As successful as Gundam Build Fighters and its sequel were in their time, the runaway success of The Witch From Mercury and GQuuuuuuX proved that Gundam fans were ready for shows that treated their female cast members and fans as equal members of its long and storied history.