PokéPla Garchomp Model Kit

^{review by Alapai}

Garchomp, the Mach Pokemon is a Dragon/Ground pseudo-legendary Pokemon first introduced in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl from Generation IV. Since its introduction, its been a very popular Pokemon, getting a Mega Evolution in Generation VI, being a key member of the champion Cynthia’s team and showing up in spin-off games like Pokken and Pokemon UNITE. Bandai Namco’s PokePla Garchomp is a model kit akin to their Gunpla plastic models.

Like a Gunpla model, a PokePla model kit comes with plastic sprues in various colors, stickers to supply detail that couldn’t be shown from just the sprues and an instruction guide. While I haven’t checked all of the PokePla kits, the Garchomp one seems to be very similar to the rest. As Pokemon is aimed at a younger audience, these kits are simpler than Gunpla and require nothing external to put them together. I still used clippers to cut the pieces from the sprue to make it easier, but they are not required as they will come off with a bit of jiggling and force. They do not require glue to be assembled, as the pieces are snap-fit and will easily attach. The instructions are very kid-oriented and user-friendly so that it is even easy to understand how to follow them.

Assembling Garchomp was very easy. It starts with making the head, which consists of more parts than most of the rest. There are two parts for the upper and lower jaws, each of those connecting to another small part. There are also stickers for the top and bottom of Garchomp’s mouth and for her eyes. The purple part of the head starts with 2 pieces that form the right and left sides of Garchomp’s head. There is also one small part for the neck that allows for Garchomp’s jaw to open and have neck coverage, not leaving an open space. Then, the top of Garchomp’s head gets added with her horns.

The torso mostly consists of a right and left side with the dorsal fin and tail connection attached in between the left and right sides. Then the chest and belly pieces get added to complete the torso. After that, you can attach the head, which has movement in both the neck and jaw.

Next are the legs, which are mirror images of each other. They are relatively simple, consisting, like most of the rest of the model, a right and left side, with spikes coming out the middle. The foot consists of a top and bottom, the bottom being white for her claws. The sticker on the bottom of the foot is a little odd as it is purple to cover the white from the claw piece, but it doesn’t just go onto the claw piece as it ends up sticking out a little bit, allowing it to attach to the upper foot piece as well. These then just attach to the torso, allowing for a bit of movement.

The arms are next and, like the legs, are mirrors of each other. Although they are a bit more complex than the legs as they offer a lot of movement. The upper arm once again consists of a right and left part, this time with spikes, a joint at the elbow and a fancier joint at the shoulder for a large range of motion. There is also a sticker to match the inner part of the upper arm to the red from Garchomp’s torso. Her forearm fin consists of two parts, one being the fin and half of the forearm and the other being the other half of the forearm. As two pieces, they are able to form a joint at the elbow, allowing for movement. Lastly, there is the claw which for sprue-printing purposes is hollow, but that means you need to attach stickers on the bottom of the claw to cover the holes. These were the weirdest stickers to attach since there wasn’t much to attach to. These then attach to the torso with a ball joint allowing for a lot of movement.

The last part is the tail. It is just two pieces that then attach to the torso. Where they attach though is a part with movement, so the tail can move up and down.

Fully assembled, it is around 5” tall and 6” long with the tail being most of the length. It has some solid posability as the jaw, neck, arms, legs and tail all have an amount of movement to them.

I enjoyed putting Garchomp together. Garchomp is one of my favorite Pokemon, so getting to assemble a model was a lot of fun. For adults, be aware that PokePla are models for kids and so aren’t going to be super complex. I completed assembling her very quickly. I think that they are a fun activity for kids. The box recommends 6+ as the age group and I think that's a good estimate as it does take some amount of patience and ability to follow instructions, but ultimately it lists everything very easily and in a way that make it easy to complete.

If there’s a Pokemon you like and you would like a small model of that Pokemon, I recommend PokePla models as a fun way to not only get a model, but also have a fun experience putting something together.

Garchomp and other PokePla models are available now from our webstore.