A plastic model's difficulty is proportional to number of tools needed to build it.
I only use so few tools to build models -- one nipper to cut the parts off the runners, another nipper to do a follow-up clean cut, and a knife to clean up nub marks. I didn't have any nippers before 2021, so prior to that I would slowly saw the parts off the runner with a knife. Roughly every model I bought in the past decade or so can be assembled using just these few tools, so every model that I have worked with are roughly of the same difficulty, but I do have a preference for Kotobukiya's models over Bandai's, because Kotobukiya tend to give me pre-printed parts while Bandai tend to give me stickers. Stickers are such a pain to apply.
Recently I have started building Nacchin, and to my horror, I wasn't greeted with stickers but water slide decals. Looks like some of it was for the face plate, which did come with a pre-printed part, so maybe I can get away with not applying decals. Before I even get to the decals though, turns out the really annoying parts were the two steps that required glue. The instructions only said glue recommended, but the arms will easily fall off without glue. After spending ~10 minutes of trying to place the pilot in the cockpit seat, I have concluded that it's actually impossible to keep the arms from falling off without glue.
So I found my one bottle of glue, which previously I have only used fix broken parts and never during assembly. The glue nozzle has been firmly sealed with residue glue from when I last used it few years ago, so I spent the next half and hour trying to dig through that nozzle with a paperclip. I couldn't get enough leverage on that paperclip with my bare hands, and had to hold the paperclip with a plier to force it through. After much effort, I knew the exact moment when I have succeeded because there was this distinctive glue smell that immediately came out. Oof, I didn't need any that. Glue is the next level of hell after stickers and water slide decals.
I attached the arms and thought that's a good place to stop. I have decided that's enough model building for today, but only after skipping forward in the manual to confirm that none of the remaining steps required glue.
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