Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (1/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (2/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (3/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (4/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (5/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor (6/6)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Detail shots (1/4)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Detail shots (2/4)

Detail shots

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Two types of hands are included, and the forearms can be swapped out for a cannon form.

Two types of hands are included, and the forearms can be swapped out for a cannon form.
You can also attach a beam blade to the tip of the forearm.

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - The shoulders feature a swappable part to recreate the opening and closing of the vulca

The shoulders feature a swappable part to recreate the opening and closing of the vulcan guns.

The top of the head also has a swappable part to expose the gun barrel.

Vernier open gimmick on the back of the feet

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - A smaller-sized Earth Engine Ordinary is also included. (1/3)

A smaller-sized Earth Engine Ordinary is also included.

Only 2 leftover parts.

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Articulation isn't too bad, but the joint strength on the shoulders and arms is just de

Articulation isn't too bad, but
the joint strength on the shoulders and arms is just depressing..

The shoulders look a bit unnatural, but the arms do raise out to the side that much.

The articulation gimmick on the thighs.

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - A powerful pose with the shoulder vulcans open. The arms are so heavy that even holding

A powerful pose with the shoulder vulcans open.
The arms are so heavy that even holding them up like this is no easy feat..

Open-hand action pose

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Beam blade action (1/3)

Beam blade action

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor - Forearm cannon action (1/3)

Forearm cannon action

The Earth Engine Impactor from the 2014 anime "Captain Earth" has been released by Kotobukiya as a non-scale plastic model kit. It's an impressive mech with massive shoulders that evoke a sense of nostalgia for Gunbuster — the lore being that the core unit, the Earth Engine Ordinary, is launched into space and then combined with a space combat unit to form the Earth Engine Impactor.

True to Kotobukiya's style, this is a kit that puts quite a bit of effort into color separation — the small parts across the shoulders, thighs, waist, and head are all handled through part separation at over 90% accuracy. That said, since most of the base color is white, the end result doesn't feel particularly flashy despite all that complex color separation — it's more like "not plain" rather than "impressive."

The accessories and gimmicks are fairly faithful to the source material — the forearm armor can be swapped out for a cannon form, and two hand types are included (a fist and an open hand) that both look great with the proportions. There's also a beam blade that attaches to the forearm, and the cannons and gun barrels on the shoulders and head are all recreated with swappable parts.

Articulation isn't too bad considering the chunky design, but the critical flaw with this kit is that the joint strength is absolutely terrible. T_T Kotobukiya kits tend to vary a lot in joint quality, and this one is showing some of the worst joint strength I've seen in a while. The shoulders and forearms are especially bad — it's really hard to hold the big, chunky arms out horizontally or keep the forearms bent in a pose. Even just leaving it alone, the shoulders and arms constantly droop down under gravity, and on top of that, the shoulders and forearms keep popping out, so you end up repeatedly disassembling and reassembling the kit just trying to get a pose. -_-;;;

On top of that, the rear binders are held on by what look like flimsy locking pins, and in my case a small knock was enough to snap one of them — so I had no choice but to glue it in place. And the ball joint holding the head on has almost no grip whatsoever, to the point where it feels less like the head is attached and more like it's just resting on top of the torso.

To sum it up — the overall look, accessories, and gimmicks are quite good, but the joint stability is frustratingly sloppy, making this a hard kit to recommend outright. For fans of Captain Earth, just having it exist as a kit might be enough to be grateful for — but honestly, rather than wrestling with a chunky plastic model with joints this loose, you'd probably be much better off picking up a finished figure from somewhere like MegaHouse. ^^; (And the price difference isn't even that big.)

Captain Earth Earth Engine Impactor | 2015. 5 | ¥6,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.