Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (1/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (2/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (3/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (4/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (5/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (6/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (7/10)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Views from various angles (8/10)

Views from various angles

Underside

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (1/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (2/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (3/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (4/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (5/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (6/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (7/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (8/11)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Detailed shots of each part of the craft. The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla... (9/11)

Detailed shots of each part of the craft.
The mecha detail is as intricate as a Bandai Gunpla...

The elaborately designed stand

The angle can be adjusted to some degree via the ball joint.

Hittekai Ikaruga - The waterslide decals look great, but the colors don't match the official scheme very well on a straight

The waterslide decals look great, but..
The colors don't match the official scheme very well on a straight build, so it's probably better to apply them after painting..

Hittekai Ikaruga - Each binder has 9 small duct-like structures on the inside — and they can be assembled in an open position

Each binder has 9 small duct-like structures on the inside..
They can also be assembled in an open position.
They're not articulated — you set them at the angle you want and fix them in place with glue.

The landing gear can be realized through a combination of swappable and articulated parts.

Articulation of each part of the binders

Forward and backward articulation of the binder connection points

Hittekai Ikaruga - By removing the binder covers and sliding them to the rear, you can recreate the state known as "Rele

By removing the binder covers and sliding them to the rear,
You can recreate the state known as "Release of Power."

Hittekai Ikaruga - Dynamic full-open flight pose (1/7)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Dynamic full-open flight pose (2/7)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Dynamic full-open flight pose (3/7)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Dynamic full-open flight pose (4/7)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Dynamic full-open flight pose (5/7)

Dynamic full-open flight pose

Hittekai Ikaruga - Another flight pose making use of the binders. (1/4)

Hittekai Ikaruga - Another flight pose making use of the binders. (2/4)

Another flight pose making use of the binders.

Kotobukiya has been showing a lot of interest lately in turning game mecha and characters into plastic model kits, and once again they've come out of nowhere with a kit based on "Ikaruga," a game mecha. Ikaruga is a shooting game released in the early 2000s by a developer called Treasure, and while it has a decent following among hardcore gamers thanks to its quirky mechanics, it's probably a game most people have never heard of (?).

There are plenty of old-school fans who think of games like Xevious or TwinBee when it comes to shooter craft, but Ikaruga did have a unique gameplay system and a stylish design that was sure to get mecha fans excited. In particular, the color-switching and bullet absorption system — which shattered the conventional wisdom that you always have to dodge bullets (bullets of the same color as your craft can actually be absorbed and stored as energy) — was widely praised as a genuinely groundbreaking mechanic.

First off, this kit is nothing like your typical straightforward mecha model kit. Think of it more like Bandai's EX model series — a realistic aero or Gunpla-style mecha plastic model that emphasizes realism. There are tiny parts scattered throughout, and most of them need to be glued together. On top of that, there are a lot of sharp and precarious parts, making assembly tricky and requiring you to handle it very carefully even after it's built — which makes it a completely different experience from your standard Bandai or Kotobukiya mecha kit.

The precise parts breakdown means assembly takes quite a long time, and there's a real risk of losing small parts — but true to Kotobukiya form, even a straight build gives you a pretty convincing representation of the official color scheme. Sure, if you look at the reference art there are spots here and there where the molded colors don't quite match, but then again, almost nobody actually knows what the original craft's coloring is supposed to look like anyway. (lol)

Despite being such a delicate and precise aero model-style kit, it also surprisingly delivers on the articulated mecha figure side of things — the parts that need to move actually move quite well. The binders, landing gear, connection points, and more are all articulated, which means you can recreate a surprisingly wide variety of flight configurations.

In particular, the hatch-open state known as "Release of Power" is also recreatable — in the game, this refers to the moment when the craft absorbs bullets of the same color and releases all that stored energy at once (the so-called special attack!). It's a bit of a shame that it's not a sliding mechanism, but they've still done a solid job of representing it through a detachable system. The kit also comes with an exceptionally stylish stand unlike anything we've seen before, sporting an even more flashy design than what appeared in the game. That's probably because the game's mecha designer personally oversaw the overall design.

If you're a fan of the original Ikaruga game, this is going to make for a fantastic addition to your collection — but even if you don't know the game at all, it's clearly a very appealing kit from a mecha standpoint. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to build a precise and intricate SF mecha plastic model in the style of a military or aero kit, but if fiddly assembly isn't your thing, this one might not be for you. :-)

Hittekai Ikaruga | 2011.6 | ¥4,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.