Shizuoka 2015 #1

The 54th Hobby Show in Shizuoka was held as always at the Twin Messe from May 14 to May 17.

Arawasi was there on Saturday 16 accompanied by our Austrian friends Bernhard and Verena.

This year too the show was huge with the traditional one and a half hall reserved for companies, half of the second hall with model groups, a flea market and more. We start with two photos of pretty campaign girls to get you more interested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that the organisers are reading our blog because there was substantial improvement with many things that bothered us the previous years. For example bus service has improved a lot with friendly and polite staff and intelligible bus drivers. Only problem that still remains is the traffic jams from the train station to the show. The presence of one traffic policeman would definitely improve the situation.

 

Okay, let's talk about Japanese airplane kit manufacturers. The hullabaloo with the "Eternal Zero" movie has subsided and Tamiya and Fine Molds had nothing new to show. I asked an FM guy when "Tokkai" kits will be available again in the market and he said it's discontinued. Not very sure about it though. Maybe they will rebox the kit? Otherwise, if this news is true it sucks big time.

 

SWEET released their new tiny "Claude" kits. Brilliant if you like the 1/144 scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 AOSHIMA was promoting their new "George" kits. I'm building one as we speak so will post a review with photos when I'm done. In the meantime, send us photos of your finished Aoshima "George" models!

 

KAMIZUKURI was a company I noticed for the first time (their first year in the show?). I got a few things from them (photo below). Here's their website. If you have used their products let us know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And finally we come to HASEGAWA. They had some of their older models and probably we should expect some new re-boxings in the near future. There is also the series of Japanese planes based on the manga "Shiden-kai No Maki" with some funky markings and paint schemes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 AND NOW for the BIG news: Hasegawa announced in the show they are releasing a Nakajima E8N "Dave" in 1/48 this Autumn!!! Brand new kit, new tooling and everything. I can't tell you how excited I am and how much I'm looking forward to get a bunch of "Dave" kits in my hands and start building. Perhaps you remember we had a photo special on issue #5 of our magazine. We had decided to release the second Arawasi Extra (first here) with more "Dave" photos and material this year so the timing is really perfect!!!

 

I read some comments on a certain message board about this new Hasegawa release. Pathetic buzzkillers already started complaining how they would have preferred a "Jake", a D3A2, a P-40 something and many other J. plane kits. Unless we are talking about 5 year-olds who never get satisfied, life must be really miserable constantly seeing the glass half empty. Those happy with the new Hasegawa release respond to the party poopers with the word "old brother" in the Japanese sign language (here).