Three most interesting new releases from Hasegawa since July.
The "Ginga" "Mukade" is absolutely amazing as a subject although I'm not sure about the tail markings.
The "Tokko" "Lilly" is also fantastic and ties perfectly with our contest.
Bringing you the wealth of Japanese aviation history
You have to like those Japanese to English translations for their model box labels - "NUMEROUS GUNS EQUIPMENT" for the P1Y1, or "SPECIAL EQUIPMENT" for the Ki-48-II (surprised they did not use "Special Attack"). It sounds like something you would get out of Google Translate. :)
ReplyDeleteWind Swords
Yeah, the Japanese are not known for their English skills. But seriously though the only thing you found worthy to comment is this?
ReplyDeleteThese are all 1/72, right?
ReplyDeleteYes, 1/72.
ReplyDeleteWe need these in 1/48th scale.
ReplyDeleteI think the old (ex Mania) Lilly holds up rather well, I saw one at a model show and I thought it looked rather good. The other two are far newer, but in the case fo all three, it's nice to see different marking/variant options available right out of the box. It helps keep older kits fresh in a way, and in the case of the Lilly, allows you to get you hands on what is sometimes hard to find.
ReplyDeleteAs for being in 1/72, I can go either way on that. 1/48th is nice, but too many large twin engine planes take up a lot of space. Saying that, a GOOD 1/48 Lilly would be nice.)
What do you think would be the correct tail codes for the 'Mukabe' Ginga ?
ReplyDeleteocca / Martin
Arawasi,
ReplyDeleteYes, seriously. As I was looking at this first thing in the morning (yes, your blog is the first thing I look at everyday!), and admittedly, before the coffee kicked in, it was the first thing that came to my mind.
But seriously, what else could I say? These are not new kits from Hasegawa, every one of these planes has been done before, in several versions (re-boxing) each. It is not even new tooling. Now I'm not knocking them, I think it's nice that the consumer gets some choices of different versions of the same aircraft and if you pressed me, I might be interested in building that special attack version of the Ki-48, I always liked those planes (though I would rather have 1/48). But you'll have to excuse me if I don't get too excited about these. To each his own I say.
As for Japanese not being known for English language skills, I know there are Japanese who probably speak English more grammatically correct than I do (I never did pay a lot of attention in grammar class). In this case I think it is just some employee who doesn't speak English using Google Translate which can't do much more than translate literally. They could find someone who knows English well but then they would have pay them for that skill. That's just my guess. Bottom line, I'm glad they have some new versions of old kits, but if they should announce something really new then I will get excited for that.
Wind Swords
Wind Swords - thanks a lot but first coffee, then comment on Arawasi blog!
ReplyDeleteYes, the kits are not new but nobody has ever released a tokko Lilly or the "Mukade" before. And you have probably noticed that Hasegawa releases a brand new Japanese a/c kit almost every year. "Dave", "Emily"...I would also like to remind you that little by little they release kits of more obscure and experimental types, like the twin-prop "Shoki" or the Dinah trainer. I see an effort here, unlike Tamiya, and I'm happy for that.
Not your scale, not your kind of planes, not new, not correct English, not cheap, not whatever.
Coffee cup half empty or half full? As you say "to each his own".
Nice choices by Hasegawa, the P1Y looks particularly appealing to me. Thanks for giving us a heads up on these.
ReplyDeleteChad A.
The Lily re-release is an exceptionally interesting variant- the nose rods are detonaters for an internal bombload. The success rate of these few aircraft in their special attack missions must not have been great but this would make an eye-catching model on the display shelf or contest table.
ReplyDelete