Hasegawa Ki84 1/32- Any other recommendations?

[Basta]

6 hours ago, vince14 said:

I'm still confused as to why we don't have a 1/32 replacement for the Ki-43 - it's such an iconic aircraft of the Pacific War.

I think a large part of the problem is that Japanese WW2 fighters are so homogeneous. You can see the Zero parentage throughout, with a few exceptions like the Ki-61.

 

Visually, they are mostly Zero variants--bigger, fatter, longer, slept with a P-47 and had a Ki-84 love child, etc. If you aren't deeply into the subject then you default to the Zero, which is iconic for a very good reason. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I really do like them very much, and I've gone through Hasagawa's list several times, but I also struggle to justify most of them given limited space. 

[vince14]

That's true of almost all single seat fighters of WWII to a casual observer- the P-47 is a fat P-51, the Hurricane is a chunky Spitfire etc.

 

It still makes no sense why Tamiya or Hasegawa haven't released an updated version. Their primary market - by a very long way - is the Japanese modeller. All I can think of is that American WWII aircraft hold a similar fascination to the Japanese modeller that the Luftwaffe does to the Western modeller i.e. the bad guys seem cooler.

[Basta]

To a very casual observer perhaps a corsair looks like a hellcat like a jug like a mustang etc... but esthetics aside, you pretty much answered your question there--the primary market is obviously the Japanese modeler, and given their space restraints they much prefer smaller scales. I'm sure all these planes do really well in 1:48 and 1:72. 

[vince14]

And yet, as this thread has proven, Japanese manufacturers have more modern versions of a variety of Japanese WWII aircraft in 1/32 than the Ki-43.

[LSP_Mike]

And the surface detail on my original Revell Ki-43 is superb.

We have a vendor that just finished a set of Hayate wing guns and bays; an interesting option for that kit.