Hasegawa

[npb748r]

I had a quick look at some of the previous posts on this forum where people have been negative. You can count the contributors to these using your fingers - a tiny, unmeasurable and insignificant fraction of the buying market. I seriously doubt that negative or critical comments made by a handful of people on hobby forums has any impact on any commercial organisation decision making unless it directly impacts on the sales of their products. If companies no longer sell products it's because they aren't getting the expected level of sales or because they can see the long term view of the market and decide to focus elsewhere.  It feels a bit of an over estimate of the influence of online forums, I suspect the only people who take any notice about comments on forums are those people with the opposite opinion.  Unless, as said earlier, sales are impacted adversely. It's all about money at the end of the day, perhaps we should start to buy more kits and spend less time online 

 

 

[adameliclem]

Without Hasegawa’s essential, pioneering contributions the 1/32 aircraft landscape would look very different today, certainly quite a bit smaller and less diverse. Along with Revell, they were big kit standard bearers long before others joined the party. They proved it was a viable niche within a niche. If Hasegawa has called it a night, they’ll have earned their rest many, many times over. They owe us nothing.

 

As always, it never hurts to directly ask manufacturers questions about their plans. Sometimes they provide answers. Absent information from Hasegawa about their intentions for the 1/32 aircraft line, we’re all just reading tea leaves and entrails with a splash of confirmation bias.

 

Cheers,

Adam

[Dave Williams]

When was the latest new tool 1/32 Hasegawa kit?  I’m thinking the Zero 52c back in 2016.  

[Artful69]

Affirmative 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Artful69

[AlanG]

10 hours ago, thierry laurent said:

Very frankly Radu, I already heard that but I'm not fully convinced by what is looking more like a posterior way to justify their business policy decisions rather than reality.

I think if you take a look at the 1/24 Airfix spitfire thread, you'll see just how much it's being bashed even before it's released. So personally i think Radu has a valid point. Some people bang on about accuracy far too much. Believe it or not. some people actually like just building kits that look in the 'ball park' of what it's meant to be. Novel i know, but it's true.

[thierry laurent]

I never wrote LSP were not bashed. I just said this is valid for any kit in any scale and accordingly I seriously doubt LSP are disappearing from catalogues because of THAT reason. The best way to avoid that is to ensure a high quality control for a reasonably price. If you try to sell a Mercedes for a Ferrari price, no doubt few people will be happy.

[AlanG]

Yes even when some kits are sold cheaply (such as some Revell 1/32 kits) then they are STILL slated and classed 'unbuildable' because they dared not to make it totally accurate to the minutest detail or used slightly soft plastic . I know that you will always find people in every walk of life just biting at the bits to slag something off. But it does seem to be common theme unless the kit was released by the modelling gods such as ZM, WNW or Tamiya. Then they are not allowed to be bashed it seems.

[quang]

Some guys are waiting for the ‘buildable’  kit, unaware that old age and senility are lurking around the door. Git it while you can, folks!

[Tony T]

Not after the perfect product, just an all-new Ki-43 from Hasegawa (I have two of their fifty year-old toolings including the rare Manchoukuo edition), or maybe Zoukei-Mura if they can abstain from the German fantasy and produce more indigenous types. A bubble-top Ki-61 and radial Ki-100 would be so fantastic.

 

A Hasegawa re-pop of the F-86 would be quite handy too. The Tiger II tooling was somehow corrupted with the shark's nose configuration, but I could use a couple of pointy-nosed F-5Es as well before Hasegawa let the moulds corrode. Pink animé editions would be fine.

 

Tony 

 

 

[ade rowlands]

A repop  of the 109F-4 would be most welcome too. I thought I had one in storage but alas, no.

[npb748r]

2 hours ago, AlanG said:

unless the kit was released by the modelling gods such as ZM, WNW or Tamiya

one's person's god is another's idolatry. I only bow down to three colour plastic matchbox (maybe a slight bended head to Novo or Frog) 

[npb748r]

2 hours ago, Tony T said:

radial Ki-100 would be so fantastic

now that would be good

[Juggernut]

Why doesn't someone who lives close to where Hasegawa is (Shizuoka city?) go and ask?  Do we have any members that either live in or near Shizouka City?  Has anyone thought to ask Scott Hards (Hobbylink Japan)...if you can get in touch with him?

 

Well, I took it upon myself to send HLJ an email regarding the current and future plans for aircraft models by Hasegawa.  Not sure I'll get a reply or if I do, what that reply will contain but I asked if they knew if Hasegawa had any plans to release any new 1/48 or 1/32 scale aircraft (or rerelease existing models with different markings like that've been known to do in the past).

Edited January 27, 2022 by Juggernut

[AdamR]

Whatever Hasegawa is planning is un-knowable to me, an old modeler in the wilds of Lower Alabama.  I do know I’ve loved the eight different  Hasegawa 1/32 kits I’ve built.  I had planned another of their P-47Ds and another P-40E, so the severe scarcity of their kits worried me, and I resorted to EBay for examples of each.  They now reside safely in my stash, I am happy to say.  If the story about the re-release of the ‘190D is true, I shall certainly snap up one of those, as well.

 

Long live Hasegawa! (In 1/32 scale, of course.)

[Kenneth]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:08 PM, Dave Williams said:

Has Hasegawa ever sold their molds to anyone?  Besides, there’s no indication they are out of business as they are still releasing kits, including new stuff, just not in our scale/area of interest.

Don‘t know whether the moulds were sold to them, but Revell has in the recent past reissued the Hasegawa 1/32 Storch, 1/32 F-5E, 1/48 Citation and (if I recall correctly:) 1/48 Learjet and 1/48 Falcon.