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When was the last time Hasegawa produced a new tool in 1/48? They used to be at the forefront, now being surpassed by the likes of GWH, AMK, Kinetic, ZM, and Hobby Boss/Trumpeter (in quality and/or production of kits).

 

And Academy, when they came out with their new-tool F-4 in 2012, the possibilities for new variants were endless. Things have been very quiet on this front also.

 

Thoughts?

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ZM killed the Phantoms from those two. Down the road somebody will kill the ZM Phantoms. The Academy Phantom goes for about $62 around here, and I can buy the ZM Phantom for $75. A no brainer!  As for Hasegawa, I'm stuck with four or five of them. I'll live with them, but will always know there's a better one. 

gary

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Consider that at one time the best F-4, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18 kits in 1/48 were all produced by Hasegawa.  I appreciate that for the most part Hasegawa builds well, are accurate and don't suffer from excessive parts count. it's too bad they just release reboxings of older kits these days.

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1 hour ago, ChesshireCat said:

ZM killed the Phantoms from those two.

 

I think I'm one of the only few who prefers the Hasegawa Phantoms over the ZM versions.  Like Hasegawa rear end much better.  ZM just looks odd to me.

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The ZM is a high-end kit. It's designed to sell aftermarket. The rear fuselage cross-section issue is a big problem to my eyes so it makes the kit's value-for-money of the kit plummet. I think there may be still a room for a good, sound, not too sophisticated, good value-for-money yet modern 1/48 Phantom family range to replace the Hasegawa kit.

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First of all, Hasegawa probably suffers a fair bit from (justified) "Airfix syndrome" - "We're already making good models of these aircraft, that we spent a fortune on designing, and they're better than the vast majority of the competition. Why should we redo all of them?"  The difference between Hasegawa and Airfix being that Hasegawa's models still *are* really good and offer everything you expect out of modern kits, despite a lot of them being thirty+ years old, as opposed to Airfix who kept selling 1950s models with raised detail at full price in new boxes in 2006. 

 

All of the models you're talking about replacing - the F-4, the F-14, the F-15, the F-16, the F/A-18A/B/C/D - are making Hasegawa money hand over fist due to the various limited edition boxings which cost nothing more than a new decal sheet and box-art to produce, but can be marked up substantially and people will still buy them.

 

Second, making a new-tool 1/48 kit to Hasegawa's expected standards is a major undertaking that costs a fortune. And their last endeavour in that arena (that I remember at least) was their F-22, which 1 - was beaten to the market by Academy's offering; 2 - initially came out in a hideous pink, with an Idolm@aster Itasha scheme which turned off a lot of people; 3 - instantly developed an internet hatedom for the "huge overscale panel detail"; and 4 - doesn't even have the decency of having multiple interesting paint schemes, to the point where Hasegawa still only has been able to offer two - both depicting pre-series machines. They can't be making anywhere near the amount of money on that project as they had originally planned. 

 

I can see them waiting out all the competition and then releasing the mother of all F-35 kits at some point down the line, or coming out of left field with the finest kit of *something or other that they've never done* at some point, but replacing their current 1/48 lineup? Not a chance. And even the 1/72 lineup is only subject to replacement if the current kits are either so ancient they have raised panel lines (and even then that's no guarantee), or if the kit is so hideously *wrong* that even Hasegawa can see it with the naked eye. (This has happened something like twice that I know of. The first was when the F-117 was new, they had a really really bad artists impression of it out as their original model, which was replaced with a more accurate one a few years later. The second is their Su-27 with its oversized engines, which is now replaced by the much more accurate Su-35S. And I think their MiG-29 was also terribly out of scale, but I don't know if it was replaced or not off hand). 

 

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18 hours ago, Vaildog said:

Consider that at one time the best F-4, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F-18 kits in 1/48 were all produced by Hasegawa.  I appreciate that for the most part Hasegawa builds well, are accurate and don't suffer from excessive parts count. it's too bad they just release reboxings of older kits these days.

 

You forgot F-104. What a beautiful kit it is. No after market needed except for two under wing drop tanks. 

 

Harrier isnt that bad either but its over engineered to accommodate several versions.

 

I m talking about 1/48 only. 

Edited by stalal
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20 minutes ago, stalal said:

You forgot F-104. What a beautiful kit it is. No after market needed except for two under wing drop tanks.

What justifies the DACO upgrade set then ? I don't have the Hasegawa kit nor the DACO set.

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12 minutes ago, Laurent said:

What justifies the DACO upgrade set then ? I don't have the Hasegawa kit nor the DACO set.

 

 

Have a look for yourself at the DACO set.

 

http://www.dacoproducts.com/KDCC4802a.html

 

Basically, it contains a bunch of operator-specific gear, as well as corrected wings (DACO thinks the kit wings are the wrong size), and on the E sprues, a bunch of weapons Hasegawa won't ever make (AS.30 and Kormoran ASMs; B43, B57 and B61 nuclear bombs; and Aspide AAMs).

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3 hours ago, stalal said:

 

You forgot F-104. What a beautiful kit it is. No after market needed except for two under wing drop tanks. 

 

Harrier isnt that bad either but its over engineered to accommodate several versions.

 

I m talking about 1/48 only. 



The F-104 kits in both scales, 1:48 and 1:72 from Hasegawa are spectacular kits. I especially like the 1:48 and the fact they spent the time and money to make the TF-104. 

Another one seemingly forgotten kit from Hasegawa is the 1:48 A-4 series. I wish they would re-release the two-seat version. Still, no one does the A-4 better. Eduard came out with the Hasegawa plastic with added parts, decals etc and really could only replace the seat. Hobby Boss recently came out with their A-4 series (E/F) and although a decent kit, it fails in key areas, for example, the wing leading edge slats are molded shut. A-4's only had this on Blue Angel birds as they were gravity based. 

 

No one does a decent V-22 in 1:72 except Hasegawa either. 

M

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5 hours ago, Laurent said:

What justifies the DACO upgrade set then ? I don't have the Hasegawa kit nor the DACO set.

I have the 1/48th F104c in my stash, and looked at it the other day. Decals suck (already yellow), and the rest seems OK. Maybe not 2017 detail, but plenty good enough. If your after an F104C, Spru Brothers have it for $27!!

gary

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2 hours ago, mhoupt said:



The F-104 kits in both scales, 1:48 and 1:72 from Hasegawa are spectacular kits. I especially like the 1:48 and the fact they spent the time and money to make the TF-104. 

Another one seemingly forgotten kit from Hasegawa is the 1:48 A-4 series. I wish they would re-release the two-seat version. Still, no one does the A-4 better. Eduard came out with the Hasegawa plastic with added parts, decals etc and really could only replace the seat. Hobby Boss recently came out with their A-4 series (E/F) and although a decent kit, it fails in key areas, for example, the wing leading edge slats are molded shut. A-4's only had this on Blue Angel birds as they were gravity based. 

 

No one does a decent V-22 in 1:72 except Hasegawa either. 

M

I just can't get enough Hasegawa A4 kits, but I'm after the earlier versions. It's like they're out of production. Yet great kits!

gary

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6 hours ago, Laurent said:

What justifies the DACO upgrade set then ? I don't have the Hasegawa kit nor the DACO set.

what justifies the DACO upgrade sets? ...some people knows the aircraft, some even have flew it or have worked on...and some others have just better sight than others! the DACO set is for them! 

for example : the wings and tailplanes of the hasegawa 1/48 F-104 are covered with rivets... which don't show on the real thing!

 

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33 minutes ago, camus27 said:

Model companies are weird.  Tamiya could release the F-16B/D variant of their excellent kit, but they haven't.  I suppose it all comes down to the perceived return on their investment. 

 

More like Tamiya and Hasegawa have different philosophies on how you milk your toolings. 

 

Tamiya tends to go "let's sell this one boxing until people lose interest in a decade or so, then we release another version with different parts and rekindle the interest". They don't have special releases or things like that, they just have the best basic kit of one model that the aftermarket will gladly provide all the alternate bits for. Not a lot of other manufacturers stick to this philosophy, but Tamiya are legends and are basically getting away with it. Academy may actually be trying for the same thing, dragging out the potential revenue of their F-4 kit by waiting years between alternate versions rather than releasing everything at once. For sure, it helps with getting a "new tool" kit in their catalog every year, even if it's mostly just new parts and decals for an existing kit.

 

Hasegawa goes "we tool up all the versions, release them over a couple of years, and then we repop the popular kits every so often with special decals and if necessary some new bits, for a markup." Even if they're not the very best anymore, people keep seeing the kits in new boxes that generate interest, and sales. This means they don't get a "new tool" kit in their catalog in a given category every year, but they do get multiple every few years. 

 

Also, it feels a bit like Tamiya's ambition for each new kit is not "best on the market right now", it's "best on the market *forever*", whereas Hasegawa's ambition is the former, with the occasional foray into the latter. 

 

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Sebastian you make some really good point in your posts. I whole heatedly agree with you on what you said about the philosophy of Hasegawa and Tamiya. You can see that they travel different paths.

 

Tamiya continues to release new kits but the schedule does not seem to be on any set time frame. Their recent F-14 has been labeled as the best kit people have built in a long time. I have one and I have also built the Monogram F-14 so I think I would be able to compare. Their Ki-61 seems to be a similar kit too in terms of fit and finish and ease of build. Same can be said of their recent Bf 109G-6. Also, we have to remember that Tamiya also has their armour lines both in 1/35th and 1/48th and new kits coming out there too.

 

One thing you do notice is that Tamiya seems to be planning on future versions based on the way the kit is broken down but for some reason we never get to see that release. Their F-16 is broken down so that a 2 seater can be released down the road. One day I guess. I was also hoping for a 1/48 F4U-4 but so far no luck.

 

I have a ton of Hasegawa kits in 1/48th but I will probably be replacing them with Tamiya versions like my 1/48th Bf 109G-6. I will not build many of those so I will pick one and that would be the Tamiya kit.

 

 

Edited by skyhawk174
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4 hours ago, SebastianP said:

 

They don't have special releases or things like that, they just have the best basic kit of one model that the aftermarket will gladly provide all the alternate bits for. Not a lot of other manufacturers stick to this philosophy,

 

 

Every time I build a Tamiya kit, I fail to justify need for after market. Their kits are so complete and accurate that not even after market decals are needed. 

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I have often wondered why Academy stopped with the C/D and did not proceed to do the E and other long nose Phantom variants. They did quietly re-issue the B as a B/N  in 2017, but otherwise they just seemed to stop with the Phantom Phamily.  They did fill in the holes in the Hasegawa phantom line up, the Hasegawa B/N and the C/D are both raised panel line kits. With the Academy kits we now have a engraved panel line B/N, and aside from the Esci kit, they were the only engraved C/D until the ZM kit came out.

 

I understand Hasegawa's strategy, but it is frustrating to wait around for a special re-issue of the variant you want.  In the meantime,  the less often issued variants become hard to find, and expensive if you can find them.  Ever try to find an RF-4C or an A-4B ? 

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Tamiya is a hobby products producer: scale modelling, RC, Mini racing cars & tracks. Hasegawa is focused on scale modelling. Different marketing approach can be expected.

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4 hours ago, stalal said:

 

Every time I build a Tamiya kit, I fail to justify need for after market. Their kits are so complete and accurate that not even after market decals are needed. 

 

That's great if you're satisfied with building whatever version Tamiya provides in their box. If I want to build an F-14B though, I need alternate engines - that's the kind of stuff I was talking about.

 

Also, unless they've started adding monstrous PE frets to their re-released 1/350 ship kits, those kind of do need aftermarket details. Then again, they're 80s kits. 

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On 3/27/2018 at 9:08 AM, stalal said:

 

You forgot F-104. What a beautiful kit it is. No after market needed except for two under wing drop tanks. 

 

Harrier isnt that bad either but its over engineered to accommodate several versions.

 

I m talking about 1/48 only. 


And wings. The Hasegawa 104 wings were clearly tooled by Trumpeter's mad riveter. Real 104 wings are smooth, flush riveted and those rivets aren't visible.

The Daco set's primary value outside the weapons is a set of wings that haven't been run over by a post-hole cutter.

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12 minutes ago, mawz said:

The Daco set's primary value outside the weapons is a set of wings that haven't been run over by a post-hole cutter.

 

This gave me a chuckle. I spent a month trying to fill in the rivets. 

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