Reviews : Hasegawa Nakajima B5N2 (Kate)

Generally I have a high opinion of Hasegawa products, so it is with regret that I have to say this was not the best model. I think this kit must come from ancient molds because there is tons of flash and the fit is very poor. It’s also missing some rather important details. For example, the wheel housing is pretty sparse, and the torpedo should have extra fins, but doesn’t. Aside from that, it still has fairly good detail in panel lines etc., however, many of those details are often lost because of the poor molding and serious issues with fit. I had to trim, sand, putty, and cuss to an extraordinary degree to get the pieces to look halfway proper. The canopy is also very thick, so that one side shows a reflection of the other (it’s a weird optical illusion!). On a brighter side it comes with three decal and painting options. But again, there are only a few decals for each option, and the painting guide (especially for the Hiryu version) leaves much to be desired. For an easier cleaner build, you’d probably be better off going for the Airfix version.

This kit was disappointing The biggest tick off was the landing gear I wanted my gear up but The wheels are too large to fit in the wells. So I had to widen the wells and cut the landing gear cover to cover the rest of the wheel well as it comes only in the wheels down position. This is not my 1st scratch build so I got it to work The landing gear will be fine if you build them in the down postion. The engine assembly was not the best fitting but can be made to work. The painting chart is not great either as I was hoping to use the carrier decals akagi or Hiryu would be fine instead I have to mix paints to get the colors listed annoying So the red tail land based squadron is the easiest color scheme. The tail hook also had no hole in the fuselage attached it taking a best guess on the position. I would suggest getting another companies Kate this one isn't worth it.

I started buying models of this company back in the early 70's at a time when Japanese products were shaking off the stigma of being cheap copies of American products. After all these years I finally got my Kate. This model has a fair number of pieces but fit together well. You can build it with the landing gear up or down. Armament includes a torpedo and a defensive machinegun in rear copit. The decals are nice. It would have been nice if there were crewmen or maybe the option of instead of the torpedo mounting a bomb such as the one that sank the Arizona.

Great quality I didn't find any flash ad great details and easy instructions and the decals awesome I recommend it

Great kit, excellent fit, good decals. My only complaint is the lack of air crew figures.

Good kit parts fit well, would recommended, nice decal sheet

nice kit for beginners,...well detailed.easy to build,...