Model Art Co, Ltd

Model Art Modeling Magazine #5 (no. 704) May 2006 issue

Reviewed By  Mike Howard, IPMS# 30741

MSRP: ¥1050 JPY (*approx $9.25 USD) Wow! I just wish I could read Japanese! I'd previously skimmed through one of these magazines on the hobby shop stands, but never really looked at one in depth. Having received this issue, as a review sample, makes me aware of the visual treat that I'd been missing. The magazine is very diverse in the subjects that it covers. This issue has 5 articles on aircraft (build and reference), 2 on cars, 2 on ships, one on armor and one on figures. Some of these are merely pictures of completed kits while others are quite in depth build reviews. The reference sections are a nice combination of pictures and color profiles. The major focus for issue #5 is the Ki-43. There are 6 pages of color profiles, 9 pages of references photos (some being WWII photos and some being recent color photos of a restored plane) and a complete review of available kits and some pre-builts for this neat little airplane. The kit reviews have in-process and completed photos and cover all the way back to the early Nichimo kits to the latest Hasegawa and Fine Molds releases. Some detail and decal sets are also reviewed during the builds. A must have for anyone that is a fan of the Ki-43. The other aircraft articles cover reviews of the newly released 1/144th RoG An-124 and the 1/72nd Tu-160 Blackjack and also a couple nice of pages, both profiles and color photos, on the F-15DJ. The auto articles cover the 1/24th Tamiya Ferrari F40 converted from a race version to a street model, with the help of some resin bits, and a build of a 1/43rd scale resin/multi media Porsche 962C (one of my favorites!). Another nice review in the ships section covers a 1/700th Lexington aircraft carrier (I was unable to determine the manufacturer) and also another 1/700th scale ship of which I could determine neither the type of ship or manufacturer (some articles have a bit of English text, but this last was all in Japanese). Armor consists of a review article for the new 1/35th Tamiya Stug III B. This looks like a very nice kit! For figures, a review of the 1/35th Dragon "German Mine Detectors" is covered. Again there are nice pics of both unbuilt, in process and completed figures. A couple of picture groupings from model shows are spread out in the magazine also. As I made my way through the pages I saw lots of advertising for new items, tools, accessories and other bits that I've never seen available in the U.S. Some look quite useful while others were nothing I could recognize or grasp their purpose from the small photos! The photography is a good mix of high quality color and B&W pictures that will keep the reader interested for quite some time. If you like a lot of visual stimulation and have never cracked open the cover of a Model Art modeling magazine, I'd highly recommend taking a look through one. Though the language barrier is a slight hindrance (if you're not able to read Japanese), the pictures and bits of English captioning go a long way to make this a worthwhile read. Thanks to Kohei Ida of Model Art and IPMS/USA for the review sample.

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