It’s not only in cars and planes that I have a love for the weird and wonderful; I also like to get kits of oddball armoured subjects! While there’s nothing wrong with Shermans and Panthers, it’s nice to have a few less common vehicles to compare them too. Thankfully, when it comes to 1/76 armour, both Matchbox and Fujimi seem to have covered a lot of the bases!

A perfect example of this is the 1/76 Fujimi Type 97-Kai “Chi-Ha”. This was one of Japan’s “heavier” tanks of the war, and it makes an interesting, if not anemic, counterpoint to its much more powerful contemporaries. I managed to pick this little old gem up at a model show, so I didn’t even have to pay much for it!
Check out the kit out of box at the link below. Even if it’s not your thing, you’ll have to admit it looks pretty good for its age and size!

https://adamrehorn.wordpress.com/fujimi-176-type-97-kai-shinhoto-chi-ha-oob/

The 1/76 Fugimi kits from the era of this kit were an advance on what the limited number of small scale makers were offering at the time as well as before. Their kits often included a figure(s) and also some minimal stowage. These were true gems and in certain ways on or equal to what more modern manufacturers were producing and still a very nice value compared to the over simplified offerings of certain makers today.

For future reference, you might like place your thoughts and work in the Braille Scale Forum where more afficienados of the small scales dwell.

Cheers,
Jan

Adam, great blog / review, though I must confess to some disappointment after reading all of it that there were no photos of the built kit... Then I remembered it was just an inbox review, so good job on raising the modelling excitement level!

Like the lengthy discussion of the box art, something that is often very appealing in old kits. If I recall correctly there is (or was) some rules about showing pictures of guns being fired on the box art, so that Japanese kits were never topped with pics like those of Airfix kits which always seemed to have all guns blazing. Happy to be proved wrong though. On the ability of this tank to blow the turret off a Sherman, I think, being generous, that we could assume that the Sherm caught fire, setting off the rounds in an internal explosion which did the damage. The Sherman is on the left by the way... not the right

I also note that the top view of the camo scheme is included in the instructions, something that I've been bemoaning even in the Zvezda Terminator kit where no top view is given of the scheme I'm currently attempting.

Thanks for bringing back a lot of my childhood modelling memories. This kit and several other entries in Fujimi's 1/76-scale armour line were my first forays into the hobby.

Adam, great to see this blog review. I had this and the early chi ha as a kid and loved them!
I built many Fuji 1/76 tank kits and fondly remember the diorama accessory sets that included themes like pillboxs/ammo dumps/watch towers. Great fun to build and play with as a kid and nice to see they can still be found now and again.
Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for all the positive feedback about the review, guys!

I didn't even notice the braille scale forum, so I'll try to remember that for next time!

As for the box art, I didn't know that about the guns blazing. I'll have to look at some of my other old Japanese kits. I know I have an LS Judy dropping a bomb, as well as an LS Ki-109 that has a B-29 blowing up, but no guns firing on those. Interesting "work arounds" on those! I do love me some old fashioned box art, though.

I will always talk about the box art when I can; to me it's one of the most fun parts of having a kit you haven't built yet!

The kit does look nice, and I'm hoping it'll build well.

Once it's done, it will, of course, get its own built review, so there will be pictures of it then, I promise!