Friday, July 18, 2014

Flying Tanks and Pancake Planes: Shinkigensha Secret Weapon Gashapon


Here's a little booklet that I got while I lived in Japan that's from a series of collector toys based on concept vehicles from World War 2. These small toy collections are available in convenience stores and cover diverse subjects like movie characters, historical subjects, and pop culture. I've seen them for Ray Harryhausen monsters, gladiators, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and armor of famous samurai. 

The miniatures themselves are all various scales but were consistent in the high quality of paint jobs, decals, and overall finish. All of the text is in Japanese but I think they have some great ideas for paint schemes and markings. I've added links to Wikipedia articles about each vehicle in the captions.

Landkreuzer P. 1000 Ratte

Any German speakers who can translate the motto on the side?

Focke Wulf Triebflügel

Vought V-173

Special Number 3 Light Tank Ku-Ro

Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee
You'd think she's at least be wearing a helmet.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I'm not sure. I think the Ratte was a couple of inches long but they're all scaled differently.

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