Today we take a look at Tamiya's A6M5, but does it live up to the company's prestigious reputation?
Aircraft: Mitsubishi / Nakajima A6M5 Zero
Brand: Tamiya
Scale: 1:72
Price: £22.49
Rating: 4/5
Background
There's not too much of a background I can give regarding why I built this kit, other than that I'll say I'm not usually a big fan of Japanese wartime aircraft; at least, not enough to have the motivation to build models of them. However, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero series has always been an exception to me. It just looks right. The first Zero I built was an A6M2 by Airfix, so I partly believe I bought this one just to be able to compare the different variants together. Maybe I wanted to compare the quality of the Airfix Zero to that of the Tamiya one - I'm truthfully not sure.
Anyway, enough of the waffling. On to the build!
The Build
My first noteworthy observation about this kit didn't even require opening the box. It's very minimalist and incredibly smart looking as a result, standing out from the other kits in the shop incredibly well.
But you know this kit means serious business when you open the box for a look at what's inside.
Unlike any other sprue I've seen before, Tamiya provides all of the model's parts in a very fancy looking silver colour. It looked fancy enough to make me consider building the model without painting it in any way, and even after finishing it the idea of buying another one to keep silver is still on the cards. It does a great job at making the model feel like it's very important; so no pressure if you find yourself with this kit!
Additionally, the kit includes two booklets - one being the standard instruction booklet, the other being an informative guide about the history of the Zero which includes very in-depth information about the aircraft, its design, service life and different variants used throughout World War II. I found this booklet to be a good read in itself and learned some history about the model I'd be building, which is something I find very important to the hobby.
The cockpit detail on this model is far greater than any I've seen before, but I can't help but feel it's just too great for a kit of this scale. Though, from my understanding Tamiya's 1/72 aircraft are just downscaled re-releases of their 1/48 kits (but of course I could be mistaken here) so I can certainly understand the reasoning if this is the case.
If not, I can't help but feel there's too much interior detail being piled into a model so small, and there are many fiddly parts that often just get lost. It's great for model builders with an eye for such detail (which I understand is a great amount of you) and this is definitely my personal opinion being voiced here. Feel free to have a discussion with me about this topic.
Anyway, I digress so onwards with the build.
I found the order of assembly for this kit to be a break from the norm this time around. You assemble the engine and its cowling, but they are put aside for a little while as the kit directs you to assemble the rest of the fuselage and the landing gear. Only after those are done does the kit tell you to put the engine into place.
The important thing to say is most of the parts fit into place pretty nicely. However, I did find some difficulty in getting the wings to hold in place properly, which truthfully is an issue that I never managed to resolve and can be seen in my final build. In addition to this, there's a rather nasty seam line along the top of the fuselage that I never got the chance to cover up, so definitely have some putty on hand when building this kit. Additionally, I had some frustration trying to fit the engine intake in place properly, but I got there in the end.
The build process concludes with adding a couple more fiddly parts - these being two wing-mounted guns, the standard pitot tube on the port side wing and the radio antenna on the back of the cockpit, which actually fitted to this model far better than these pieces have done in other kits I've built. Additionally, the cockpit canopy has probably been one of the best-fitting ones I've experienced so far.
Now it was time to say goodbye to that smart silver mould that I'd spent the build being so impressed by.
To paint the Zero I fittingly used Tamiya paints for the majority of the airframe, more specifically XF-11 (IJN Green) for the top side and XF-12 (IJN Grey) for the underside. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the paint applied to the model surface perfectly after a few coats.
From what I've heard is a regular occurrence with Tamiya kits is the very limited array of decal options for their models, and this kit is no exception. There are three different marking options for the Zero listed as Options A, B and C, and while there are ways to tell each one apart, at first glance they all look very similar. If you want the kit to be historically accurate, it's crucial to decide which Zero you are building before you put it together.
The three Zero decal options provided in the kit are summarised as follows:
Option A: Nakajima build. Has a brown prop spinner and the underbelly paint job rises up to the elevators. Has a tailhook.
Option B: Mitsubishi build. Has a brown prop spinner and the underbelly paint job does not rise up to the elevators. Does not have a tailhook.
Option C: Nakajima build. Has a silver prop spinner and the underbelly paint job rises up to the elevators. Has a tailhook.
To my slight disappointment the kit does not provide decals for a home defence Zero with the white outline on the hinomaru (Japanese rising sun roundel), but instead only provides the black outline hinomaru that was applied to Japanese aircraft being used for offensive missions. At first I preferred the look of the home defence roundel, but searching for aftermarket decals of it provided me with no results, so I had to resort to using the black outline. Good thing it managed to grow on me, and I decided to depict my Zero as the one given in Option C.
In my opinion, the Zero passed the decal test with flying colours. The most important larger decals fitted into place perfectly and and for the most part I didn't even have to worry about using decal setting solution!
...that being said, I used it anyway as the smaller decals weren't so cooperative.
Conclusion
While I must regrettably admit that the Tamiya A6M5 did not exceed my (admittedly high) expectations, it certainly met them. It really is a great kit and is an example of Tamiya's remarkable eye for authenticity and great detail, even in the smaller scale of 1/72. I won't deny that I came through some issues with this kit and it's by no means flawless, particularly with regard to fitting, but all in all the Zero definitely ranks as one of my better builds. I can confidently say that I'll be coming back to Tamiya for more models in the future, and I certainly recommend this kit to anyone with an interest in warbirds and/or Japanese aviation.
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