Sponsored Kit Reviews: Zuikaku
Part Four (in box review):

Hobbylink Japan has supplied J-Ships.com with this kit.	Tom's Modelworks has supplied J-Ships.com withthe photo-etched parts for this kit.

Manufacturer: Nichimo
Scale: 1/500
Medium: Plastic Injection
Reviewer: Jason Abraham
Model rating: 8/10

Spec Sheet on the Shokaku class

Coming soon:

Model of the Zuikaku

A Brief History: Probably the most successful and battle tested carrier calss in the entire Japanese arsenal. The Shokakus were an elegant and deadly class of aircraft carrier. Seeing action from the first day of the Pacific war through to the last major campaign the Nihon Kaigun ever staged the Zuikaku was loved by her countrymen and greatly respected by her foes. Unfortunatly, her final sortie, in Japans attempt to destoy the Americans as they sought to recapture the Philippines, she was used as bait, along with three light carriers, to lure the American carriers from covering the rest of the fleet in and around Lyete. She performed admirably and was finally sunk by overwhelming air attacks.

I was hesitant about getting this model as I had only seen two other ships in this scale by Nichimo and both were very poor (Nagato and Takao) by todays standards. I have never built in this scale and have built only two ships outside of the 1/700 scale (1/350 Tamiya Yamato and 1/125 Blue Devil USN DD). What I was most worried about was the railings. The Takao had solid plastic railings everywhere. To build her you had two choices: 1.remove the railings which takes patience and time or 2. leave the railings, suck it up, and live with an average model to display.

The Zuikaku is very nice by comparison. There are no railings to remove, everything looks good for scale, there is flash on several portions of the kit, but this is the norm for Nichimo. I have ordered the full photo etched set from Tom's Modelworks ( three different sets altogether) and plan the Zuikaku as a fall build. I will put aside three months to complete her and expect the end results to look very nice indeed. I expect there to be some discrepancies in several of the parts, so with my Gakken book in hand I will set to work shortly. Wish me luck!