DA.C - Calibre Wings Japanese Tomcat "Mona Cat"

Got the Calibre Wings "Mona Cat" tomcat today. Per the little card that came with it, it's one of 1500 or so made, which is certainly high for a release in 2020. high, but not unreasonable. This model should sell well both in japan and overseas and while they won't necessarily all sell immediately, the appeal of this what-if model is such that they should all sell.

This is not just a "what if" of a tomcat in a japanese blue livery which first appeared on a number of japanese phantoms and then later made its way to F2s and perhaps other aircraft, it's a bit more than that in that they went out of their way to "japanize" or at least "what-if-ize" the model itself. examples of this include the f-2 / f-16 like antennas on the canopy as well as the irst ball.

The good:
*once you get it all together, it's undoubtedly an attractive model. sure, it's entirely mythical, but it's plausible, which is why it will join my shelves where the macross stuff won't.
* best 1/72 pilots in the business
* great wash on gear
* canopy fit is good, overall qa is fine - on par with hobbymaster or better
* nary a seam to be seen.
* plenty of tampo stencils to add interest.

The not so good:
* both glove pylons fell apart into their 4 constituent pieces right out of the box. a little ca glue fixed this.
* it only came with one, easily losable nose probe.
* for unclear reasons, the form factor of the box it came in is different than that for previous calw tomcats. maybe it's because this is part of the 'dream cats' series but even so, its annoying.
* the painting overall is good. however, the blue shows almost no feathering - just a sharp demarcation line. but it still looks good.

The interesting
* phoenix pylons installed but no phoenix missiles included. I have CW extras i suppose.
* the sidewinders are oddly 'toothed'. i guess this is some what-if thing.
* i thought i had ordered the "normal" (not "clean") version of this, but i might be mistaken and they never sold a normal version. as it were, this version is clean.

overall recommendation: solid buy. you won't be disappointed. you'll remember this far more than some forgettable albeit historical all-grey tomcat. and, the last hobbymaster tomcat i got (OIF, VF-2) was so crap compared to this.