I was hoping to complete three builds this month (which I did). I have several of the Kotobuki kits in the stash. Several of them are Ki43-I's. Having built this kit in a different boxing a couple of times already, I knew it would be a relatively simple build. Also, I already created a mask for it (which can be downloaded from here), so I was all set.

Side note; The Might Kotoobuki is an anime series, followed by a movie. I'm not a big anime fan, but I did pick up blu-rays of the series and the movie. I like the kits because they're a bit different than the usual WWII planes.

The kit went together without any issues. I primed with Krylon Colormaxx White Primer in a rattle can. I don't know if I've used this before, but it worked well enough. The overall NMF is Tamiya XF-16 Flat Aluminum. I thinned with plain lacquer thinner (can't remember if it was Tamiya or generic) when I sprayed the bottom. I thinned with Mr. Leveling Thinner when I sprayed the top. The kit actually comes with decals for the green camouflage, but I painted the camo for two reasons. First, I don't like applying large decals. Second, the decals would have had to align with the yellow on the wing leading edge, and I thought that would be too tricky to do. Instead, I painted the camo using Model Air 71.285 IJA Dark Green using a micro brush. I was rather pleased with how it turned out, although it could have been thicker in a couple of places - the NMF shows through. The spinner front was Vallejo Model Color Flat Yellow.

Even aside from the camo, there were several large decals on this one. A couple of them broke as I was applying them, but I was able to repair them to a point I was happy. In retrospect, I should have broken them up and applied them in pieces. As it turns out, most of the other Ki43-I's in this series don't have the large decals, so perhaps I should have started with one of those!

These kits also come with a little two-dimensional figure of the pilot, in this case Zara. It's shown in the last photograph.

Page last updated August 3, 2026.