What is happening with Fujimi?
In the UK, Fujimi kits are becoming rather difficult to acquire. The Hannants website has them all listed as "Limited availability", yet up until recently it had a couple of kits listed as "Future Releases". I have read on the internet that Fujimi is no longer being imported into the UK. Yet, I have also read other comments ("the late, lamented Fujimi") that seem to imply the company is no longer trading.
What is going on?
Fujimi had a nice range of kits and they had ranges within ranges that seemed to attempt to replicate every version of a certain aircraft type. I currently have examples of their A-7E, OA-4M and Sea King kits in my stash. Despite all of them being over twenty years old, they are still very nice kits indeed. I would certainly buy more of the A-7s if they were available. The Fujimi US-style Phantoms were also very nice (I have an F-4F in my stash) although they are not up to the standard of the latest Hasegawa kits. The Fujimi British Phantoms are a different kettle of fish, however, being the only truly accurate kits available.
And that brings me to a strange observation that I have made. I've recently been buying up a few of the Fujimi Brit Phantom kits, just in case they disappear forever (yes, I *am* going to build them!) I mostly have the "Alcock and Brown" kit which is very nice indeed. I recently managed to get hold of an earlier kit, the "F-4M Shark's Teeth" boxing.
I was convinced that these were the same kit, with the shark's teeth version just having a sprue of air-to-ground ordnance included. However, it seems that the later version has been almost completely retooled! The later kit has seperate drooping ailerons, deployed speed brakes, a retooled fuselage with deeper auxiliary inlets, new multi-part jet exhausts, a more detailed cockpit and a choice of all plastic wheels or wheels with rubber tyres.
The early version is a very nice kit indeed. The later, retooled version is even nicer. But I don't see the need for Fujimi to have retooled a perfectly good kit. I'm not complaining, of course, but it puzzles me that Fujimi should have seen the need to fix something that wasn't broken!