Not sure when I’ll have a chance to start this, but I recently broke down and ordered another kit from Zootoyz.jp, Woody Joe’s Kitamaebune kit.

This is the company’s latest wasen model kit offering, but has actually been out on the market for quite some time. The release date was February of 2016, I believe. But, I’ve been too busy with other projects to pay too much attention. Finally, with all my Japanese models on display for a month, the emptiness at home must have gotten to me (that and some extra money I’ve managed to set aside), and I ordered one from Japan.

The postman is very accustomed to delivering these EMS packages from Japan.

Of course, I always order my Woody Joe kits from Zootoyz. Service is always quick, and prices are even discounted a bit. The site’s owner, Kazunori Morikawa, has spent some time recently revamping the site. The result is really nice and very organized.

I actually kept the kit sealed in the box for quite a while, as I didn’t want to get too distracted from other things I needed to get done. But, I finally broke down and opened it up to check it out.

Looks, and smells, like a Woody Joe kit – If you know the scent of hinoki, you know what I mean.

I’ve only browsed through the instructions, but the kit bears similarities to the more detailed Higaki Kaisen kit. This kit builds a slightly bigger model, by about 1″, and many laser-cut parts have been created to make construction much easier. Unlike the Higaki Kaisen, this kitt doesn’t detail any of the interior, but it also cuts a lot of the total construction time.

The Higaki Kaisen is listed as taking 100 hours to build. The Kitamaebune is listed at 70 hours. Of course, there are a lot of factors that go into build time. I think my Higaki Kaisen build took me at least 50% more time than listed. But, I’m guessing that experience will help reduce the build time on this new kit.

Of course, I haven’t built this kit, so I can’t say for sure. But, it looks like this would be a good next kit after building the Hacchoro kit, which is a good one to start with if you want to try building a Woody Joe traditional Japanese boat kit.

You can order this from Zootoyz.jp for about $270 including Express Mail Shipping. Looks like a good kit and I’m looking forward to building it. Hopefully, I can hold off until I get some other project work done. Ω