If you’ve been aching to see a mash-up of anime schoolgirls and World War 2 warships, your agonizing wait is finally over! A the All Japan Model & Hobby Show 2013, model companies Tamiya, Aoshima and Hasegawa presented an all-new collaborative mix for fans of the video game Kantai Collection or “KanColle” (a free-to-play online social card game). The protagonists of the game are anthropomorphic battle ships from the Second World War – seriously, why are the Japanese the only ones who could come up with such an idea?).
Each box has a a ship produced by Tamiya or Hasegawa (both companies are reknowned for their military scale models), while Aoshima produce gadgets dedicated to the girl characters from the video game.
The idea is simple yet brilliant. Model kits in 1/700 scale from Tamiya are not a great success so they’ve got the stocks, but now, thanks to this re-packaging in the “Kantai Collection” for otaku (basically, Japanese nerds) they should see their popularity rise, at least in Japan. It will be interesting to see how Western static model fans take this mix (ships of the Second World War and manga girls is certainly not a mix that you see every day).
