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I like this old kit. I'll try to explain why. The "Nippon" (Japan) was one in a series of conversions for civil use stemming from the Mitsubishi G3M line. Several planes, not always identical, were converted or modified for a number of civil duties: passenger and cargo flying and "good will", record, or propaganda flights. The details are complex and extensive, so we'll untangle them later on. Here is a list, taken from the Golden Years registers, of all the Mitsubishi transports I could find there: J-BAAS Mitsubishi L3Y1 Asahi Shimbun J-BACI Mitsubishi G3M2 Osaka Mainichi Shimbun and Tokyo Nichinichi 00.08.39 J-BADY Mitsubishi L3Y2 J-BEOA Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Soyokaze' J-BEOC Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) Dai Nihon KKK 'Yamato' (Conversion of 96/G3M2) J-BEOD Mitsubishi twin engined transport DNKKK 00.10.39 (Conversion of 96/G3M1) J-BEOE Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) Dai Nihon KKK 'Tatsukaze' (Conversion of 96/G3M2) J-BEOF Mitsubishi twin engined transport DNKKK 00.04.40 (Conversion of 96/G3M1) J-BEOG Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) Dai Nihon KKK 'Matukaze' (Conversion of 96/G3M2) J-BFOE Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Amatsukaze' 00.03.40 J-BFOF Mitsubishi twin engined transport DNKKK 00.03.40 Forcelanded in sea and sunk off Haneda J-BJOD Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Isokaze' 00.01.41 J-BJOE Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Hamakaze' 00.11.40 J-BJOF Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Okikaze' 00.01.41 J-BJOG Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Namikaze' 00.01.41 J-BJOH Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Hokaze' 00.01.41 J-BJOI Mitsubishi G3M2 (Navy type 96) DNKKK 'Yakaze' 00.02.41 (DNKKK: Dai Nippon Kōkū Kabushiki Kaisha, Imperial Japanese Airways 大日本航空株式会社) J-BACI, one of the two subjects that can be modeled with this kit, made an around-the-world flight, http://airhistory-nippon.la.coocan.jp/nipponflight.html visiting many countries and attracting a great deal of attention (no doubt the goal of such endeavor). Among those countries was Argentina, with the plane landing in Buenos Aires. Many of the flights performed by the civil variants of the plane where as said in the category of "good will" flights. However, considering the events immediately after (like Pearl Harbor), one perhaps should be a tad skeptical assessing the real nature of them. Regarding the different registrations/machines, it's not just a matter of slapping them on, since there were many differences among machines, some quite evident. As always, base your model and detail on photographic evidence, and pay little heed to captions and written descriptions, many times inaccurate. For the moment, and regarding the kit, it must be said that this tool -with modifications and additions- was released a large number of times covering a variety of subject through many years. This last incarnation in civil guise by Arii, is still, in spite of of its vintage, a nice package at a very convenient price. So what do we get? We get a bag where everything but the instructions is packed: transparencies, decals, sprues. Not the best packaging, as we know. But there is a piece of rigid cardboard to support the load. The transparencies contain many parts not to be used, as they belong to the bang-boing-paf versions, for which I care much less than little. The decals cover two civil versions, J-BACI and J-BEOC. The parts are modified to cover this civil versions, but still some things will need to be added. The surface is interesting, consisting -again, old mold- of myriads of engraved rivets and panel lines. Of course a bit exaggerated. Nothing that an invigorating exercising sanding session -or many- won't take care of. A blast from the past: the place for the hinomarus is also engraved on the wings -now that is vintage for you-. The interior detail I strongly suspect belongs more to the other versions than to the civil ones . No cabin detail whatsoever, but some cockpit detail. The landing gear legs can rotate upwards!! -this always reminds me of the 60's and the Beatles:-) The rest has a rational break-down and again interesting surfaces and detail, we will see this as we advance on the build. I think this old kit in its new guise can be turned into a decent model -and you can see many good ones on the Net, some exceptionally built. Let's see what we got: Out of the cellophane bag: The transparencies are not bad at all: Although the surface is slightly pebbled and looks faintly milky. Future bath in its future, no doubt: The hinomaru placement mark (I know...), the hail dimples or golf ball rivets, but quite restrained panel lines. My idea is to sand the surfaces quite a bit to reduce those golf ball dimples to their minimum expressions, and refresh the panel lines if needed: A view of the second sprue: The engines are molded integrally with the cowl. If not awfully wrong or offending, I nevertheless just ordered after-market ones and will remove them, which also facilitates painting -however, the cowl was black on the original plane, so you may get away painting everything black and picking the engine up with a dry-brush of silver-: The main sprue. The Japanese figures look a bit circumspect or pensive: Some of the parts, a bit of flash, some ejector pin marks, the usual: Instrument panel, not bad if you want just a quick build: The props, not really accurate but passable, again, if you just want a quick build: