Ki-61-ii prototipe or A serie....

This is the Fine Molds 1/72 kit...may be the most expensive kit even bought in my entirely life. An absolute non sense...I bought it at beginning of nineties just because I could do it ...the box contains a typical Hasegawa 1/72 kit, i.e. bright and brittle plastic with a few recessed lines, but with two set of fuselage halves...the usual set for Ki-61 and the other imitating a stressed material...not bad really, and a little set of metal parts: propellers, undercarriage, and an huge spinner absolutely out of proportions...but the soft metal permits to clean the excess with easy. At that time, the addition of metal parts to plastic kits was in its infancy and Fine Molds asserts its products as it was an enormous contribution. 
The building process was like with any Hasegawa kit...smooth and easy. I had the temptation to paint the model with highly polished natural metal finish, but I thought Japan industry was, in the final stages of the war, in the worst conditions to test new machines, so, I'd decide for opaque and dirty NMF.
Well, each time I saw my Fine Molds Ki-61 in the shelf my heart is squeezed and a guilty feeling comes over me...ooh, damn arrogance!!