Aoshima M6A1 "Serian"

Review and Photo by: Scott Van Aken

Scale: 1/72

Kit Number: 206

Price: $5.00

Media: Injected plastic

Decals: Just Hinomarus

Date of Review: 26 December 1997

The M6A1 'Serian' was specifically designed to be carried on the huge Japanese I-boat submarines. It's purpose was to bomb the locks of the Panama Canal andhopefully slow down the huge amount of war materiel being used against Japan. There were two boats with Serians on the way to perform this task when Japan surrendered due to the atomic bomb. This aircraft was so unknown by the Allies, that it was not given a code name.

Aoshima's kit is probably one of the crudest ever built. Typical of all their early aircraft kits, this one was festooned with solftball-sized rivets. Although just a basicshape, it is fairly accurate. I spend a lot of time redoing the chin intake and puttying the wing/fuselage joint. The propeller in the kit was misshapen and quite poor.The prop from a Revell He-219 was substituted and looks convincing enough. While I used the kit insignia, the code letters came from the spares box. This kit was built in the early 1980's when the type was still relatively unknown. Now you are fortunate enough to have superb 1/72 and 1/48 Tamiya kits to build instead of having to hack away at the Aoshima kit.

This kit is not recommended by me. Get the Tamiya one.

To see reviews of other kits, I invite you to visit my web site. and click on the 'Modelling Pages' section on the Contents page.