Product Availability

Unfortunately, being in Japan does not mean that all hobby products by all manufacturers are always available. In other words, many of the items on our pages are out of stock, even if we haven't marked them as out-of-production.

In order to give our customers a good idea about their chances to acquire a particular product, we assign a "Production Status" code to every item in our catalog. This code is shown at the top of each item's catalog page. Those codes are Standard, Limited, Spot, Garage, Dormant and Out-of-Production.

Why are many of the items on our pages out of stock? Consider how hobby products are manufactured: Unlike automobiles, or computers, or other products that take a long time to physically manufacture, thousands of model kits can be manufactured in just a few days. Of course, the original tooling can take months to prepare, but once it is completed, the actual kits can be cranked out very easily. For this reason, manufacturers usually only produce a given item once a year or so, depending on its popularity. That's why if we run out of stock of something, it may take months to get more, even though the item is not "out-of-production." If you understand how this works, and are willing to be patient, you can use our service to get yourself a copy of just about any Japanese hobby kit that is still manufactured.

Another reason we have chosen to list even very hard-to-get items is that this way, our web site can also serve as a useful reference for the modeling community as to what items have been produced in the past, even if we cannot supply the item at the moment. That way, customers can try to get the item from other merchants, as well.

In most cases, new products are available without difficulty for two or three months after their initial release. However, beyond that, the situation varies greatly by manufacturer. Here is some background information on the various manufacturers.

Tamiya:
As by far the world's largest maker of plastic models, Tamiya alone has the financial strength to afford to hold significant quantities of stock of their own products. That means that almost anything that is in their current catalog is usually available. Even when it's not, they usually manufacture and ship a new batch of the item relatively quickly. The only exception to this rule is older 1/35 military items or some 1/20 and 1/12 F1 cars, which are "spot" production. These are generally only produced once every two or three years.

Hasegawa:
On the other end of the spectrum is Hasegawa, which holds virtually no stock of its own products. While wholesalers will usually have stock of the company's recent releases for a few months, older items -- even those still in-production -- are often very hard to come by. Especially difficult are those kits with three-digit product numbers (e.g. "JT105") or those with five-digit product codes after the HSG in our codes. These items are usually decal variants of their standard kits and are only ever produced once. You should order them at release if you hope to get one.

Bandai:
So you'd like the latest Gundam Master Grade kit, would you? Well, so would everybody in Japan. Bandai's hot new products are sometimes hard to come by for the first couple of months after release. Be prepared to wait. We can sometimes only buy about 1/3 to 1/2 of the quantity of these kits that we'd like to. Other items, like older Gundam kits and kits from other, older anime series like Patlabor, Yamato/Starblazers and Evangelion are available on a hit-and-miss basis. Bandai manufactures them generally about once per year, so availability just depends on the season.

Fujimi, Aoshima, Fine Molds:
Usually have stock on their more popular items, but are frequently out of the more obscure pieces. When stocks are depleted, many months sometimes pass before their next production run.

Arii and Imai:
Imai went bankrupt in 2002 and most of their products are now offered by Aoshima. Arii offers almost nothing new, just recycling old products. Most of their product line-up is very infrequently manufactured and hard-to-get as a result.

Garage kits (Kotobukiya, Wave, Volks, Max Factory, B-Club, etc.):
Most garage kits are like flowers -- beautiful for a moment, but then gone forever. These firms hold some stock of their own, but it is often of the less-popular items. Shipments of popular kits are often pre-sold completely even before they leave the manufacturer. Most kits only have production runs of 500-1,000 pieces to begin with. In addition, these companies are usually too busy producing new items to do another production run of older items. Garage kits more than 18 months past initial release are almost always impossible to find. If you're serious about Japanese garage kit modeling, you should get Hobby Japan as soon as possible after publishing in addition to watching our pages regularly.

Books:
Titles from Model Graphix/Art Box (Aero Detail, Achtung Panzer, etc.) are always available. Model Art's books are harder to come by. Many are out-of-print, and even those that are not are often out-of-stock for many months. Hobby Japan specials from the past 18-24 months are generally available, but older volumes are usually gone and they very seldom do reprints.

What this all boils down to is "first-come, first-served." It's never a bad idea to order something as soon as you hear about its release.

Happy shopping!

If you have any further questions, please send email to questions@hlj.com