Where can I Buy Maschinen Krieger Ma.K Model Kits?

This question comes up in the social networks I visit such as our Paint on Plastic Facebook Group and in the comments on the Paint on Plastic YouTube Channel all the time.

Where can I Buy Maschinen Krieger Ma.K Model Kits?

If you are in a hurry, here are my Top 3 places to buy Ma.K Kits;

Local Hasegawa Distribution to your LHS. If your local hobby store sells Hasegawa models then they can get the Hasegawa kits. Most times it’s only because the purchasing staff don’t know what they are and bundle them with the aircraft range. Ask them and they can get them for you, they will be happy for you to update them on more products to sell! Sadly they probably cannot get WAVE nor Kaiyoudo for you.
Hobby Link Japan. Pro’s - Biggest range. Best for plastic kits and books. Warehouse service for combined shipping and catching pre-orders I always forget about. Con’s - HLJ on the boxes is easy to spot.... The Private Warehouse is useful.
Tonerico. Very legit and a friend of mine, owned and run by an ex-manager of the Akihabara Yellow Submarine store so he knows the subject well. Pro’s - can get very unique items and offers personalised service. Great for resin figures. Con’s - website can have some language challenges, no warehouse. A little clunky… but with charm!
AMIAMI. Large online retailer in Japan so quite safe. Pro’s - can have the last available stock after HLJ sells out. Con’s - has less Ma.K items than other sites. More challenge to organise combined shipping, need to pay shipping on each time as no warehouse service.

Now back to the Lincsplain of what’s happening and why!

Currently, we have 2 major vendors making Ma.K (em ei kei) kits and as the Official International Ambassador for the series, I thought I could help shed some light on this for you.

First off with have the releases from Hasegawa Models. Hasegawa is a family owned business and famously one of the original plastic kit makers based in Shizuoka, Japan. They took a very big chance to venture into Sci-Fi kits with Macross and Maschinen Krieger and it’s been a big success and I have the utmost respect for them having worked for their "Kaihatsu” or Product Development team for many years.

With Hasegawa we are lucky in that they have relatively strong international distribution due to being one of the older brands that has a strong history with aviation plastic model kits, so these kits are usually easier to purchase locally, from your local hobby shops or at least they should be able to order them in for you from their distributor. Plus Hasegawa regularly re-release kits so availability is less of an issue.

Take away - Either buy these kits from your Local Hobby Shop or ask them to order from their Hasegawa Distributor. Or failing that, see my Top 4 at the start of the article.

The next plastic kit vendor we have is WAVE Corporation. They were the company responsible for bringing Ma.K back to us with re-issues of the early Nitto kits plus with their re-tooling of the A.F.S. suit series. They focussed more on the suits as compared to Hasegawa with the vehicles but have also upped their game with larger models like the Gladiator which is a current release at time of writing.

The very big difference with Hasegawa is that WAVE is a much, much smaller company and do not have the distribution network so rely on splash releases and re-sellers. What this means is that they do not keep inventory, we do! That’s not to say they do not re-release kits but we need to wait much longer between “re-pops” but they do also usually give us new items such as waterslide decals, box art and suggested paint designs and back stories on the boxes. This is the job I did for them in Japan along with painting many of their sample models.

The best way to buy WAVE Ma.K kits is in advance, by pre-ordering from their re-sellers in Japan such as Hobby Link Japan and AMIAMI, both are reputable businesses. They have pre-orders up where you may purchase at local Japan retail or better prices and the shipping is quite reasonable. Plus if you take advantage of HLJ’s private warehouse system, you can combine shipping for a couple of plastic kits, legitimate resin figures and books for example. It’s actually quite a good deal, much better than we could have even just a few years ago. You may need to pay import duty and taxes depending on where you live. Even when we purchase these goods in Japan, we pay 消費税, or sales tax.

You can also purchase these kits locally from your LHS. Your LHS can contact HLJ.com and purchase WAVE goods at wholesale prices. HLJ is currently the #1 wholesale fulfilment service for a good number of Japanese vendors, including WAVE. The final price will still include shipping, import duties and taxes which your LHS will need to pass along to you.

The release schedule is designed in such a way that by the time we finish one we should be looking forward to the next release. My advice is to just buy one of each release, via pre-order in advance, that appeals to you and wait patiently for the next one and avoid paying extra fees to third parties on sites such as eBay.

Take away - Buy these kits from my Top 3 at the start of the article who are re-sellers in Japan or ask your LHS to order them in from a Wholesaler.

Thanks for reading and do hope this is of value to you in understanding a little more about the businesses making these really cool kits for us and how to go about buying them.

If it helps, I will make announcements for when new kits are coming so that you can get in nice and early with your pre-orders and join our Ma.K kit building community.

Linc

P.S. Plus big news, the latest official Maschinen Krieger publication is available. Yes, it’s in English too, please see below;