Lifelike Decals has always produced some fantastic decals with awesome marking options. This latest decal sheet is designed for the Hasegawa Tojo kit. Typical of Lifelike Decals, this sheet contains four marking options of three II Hei and one II Kou. All the aircraft have the yellow identification stripes on the wing leading edges for that little splash of color.

The variety of markings is a big draw to this sheet. Your first choice is a black-grey aircraft with a natural metal finish lower surface from 1LT Hideaki Inayama from January 1945. The colors are interesting and based on the interpretation of an interview and reference photos. This points out another great thing about Lifelike Decals – they give you the references that they used for determining the color schemes. They don’t shy away from a controversial aircraft just because it is difficult. They analyze the references and then, based on those findings, they make an educated decision. It is up to you as the modeler to see if you agree or disagree with their interpretation.

Aircraft two is a natural metal airplane with red markings. The aircraft belongs to Lt. Col Yukiyoshi Wakamatsu of the 85th Sentai in the summer of 1943. This marking option is splendid in its simplicity. Another great thing about Lifelike Decals is that they include a little bit of history about the man and machine, such as this pilot shot down more than 18 fighters, including 9 P-51s.

Aircraft three is also a natural metal airplane but this one includes bomb racks and underwing fuel tanks from the 246th Sentai in 1944. This particular airplane carries red landing gear covers with the aircraft number on the bottom of them. The red cowl rings, tail markings, and fuselage band make this quite colorful. The white home defense bands and yellow spinner makes this particular aircraft my favorite on the sheet.

Aircraft four is also flown by the 246th Sentai but after they returned to the home islands in Spring 1945. Markings are interesting in that there are white fuselage bands on both sides of the Hinomaru as opposed to the single home defense band. The tail markings are changed with the reassignment to just a red tail stripe. This aircraft interestingly has a black canopy frame.

The instructions are printed on two A4 size sheets with full color, including stencil locations. The decals themselves are printed on a single sheet by Cartograf, so you know they are the best quality decals in the world.

So accurate research, colorful subjects, and Cartograf printing makes this set of decals an absolute must have for the Japanese aircraft enthusiast.

Highly recommended

Thanks to Lifelike Decals for the review copy and to IPMS for allowing me to review it.