Background

This is a kit of the fighter plane “Space Wolf” flown by the space pirate, Captain Harlock from the adventure filled world of Leiji Matsumoto. Originally created in 1977 for a manga TV series, Captain Harlock has appeared in various film and TV shows, most recently a 2013 feature film, “Space Pirate Captain Harlock”. For his interspace travel, Captain uses a mother ship named Arcadia. A number of these Space Wolf fighter planes are carried by the Arcadia for protection and offense.

The Space Wolf is a space fighter plane capable of operating in either atmosphere or space conditions. It is armed by two 75 mm pulse laser cannons mounted in the front cowling and two Vulcan cannons in each wing. It appears that jet or rocket thrust can be directed to the tips of the wings and canards to provide control in high altitude or space conditions. The ventral fin is extended during flight but folds forward for storage during landing.

More information can be obtained about Captain Harlock in Wikipedia and in The Captain Harlock Archives. Even with the above, I could not find a lot of information about this fighter plane so I have to trust the instructions although I was tempted to join Crunchyroll to watch the original manga series.

The Kit and Construction

The kit consists of four finely molded sprues plus a transparency sprue. In addition, a very nice mounting base is supplied, molded in black and white.

The configuration of the Space Wolf is a canard type with a retractable lower fin. Construction is similar to most aircraft models. The cockpit features a nicely molded three-piece pilot, a simple seat and an instrument panel. Decals provide a realistic appearance for the consoles and the instrument panel.

Each of the wings feature two piece intake and jet exhaust panels. These should be painted before assembly. Clear lenses for the position lights are provided. These can be used by cutting off the tips of the wing and rudder and gluing the transparent parts in their places. I chose to not use these parts, instead painting the tips silver and then the proper transparent color.

The landing gear with all of the gear doors fit well. The mounting holes in the wings and fuselage for the landing gear were rectangular and really make the gear secure and correctly angled. The gear doors all have defined mounting tabs and all fit well.

Painting and Finishing

Nine different marking schemes are provided, three in a basic camouflage scheme, three in a colorful scheme based on the War against Mazone and three in a low visibility space combat camouflage scheme. I chose the basic camo scheme since it was shown on the box cover. The directions call for the top color to be RLM82 and the lower color a dark gray. I chose to use gull gray because it looked closer to the box and instruction color. Of the three camo alternatives, I chose to use the center one. I loved the look and contrast of the white skull and cross-bones insignia against the dark green upper surface.

A myriad of markings are provided for the model. In addition to the basic insignia, lots of instruction decals are provided, similar to a modern jet. 140 different markings are on the decal sheet and most of them have several examples, such as the “no step” markings. It should be noted that all of the markings seem to be in written in German. I don’t know the connection but if it was in the Luftwaffe, my model would be the mount of a Gruppen Kommandeur of 3/III Udet. The other two basic camouflage schemes also seem to utilize insignia based on known Luftwaffe markings.

As I was preparing to add decals to my model, I noticed that the decal sheet contained many duplicates of various markings in both black and white. The white markings were not called for use with any of the schemes but I decided to use them on the upper surfaces of my model. The white markings showed up much better on RLM 82 than black.

A well-defined four-piece pilot is provided. The instructions call for his uniform to be painted blue with some areas black. I chose to paint the uniform all black with a wide red collar as represented by most of the drawings of Captain Harlock.

While I chose to build my model with the gear down, a well-designed mounting base with a swivel feature is provided to show the Space Wolf in flying position. Since the two alternate lower fin parts are a slide fit, I took a photo of the model in flying position before I installed the landing gear.

Conclusions and Recommendations

I was very pleased with this kit. It built into a very good looking model and should be able to be assembled by modelers with only minimal experience. The kit is well recommended. In addition to this kit of the Space Wolf, another version is offered, the mount of Captain’s female first officer, Kei Yuri. This one is pink, gray and white colored with the pilot representing Kei. Also, Hasegawa offers kits of the Space Battleships “Arcadia” and the “Death Shadow” in 1/1500 scale. The Arcadia has a large Skull and Crossbones marking on the bow. Fans of Captain Harlock can collect quite a fleet.

Thanks to Hobbico for providing this interesting model for review and to IPMS for allowing me to build this fun kit.