One of my go to sites is Hobby Search in Japan - 1999.co.jp/eng. I love them because you can find the box contents for so many kits by searching accordingly and that has helped me make buying decisions on many occasions.
I recently went there and every single Tamiya kit has been scrubbed from their site. If you search for Tamiya, all you find are aftermarket items that can be used on Tamiya kits. I’m assuming that some kind of fallout has occurred, but being Japan and the information most likely being only in Japanese, I can’t find any details online. Anyone know what’s happening here?
It might be a temporary supply issue. HLJ shows most Tamiya kits as out of stock. They manufacture their newest kits in Japan, but they farm out re-releases to other countries like the Philippines. Are there shipping delays in Asia like over here in the US? Just a theory.
There was a time Academy kits disappeared from both sites, but I think that one might have had something to do with trade agreements and getting a Japanese importer.
No, that’s definitely not the case. The site has tons of long discontinued kits still listed, which is part of what makes it so good. For example, if I come across a cheap Dragon or Trumpeter kit from years past, I can go to Hobby Search and almost always find images of the contents. This is clearly some kind of boycott - either they refuse to sell Tamiya or Tamiya is refusing to do business with them.
Or it could be something simple like their webmasters having an “oopsie” moment when doing their updates.
Still, it seems strange for all Tamiya kits to just vanish from their site. What could have Tamiya (or Hobbysearch) done?
There was a story I was told of Fujimi being kicked out of the Japanese modeling consortium for not following some rule. They were banned from the annual Shizuoka Hobby Show. Only years later there was some kind of reconcilliation. The “Big T” I assume are more cautious than that.
But I found its site in japanese language was fine. U can find tamiya products there.
1999.co.jp
FYI, タミヤ is japanese for TAMIYA. (yes, only if u type in japanese, could u get what u look for )
You might go to its jap site and then use browser add-ons to translate its texts.
A question: when i search 1999 using brwoser on android, and select “phone version” display mode, i cant activate the search box and cant type anything. Any solution?
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