It has been many years since I have built a model to represent anything from Japan. My last build was an Otaki 1/48 Ki-84 Frank back in 1986. Not too long-ago Jay @ssgt sent me a package of a few kits that he no longer had interest in. He asked me if I had an interest on the kits and I accepted, thank you Jay. One of the kits was the Hasegawa Ki-61 Tony in 1/72 scale. A very nice kit that was first released in 1973. It is also one of the first kits that Hasegawa made with complete recessed panel lines in which as we closed in to the 80's Hasegawa, Tamiya, Otaki, Fujimi and other Japanese brands pushed our hobby away from kits with raised lines and rivets.

About two weeks ago I started on this build and so far, it is an easy build. This past week I barely touched it, but I need to get the wheels rolling again.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Glued the fuselage halves together and the pieces for the wings. This kit was boxed in 1987 so it had some flash but not bad. So, some cleaning was needed.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

The fuselage seams were a little uneven, so it needed some putty. It took about two rounds on applying the putty and later sanding the surfaces even.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

The original decal sheet looked okay but when I used the instrument panel decal it all fell apart. So not wanting to take a chance I ordered a set, and they came in this past Friday.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

That is going together nicely, Bob @v1pro.
The added interior details look very nice.
The new decals you bought look like some nice ones.

Great start, Bob @v1pro
Looking forward to this build.

Coming along nicely indeed, my friend @v1pro!
Looking forward to the decaling!

I applied the decals that belong to Chuichi Ichikawa's plane. The green three leaf clover looks pretty attractive to my eyes.

My biggest fight was the yellow decal used on the leading edge of the wings. I should have sized it earlier to see if it was either too small or too big. To me, it looks like it is a bit too wide from the leading edge going towards the trailing edge on top pf the wing. Plus, it also gave me issues on settling onto the wing. I micro-sol'd as much as I dared to. I ended up with a few minor wrinkles, so I dirtied it up a little to try to hide them. The red star decals on the wing's gun and the red writings on top of the wings towards the training edge are from the Haseqawa kit while the rest are from the Print Decals sheet.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.