1/35 Pz. IV Ausf D Kai Anglerfish
Platz/Dragon 1/35 Pz.IV Anglerfish

And finally, at long last, my Platz 1/35 Pz. IV Ausf D Kai model H "Anglerfish" is complete!

This vehicle is based off of Anglerfish team's Panzer IV of Oarai Girls High School from the popular anime series "Girls und Panzer". It is the tank used by the main characters, and has been upgraded by them from its original Ausf D configuration, to an Ausf F2, and finally to this iconic Ausf H configuration.

How was the kit? Well if i'm being honest, it was horrible. Absolutely horrible. Whilst the fit of the parts was not that bad, the model was HUGELY over-complicated, seemingly for no reason (other than inflating parts count I suppose). It took an extremely long time to build in comparison to my other models, and certain parts in particular such as the side skirts and turret spaced armour were just painful. I resorted to superglue to hold a lot of the parts in place.

The build was also made difficult by the inclusion of a ridiculous amount of unused parts (I don't think any other model I have made has had this many sprues), seemingly they just make one set of sprues for all Pz. IV variants and then pack them up together. The instructions, whilst they had some pleasing Girls und Panzer references, were actually rather poor, missing some parts (such as construction of the gun breech) altogether.

I also question the decision to include metal (aluminium?) side skirts, as I had a lot of problems with painting them, and am still worried now, I will have to be very careful not to bend or scratch them to prevent the paint coming off.

The painting (other than the side skirts) was actually ok. Whilst the model was molded in the correct brown colour, I decided it would still need painting, as there were many marks left over from building. I used Vallejo Air German Red-Brown for the main colour, and as usual had no issues with the excellent quality of Vallejo paint, it airbrushed flawlessly onto the vehicle.

I had some issues with putting the (usually excellent) Platz Girls und Panzer decals on, due to protrusions in the areas that they were placed on, and paint peeling off the left side skirt, which needed repainting. Fortunately the kit included spares of some of the decals, and I was able to remove the protrusions which caused the problems, and after this the decals went on just fine.


In the end, I can't really recommend this kit. Whilst I am a big fan of Girls und Panzer, this kit is honestly just a terrible experience to build. If you really want a Girls und Panzer Panzer IV, I would recommend buying Tamiya's Pz. IV H kit, and then simply getting some decals off eBay and doing it yourself. It would be a far more pleasant experience.