A lot of Japanese hobby listings use the maker name as if that tells you everything. It does not, but the five Shizuoka names do have very different centre lines. Here is the quick map I wish I had when I started searching Japanese auction listings.
Tamiya is the broadest reference point: armour, aircraft, ships, cars, motorcycles, RC and Mini 4WD, with instructions and engineering that are usually the easiest of the group to approach. The useful historical markers are 1946 (the company begins in Shizuoka), 1960 (its first all-plastic kit, the 1/800 Yamato), 1962 (the motorised 1/35 Panther), and 1982 (the first Mini 4WD). For a modeller buying secondhand, the practical distinction is not simply old versus new. Check whether the motor, metal parts, decals and any limited-event extras were originally separate bagged components and are still there.
Hasegawa is the name I associate first with aircraft and then with ships and cars. A Japanese listing that says デカール黄ばみ is warning about yellowed decals; 袋未開封 means the inner bags are unopened, not necessarily that the outer box is mint. Hasegawa also re-boxes tooling with new markings, so the box art and catalogue number matter more than the aircraft name alone.
Aoshima is especially deep in Japanese automotive subjects, tuned cars, trucks, bikes and ships, with plenty of pop-culture crossovers. This is where a search by English vehicle name often misses the most interesting domestic-market boxing. Searching the Japanese model code, trim level or series name is much more reliable.
Fujimi spans ships, aircraft, cars and architecture. With older Fujimi listings I look closely at scale and series branding because two boxes depicting the same subject can be very different generations of tooling. 旧金型 means old tooling; 再販 means a reissue. Neither is automatically bad, but they answer different expectations.
Bandai Spirits is the outlier: character models and Gunpla are the centre rather than scale replicas. The important listing words are usually distribution words: 一般販売 (general retail), プレバン (Premium Bandai), イベント限定 (event limited) and ガンダムベース限定 (Gundam Base limited). For current general-release HG kits, importing one cheap box rarely makes sense after volumetric shipping. Japan becomes interesting for discontinued runs, shop/event colours and several kits consolidated into one parcel.
One thing these companies share is geography. Shizuoka is not just a label collectors use loosely: Tamiya, Aoshima, Hasegawa and Fujimi are the cluster behind the city’s model-industry identity, alongside Bandai Hobby Center. That concentration explains why Japanese hobby-shop inventories can feel much deeper than a Western distributor list even before exclusives enter the picture.
My secondhand checklist
- Match the maker, catalogue number, scale and exact boxing, not just the subject.
- Confirm
未組立(unbuilt) and inspect the sprue bags in the photos;未使用alone is weaker. - Treat decals as a consumable on an old kit. Ask about yellowing, cracking and storage humidity.
- Look for missing instructions, clear parts, photo-etch, metal barrels, motors and limited bonus parts.
- Budget on box volume, not kit weight. A stack of large light boxes can price as heavier than it is.
- Do not put cement, lacquer paint, aerosols or solvent putty into the international parcel; source the chemistry locally.
Disclosure: I use OneMall, a Japan proxy-shopping service, so treat the link as a commercial source, not a neutral endorsement. I expanded the maker map and the wider Japanese toy-company family tree in this reference.
For people who build across subjects: which Shizuoka maker has the most distinctive “house style” to you, and which older tooling has aged better than its reputation?