Doyusha Samurai Armour
Of Tokugawa Ieyasu
1/4 Scale
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Samurai, from the Japanese verb saburau, which means to serve.
And This Is A Large Serving Of Plastic!
Konichiwa folks and folkettes!

A bit of a sideways trip in to 'Well that's different' modelling territory.

A bit of a grail kit for me so to speak.
Wanted one for a while but as usual, didn't get ne when they were available.

Thankfully some helpful soul on Weevilbay had one up for a decent price
so ponied up the beer tokens and from California to my place in a jiffy, it arrived.

Potted history lesson coming up so get comfortable or get scrolling down as you see fit.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616.
Founder and first Shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan.
He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan,
along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

He received appointment as shogun in 1603, and abdicated from office in 1605,
but remained in power until his death in 1616.
He implemented a set of rules known as the bakuhan system,
designed to keep the daimyos and samurai in check under the Tokugawa Shogunate.

TL;DR

Won a few punch-ups, became head honcho and with the help of his mates,
got Japan sorted and straightened out in the early 1600's

Now that's done, on with the kit...

Largish box...





I think this is an issue from the early 80's.
These Samurai armour model kits started life with the Minamoto no Yoshiie armour
produced by Aihara Models in Japan back in the mid 1960's.

Doyusha expanded it a fair bit with more armour kits and Daisho sword sets but the swords
were done in 1/3rd scale for some obscure reason.

Right then, what's in the box.
Well a fair bit of plastic for starters..

The required paperwork and a nice faux leather embossed
texture printed sheet for decoration on the armour parts.





Double sided sheet with a sprue list and diagrams.



All text is in Japanese but this hairy Gaijin will muddle on through as always.







First of the bits. The armour chest, decorative trim and a bag of
differing thread for holding the armour together.

The plating is rather good so possibly no need for a strip down
and paint which suits me just fine.

The weaved cord and thread bag.

The upright parts of the stand and armour plates.

Base and armour/chest plated parts.
Again, the plating is none too shabby for a kit this old.


Parts to represent cord cross parts and threaded areas that bound the armour plates together..





Arm, skirt and chest plates.
X marks the spot where then faux cord crosses go.



Helmet parts and a rake of those cross thread bits.



Helmet plated parts and it's got a hell of a crest on it!



Lastly, some brass work bits and two tubes of glue.
The paintwork is going to be a tad crucial to this deal but we'll see how it goes.
I'd love to at least have a Uchigatana to go with this.

I foresee some scratch build lark happening, have to brush up on my Kamakura period swords.

And that's a wrap on this opener people.
More to come as and when I get around to it.

You goodly lot go easy out there now and Sayonara 'till next time!
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