>>84599601. Uhh, I guess? One on hand, HMMs tend to look awesome as straight builds due to a combo of excellent color separation and some prepainted parts sometimes. There is also a TON of sculpted detail, so even the most amateurish panel lining or markering will make all those mechanical inner workings really pop.
On the other hand, HMMs are pretty complex for a total noob. They're not DIFFICULT, per se, but you should be aware that Koto's part tolerances are pretty tight, so you need to trim the nubs off your parts well to ensure proper fits. It's also sometimes recommended to sand your joints a little if they seem too tight, so as not to force them or cause any breakages. Koto kits also tend to have a ton of tiny parts and be fairly time-consuming builds. None of this is meant to scare you off, I think a careful and methodical person could totally do an HMM on their first try.
2. You can try to get them off Mandarake, or if they're in stock on the Japanese Koto store, enlist a middleman service to buy it and re-ship it to you.
3. Uhhh, not too long. And Koto sometimes can go a long time between reissues. It's why people say to snap up Koto kits to store in your backlog when they come up, cause who knows when they'll be reissued again.
I believe a number of kits are being reissued currently so it's a pretty good time to get in.
