Hasegawa 1/35 Construction Workers: The Crew in a Box

Japan’s model shops sell tanks, fighter aircraft, battleships and race cars, the same as everywhere else. They also sell, on a shelf near the bottom, a small box containing four men and women resurfacing a road.

Nobody outside Japan makes this. It is worth thinking about why somebody here does.

What It Is

Hasegawa’s Construction Workers Set A — full title Construction Workers Set A (4 paving figures & accessories), product code WM03 — is a 1:35 scale plastic kit from the company’s Construction and Agricultural Machinery series. Hasegawa is a long-established manufacturer in Yaizu, Shizuoka, better known for its aircraft.

The set recreates a road-paving scene, with four figures:

• a young rake worker (female)
• a plate compactor operator (male)
• a veteran shovel worker (male)
• a wheelbarrow worker

The figures were sculpted by Satoshi Tsujimura, and the box includes the tools and accessories that go with them. Hasegawa’s own note is that the set gains a great deal when combined with one of their vibrating rollers or hydraulic excavators — this is a set designed to be part of a scene, not to stand alone.

The current release is a re-issue, out from December 2025, at ¥1,400 before tax (¥1,540 including tax).

Why This, and Not a Temple Keyring

Everyone who spends a fortnight in Japan comes home with a story about the construction sites. It is one of the reliable surprises: the barriers laid out in a straight line, the cones with a small light on each, the man whose entire job is to bow to pedestrians and wave them safely past a hole.

I wrote recently about a wet-paint notice on a Tokyo back street — where a small civil-engineering office had printed, unasked, a sheet giving “caution, wet paint” in eighteen languages, purely so that nobody’s coat would be ruined. That instinct is the thing this kit is a model of.

One honest note on the connection: these four are paving a road, not painting a railing. Different trade, same world — the high-visibility vests, the tools, the exactness. If you were hoping for a painter with a brush, this is his colleague, not him.

Is It a Good Souvenir?

For the right person, unusually good.

• It is small, light and flat-packed. A 1/35 figure set is a slim box; it goes into a suitcase without argument
• It is cheap — around ¥1,540, which is less than lunch
• It is genuinely not available at home. Foreign model shops stock Japanese kits, but rarely the domestic construction-scene ones
• It is specific. It is a souvenir of something you actually noticed in Japan, rather than something the gift shop decided you noticed

Two Honest Warnings

It is unpainted, and it needs to be built. This is a proper plastic kit: you will need cement, a knife or nippers, and paint, and none of those come in the box. Hasegawa grade it as a kit requiring adhesive. If you are buying it for a child who expects a finished figure, they will be disappointed — and cement and paint are awkward things to carry on a plane. Buy the kit here, buy the materials at home.

It is designed as a component. Four figures on their own are a diorama waiting for a road. Hasegawa sells the machinery separately, and there is also a Construction Workers Set B (WM06 — three figures on a break) if you would rather have your crew sitting down with a drink, which is arguably the more Japanese scene of the two.

Price and Where to Buy

In person, the model floors at Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera, or a dedicated hobby shop, will have the Hasegawa construction shelf. Akihabara and Shinjuku both work. The construction and agricultural sets are usually near the bottom, below the aircraft.

How to Have It Delivered to Your Tokyo Hotel

Amazon Japan and Rakuten can both deliver directly to the hotel where you are staying. Ordering a few days before your flight home works well — you collect the package at the front desk. Set the shipping address to the hotel, and add the hotel name and your guest name exactly as it appears on the reservation.

• Please check with your hotel in advance that they accept parcels for guests
• On Amazon.co.jp, the English display toggle is at the top right of the screen. Rakuten is a Japanese-language site, so your browser’s translation feature is the easy way through

Who Is This For?

Model builders, obviously. But also the traveller who found the thing they liked best about Japan was not a temple — it was the seriousness with which quite ordinary work is done here, and the fact that a company thought four road workers were worth sculpting properly.

→ Related: Wet paint, in eighteen languages: Japan and its notices

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