The Brothers Brick

LEGO battleship Yamato, largest LEGO ship ever, completed after 6 years

Andrew Becraft (TBB Editor-in-Chief)
In a feat of LEGO naval engineering rivaled only by Malle Hawking’s USS Harry S Truman and Ed Diment’s HMS Hood, Jumpei Mitsui (JunLEGO) completed his World War II battleship Yamato today.

LEGO battleship Yamato

LEGO battleship Yamato has some very impressive specifications:

Jumpei’s LEGO version is based on the way Yamato appeared immediately prior to the fateful Operation Ten-Go in 1945.

Jumpei built LEGO Yamato to answer the question he posed to himself all the way back in elementary school: “How big would Yamato be from a LEGO minifig’s perspective?” A third-year college student today, Jumpei can now demonstrate exactly what that would look like!

Breaking through the language barrier, Jumpei pioneered the use of Bricklink among Japanese LEGO fans to source the two hundred thousand LEGO elements necessary to build Yamato.

Yamato includes wonderful details like the Imperial chrysanthemum emblem on the bow and a brick-built Japanese navy flag flying from the bridge. The superstructure is especially impressive:

See more photos of this amazing LEGO creation on Jumpei Mitsui’s website and in his LEGO Battleship Yamato gallery on Brickshelf (when moderated).

Not to be confused with the fictional Space battleship Yamato, the real Japanese battleship Yamato was launched in 1941, and remains the largest battleship ever constructed by any navy.

Having fired her guns against Allied forces only once during the Pacific War, Yamato was sunk in 1945, taking nearly 2,500 of her 2,700 crew to their deaths.

Six years in the making, Jumpei Mitsui’s LEGO battleship Yamato is major news in the LEGO fan community. The Brothers Brick will get in touch with Jumpei and try to arrange an interview for our English-speaking readers. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the pictures.

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