KSN Midori KSN Midori was a Japanese manufacturer of injection - molded plastic model kits that produced some of the earliest model kits of the in 1969 . History . Originally located in Kagoshima , Midori has been a Japanese manufacturer of model kits and was in operation from the 1960s through the early 1970s . Apart from the usual car , tank and plane kits , they produced a fairly large line based upon and science fiction franchises ( such as " Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea " or " Stingray " , respectively ) which were hugely popular in Japan at the time . The remarkable thing about the Midori products was , that many , if not most of their products were endowed with toy - like properties . Most of their products could be , if so desired , equipped in the most cases with s , allowing the finished and assembled products to move on their accord when wound up . A " Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea " submarine variation , for example , could allegedly move when fully assembled and submerged in water . The company inherited this particular feature from the former independent " KSN " half of the company which had , in the 1950s , specialized in he construction of self - propelled balsa wood flying objects . Toward the end of its existence , the company had moved its operations to Tokyo as Midori - Syokai , Co . , Ltd . Up until that point , it had employed a purely Japanese home market - orientated marketing strategy , as all box art and instruction sheets were only composed in Japanese . Despite a last ditch effort to try to break into the international market by releasing the then popular " Slot Racing Cars " model line with both box art and instruction sheets exclusively composed in English , the company has faded from existence . In the current model kit community , the Midori sci - fi model kits are presently commanding premium prices in the second - hand market on sites such as eBay and Amazon . com , due to their scarcity . " Star Trek " releases . In 1969 , Midori released two differently - sized " Star Trek " model kits which represented the original . Midori released these on the occasion of the very first airing of in Japan , the first episode of which having aired on on the Nippon Television Network . While no scales were stated on the box art or instruction sheets , the smaller one was measured at 23×14×4 cm , whereas the larger one measured 32×18×5 cm . Set against the established length of the 1 : 650 scaled AMT model of the " Enterprise " at 45 cm , that translated to roughly a scale of 1 : 1250 for the smaller one and 1 : 915 for the larger one . The smaller one has proven to be the " normal " standard model kit , without any embellishments . It was the larger one , No . 350 - 5 , that turned out to be the most unique version , as far as the " Star Trek " model community was concerned ( as evidenced by a modeler reviewing one ) , as it embodied the " play options " for which Midori was renowned . That model featured a friction motor in the guise of a propeller sticking out of the shuttlebay that would drive the assembled model , mounted on a wheel assembly , on any flat surface . It should be noted that neither of the two were in any way related to the AMT / Aurora products in scale nor in tooling . It should also be noted that it is unclear whether or not any of Midori ' s products were officially licensed . No definitive answers were provided on the box art or in the instruction sheets , as no licensing information was mentioned there . Furthermore , legalities surrounding copyright issues in general were not yet resolved definitively for Japan , at the time . Nonetheless , until 1992 , Midori had been , besides AMT / Aurora and Estes Industries , the only company that had released " Star Trek " model kits .