I like the shading you did with the paint on the upper surfaces and the dirt and oil stains on the under. Too bad about the decals- if nothing else you can get some circle templates and spray them on.

And since the fighter never entered production you can always use your imagination as to the paint scheme!

What you just described sounds a lot like what I did with my Corsair. I'll say that you did that model a very big favor when you painted it. That's a really nice paint job.

Circle templates and spraying are so wondrously easy for Japanese aircraft its not even funny. I have an old Testors A6M2 kit that I repainted and I actually dry brushed the insignias on and it looks good.

Although I'm now thinking of repainting it again now that I have a working compressor lol.

So yeah, knock those crapcals off your nice paint and do it yourself. You'll be much happier for it.  :)

When you do it that way the weathering looks nicer over the paint then it does over the decals anyways.

Great recovery there!

I think the fun in this hobby is in the learning how to improve the necessary skills, and with a "crap" model such as you describe here, the challenges are many. Yet you managed to complete a fairly nice build.  Nice job.

My only criticism is the material you used for the antenna.  You might want to stretch the sprue  

( assuming that is what you used ) thinner, or use appropriatly sized fishing line or thread etc. for the antenna.  The material you used looks way too thick and caught my eye right away.