The Yokosuka P1Y Ginga (銀河, "Galaxy") was built to a requirement by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service for a replacement to the G4M medium bomber, and as such it was intended to have a bomb carrying capacity of 2,000 lb (907kg), be just as fast as the A6M Zero and possess the ability to dive bomb as well as drop torpedoes.

It was equipped with the mighty Nakajima Homare engines, which propelled it to much higher speeds than its predecessors when coupled with its efficient, aerodynamic design. However, such refinement meant that the aircraft was extremely hard to service, tricky to manufacture, and expensive; as such, only around a thousand P1Ys were introduced into service, with most of them being the P1Y1 dive/torpedo bomber variant, and a very small number of P1Y2-S Kyokko (極光, "Aurora") night fighters powered by Kasei engines, which proved to be insufficient and were mostly converted back into bombers.

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