With the new crew changes and Wot Plus causing a lot of heat (understandably so - crew changes are handled questionably and Wot Plus is an actual disaster), I want to focus on something that isn't so bad and go down the entire Japanese TDs as they are on CT. I'm really really excited - after so many years, they're finally here.
Having played and 3 marked the Ka-Ri (I was so lucky to get it in first 15 boxes), I absolutely adore that vehicle, it quickly became my favorite TD in the game. The gun is beyond amazing, and the platform is workable enough. An entire tech tree of Ka-Ri like vehicles makes the Japanese TD line even more exciting to me, but how the tech tree will actually stand out in practice?
Remember, that its still 1.20.1 CT, so the statistics are suspect to change. I don't think there will be significant changes if any changes at all, though.
TL;DR: in the end for basic of the each tank.

Tier V - Type 3 Ho-Ni III

Pretty much a Japanese StuG III. If you enjoy that vehicle, chances are that you'll enjoy the Ho-Ni III as well. The main difference is the armor - Ho-Ni III is very poorly armored:
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This is against Ho-Ni III's own, mediocre HE shells with 40 mm pen. Yikes.
Even relatively low caliber HE can penetrate the superstructure. The mobility is comparable, with each of the two having their own advantages - StuG turns faster, Ho-Ni has 50% better reverse speed, latter which is one of the biggest advantages of the Ho-Ni. Ho-Ni has slightly worse camo, though still more than enough for its tier. Both vehicles are blind and need Binoculars to see anything.
The guns are very similar, but I'd say the Ho-Ni has a slight advantage in terms of firepower. Both tanks have the same aiming time, standard penetration, very similar soft stats and accuracy (StuG has marginally better accuracy). Ho-Ni's main advantages are DPM, which is 102 HP higher, and premium ammo, which has same pen but is AP instead of APCR, effectively being superior.
One very nice thing about the Ho-Ni is the stock grind. The stock gun is only slightly worse than the top gun, which means the vehicle effectively has no stock grind.
Ho-Ni III is exactly what you'd expect - a Japanese StuG, generic but solid TD. Whether its worse or better is hard to say, but I'm leaning towards slightly worse, just for the HE pennable armor. The gun is still very good and it's sneaky, so it should be absolutely fine, though.

Tier VI - Type 95 Ji-Ro

Next up is the Ji-Ro. This one is bit of an oddball, and the only tank that can't really be compared with its "counterpart" from the JP E100 line, the Jagdpanzer IV. Instead, the Ji-Ro is much more like a Dicker Max, or maybe the Bassotto. Unfortunately, it's much worse than either of those vehicles.
Compared to the Dicker Max, the Ji-Ro beats it in the firepower category in pretty much every way. Ji-Ro has better DPM, better gun stats, accuracy, carries much more ammo, and has better premium penetration. It also has very surprising camo rating of 19.95 when stationary. However, the gun isn't SIGNIFICANTLY better than the Dicker Max, and most other aspects are much worse - the Ji-Ro is significantly slower due to its underpowered engine, has 50 meters less view range, and has three times less gun depression. Slightly better all around gun is absolutely not worth losing so much gun depression, mobility and view range, IMO.
Ji-Ro's mobility especially is a problem - without any crew skills, food or equipment, the effective top speed on hard terrain is below 30 km/h. Yikes. Even with turbo, food and all the (old) crew skills (tanks.gg doesn't have the new skills yet and I don't know how they'll affect in the end), the effective top speed is only 32-32 km/h. Unlocking the field modification helps a lot, but that's the problem - you can't use field mods before researching the next tank. -5 gun depression is also going to be a bitch on a tall box like this, especially considering the gun is mounted very high.
And while the Ji-Ro is boxy, it has no armor whatsoever. KV-2s and O-Is will feast on you:
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Ji-Ro's \"armor\" VS KV-2 152 mm HE.
What is particularly hilarious is that Wargaming claimed that this and the Ho-Ni III have "good armor", when in reality the Ji-Ro gets smashed by large caliber HE and Ho-Ni's armor wouldn't last even at tier 1. Stuff like that makes me question if they really play their own game or not.
I'm gonna be honest and spit it out straight - the Ji-Ro looks like a giant piece of shit. It's very slow, boxy, has no gun depression and has no armor. The gun is good, but not good enough to justify a really fucking shit platform that's really not much better than the Churchill GC. It's a very inflexible box that can only play as a redline sniper, and it doesn't even do that super well, because it's way too slow to relocate. IMO, this is definitely the worst tank in the line, but at least it's the tier 6 instead of tier 8-9 this time.
If only it had an option to mount the 15 cm Type 96 howitzer (O-I derp gun) it was supposed to have IRL, it would at least be a shitty meme derp tank, but no.

Tier VII - Chi-To SP

Next up is the Chi-To SP, which at first looks like a innocent, adorable box, but is much, much more devastating than it looks. You'll quickly notice that it's very comparable to the Jagdpanther. Indeed, the gun is very similar. Chi-To SP has better pen and soft stats, Jpanther has faster aiming time and shell velocity. Chi-To SP has better view range, camo, reverse speed and 150 more health, Jpanther has better top speed. Basically, the Chi-To SP is looking like a Jpanther that trades top speed for 150 more HP, better view range and reverse speed. This seems like a very fair trade, since the Jpanther is a great tier 7 TD and all, so the Chi-To SP should also perform very simila-
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Against its own AP, which has 205 mm pen.
What the fuck.
I was in a shock when I saw the armor layout. Yes, it says 250 mm on paper, so I expected a CS-63 turret armor situation, where the displayed armor is actually fake and the tank has mostly poor armor. Jpanther's armor doesn't really exist except against tier 5s, so I expected it to be the same with the Chi-To SP. But no, the entire casemate is at worst 225 mm effective, and this is without using the gun depression. Even Chi-To SP's very good 244 mm premium AP shells are 50/50 against many spots on the casemate, again, on flat ground.
Sure, the Chi-To SP has a large cupola that is weak, and the bar below is only 50 mm thick. However, that's still a massive advantage compared to the Jpanther - Jpanther really has only one, small spot you can't pen (gun mantlet), whereas it's a complete opposite for the Chi-To SP against many tanks it faces - it only has one spot you can pen. And while it's a decently large cupola, it's going to be a nightmare to hit at longer range, especially with most guns at tier 7, which tend to be inaccurate. Long range is exactly where the Chi-To SP excels, because remember, it still has effectively the same gun as the Jpanther (which is a fantastic gun at tier 7). This means the Chi-To SP is actually one of the most heavily armored TDs in its tier, with great HP pool (1000), fantastic gun, good mobility, good view range for a TD (it can actually run Optics instead of Binoculars) and good camo rating. Literally the only downsides are the cupola and lack of a turret. That...doesn't seem very balanced to me?
A hulldown Chi-To SP is going to be a monster in tier 7 games. Jpanther is already a beast, now imagine Jpanther that is hard to pen. It can go aggresive and play as an assault TD, but it's even more terrifying when it's sniping you hulldown, melting you with its combination of excellent DPM, great gold pen and good alpha, while you try to hit its cupola. And when bottom tier, it's still at worst a marginally worse Jpanther.
As a complete contrast to the terrible Ji-Ro, the Chi-To SP seems straight up overpowered. Again, the Jpanther is already an excellent vehicle, and the Chi-To SP is basically otherwise a comparable vehicle that has literally more than double the effective frontal armor. It has amazing gun, good mobility, good camo and great frontal armor. Even if you dumpstered the armor to the point it was like, 100-130 effective except for the gun mantlet, the Chi-To SP would still be a good vehicle. It absolutely should be nerfed, IMO. However, knowing WG, they probably won't, because it's a tier 7.
Also, as a final note, the stock gun looks comically stupid:
https://preview.redd.it/fm1z6j7pqnpa1.png?width=783&format=png&auto=webp&s=0f07a2259c82193d07c9400b9871ffbfa4f4075d
It's a pretty awful stock gun nevertheless - basically the same 7.5 cm you had at tier 5, with only slightly higher pen.

Tier VIII - Ho-Ri 2

The first of the trio I've wanted to the game since 2014 - the Ho-Ri family of TDs, beautiful boxes on the Chi-Ri chassis. It looks absolutely gorgeous (don't judge me, I love boxes like these). But how does it stand up statistically? Well, uh...
While you can make comparison to the Ferdinand, I feel like the new tier 8 premium, Type 5 Ka-Ri, is a much closer competitor and better tank to directly compare the Ho-Ri 2 into. There most certainly isn't a pattern where the tier 8 premium might be a little better than the tech tree counterpart. Right....riiiight?
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The absolute state of WoT in 2023. Tech tree tank on left, premium tank on right.
Firstly, the gun. Ka-Ri has 100 more alpha, better DPM, better pen, less penetration loss over distance, 0.3 seconds faster aiming time, better accuracy, 50% better dispersion when turning the gun, faster shell velocity, better HE pen and bigger caliber (= can overmatch better). Yeah...I don't think anyone is surprised. The only advantage the Ho-Ri has is one degree extra gun depression. Other than that, the Ka-Ri absolutely dumpsters the Ho-Ri in every way when it comes to the firepower. It's such a big upgrade that the Ka-Ri genuinely seems like a next-tier tank compared to the Ho-Ri.
It's worth noting that the Ka-Ri's gun is fucking amazing, so being much worse than it isn't strictly bad news. Ho-Ri still has good gun handling, accuracy and decent pen. That being said, the gun isn't really all that impressive for a turretless TD. It's comfortable, sure, but 400 alpha is nothing special (if not slightly underwhelming, even), and the DPM is very poor for the alpha. In fact, your DPM goes down quite a bit when compared to the Chi-To SP.
Gun isn't the only aspect the Ho-Ri 2 gets absolutely dumpstered at. It's also significantly slower than the Ka-Ri. For some sick reason, its top speed is only 30 km/h. Gross. It doesn't even have field modifications to increase the top speed, so it'll never be even close as mobile as the Ka-Ri. It absolutely needs turbo on pretty much every map, which burns one equipment slot, whereas the Ka-Ri doesn't always need it. Ho-Ri also has worse reverse speed (15 km/h vs 18 km/h). Acceleration and traverse speed are about as good, so there's that at least.
The Ho-Ri 2 does have some things going for it. Surprisingly, despite being a bigger tank, the Ho-Ri 2 has much better camo rating than the Ka-Ri (17.84 vs 14.14). Almost 18 base camo rating is actually very good, so the Ho-Ri 2 is surprisingly stealthy despite its appearance. It also has 150 more health than the Ka-Ri.
As for the armor, its a mixed bag:
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Ho-Ri 2 armor vs its own standard AP shell (250 mm pen).
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Ka-Ri armor vs Ho-Ri 2's standard AP shell (250 mm pen).
Ho-Ri 2's casemate is stronger. Against AP, it's ~245 mm effective (and goes up to 260-270 vs HEAT), whereas the Ka-Ri's superstructre is around ~230 mm against all shells. This means that the Ho-Ri 2 has a chance to shrug off 250-270 mm pen HEAT shells, which are fairly common at tier 8, something the Ka-Ri is realistically unable to ever do. The UFP is thicker, but flat - this means its better against guns up to ~225 mm pen, but it's harder to make it ricochet. However, Ho-Ri 2's has its downsides - it has two very large weakspots on top, something the Ka-Ri completely lacks against 122 mm guns and below. The periscope cupola is only 100 mm thick, whereas the roof extension for the gun breech is overmatchable by 106 mm guns and above. This means the hulldown Ho-Ri 2 isn't invincible against some lower tier vehicles, which is the main selling point of Ka-Ri's armor. Hulldown Ho-Ri 2 is also much more vulnerable to the BZ-176 HESH shells, so that's something to watch out for as well. Ho-Ri 2 also has a worse gun mantlet, so it won't troll higher tiers quite as well.
I'd say the Ho-Ri 2 has little better survivability, as it has more health and armor is better against same tier vehicles. Ka-Ri is better at bullying anything with less than 220 mm pen, though.
Overall, the history repeats itself yet again. The Ho-Ri 2 vs Ka-Ri is yet another case of tech tree tank being straight up downgrade over the premium tank. It has higher HP pool, better camo and arguably slightly better armor, but that's all it has. For those advantages, the Ho-Ri 2 pays a huge price in mobility and firepower, both which are much, much worse than the Ka-Ri.
Ho-Ri 2 doesn't seem disastrously bad like the BZ-166, at least. The gun is somewhat weak, but it at least seems somewhat reliable due to its pen and gun stats, so it shouldn't be too bad. It has good HP pool, okay armor and mobility is bearable with turbo. However, you can clearly tell that the Ho-Ri pales in comparison to the Ka-Ri. Hell, it's in many ways a sidegrade over the Chi-To SP - its slower, has worse DPM, and the armor isn't that much better.
Is it better or worse than the Ferdinand? I don't know, honestly. It's been a while since I played the Ferdi. From what I can tell, the Ho-Ri seems somewhat comparable - underwhelming, but playable. Ho-Ri has a worse gun, but a better platform.

Tier IX - Ho-Ri 1

Next up is the Ho-Ri 1. Immediately, you'll notice the significant upgrade in firepower. Alpha goes up all the way to 650, with amazing standard pen of 290, and significant armor upgrade. What I find amusing is that WG mentioned on their video that the Ho-Ri 1 is "based on the hull of the Type 5 Heavy", when it clearly isn't, and is based on the Chi-Ri chassis instead. Pretty interesting screwup, I'd say.
The Ho-Ri 1 is actually very similar to the Chinese tier 9 TD, the WZ-111G FT. Both are moderately armored casemate TDs with sub-par mobility and big guns with excellent penetration for their tier. Ho-Ri 1 has less alpha and lacks the funny 1100 alpha HE shell, but has much better accuracy and aiming time. Gun is all around very good. 650 alpha, good pen, good accuracy, decent DPM and good aiming time. You can't go wrong with it. Ho-Ri 1 does have the worse soft stats than the Ho-Ri 2, so the gun may feel a bit derpier than the other Japanese TDs, though.
What really surprised me (positively) is the armor:
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Ho-Ri 1's armor against its own standard AP (290 mm pen).
Sure, it's not the best kind of armor and it gets destroyed by HEAT spam. However, seeing 245 mm armor on paper implied that the casemate would only be 245 mm thick, which wouldn't have done anything given how flat it is. Instead, the 245 mm part is the flat upper plate. 300 mm thick, raw casemate without real weakspots is actually very useful against lower tiers and a plenty of standard shells. Being 350 mm thick, mantlet can troll a lot. Still, the armor isn't fantastic and it gets obliterated by high enough pen, but it's better than what the stats would suggest.
Ho-Ri 1 has 390 view range, which is very good for a TD. While the camo rating is average (15.05), it gets the field mod that increases camo rating at cost of reverse speed, which gives this thing pretty decent camo for what it is. Mobility is still slow, so turbo is mandatory on pretty much all maps.
Basically, as I mentioned, the Ho-Ri 1 will likely play very similar to the WZ-111G FT. Slow mobility, but a meaty gun with high pen and damage, and decent enough survivability. I'd say the WZ is better overall, just for the bigger punch and better profile (smaller size and front mounted casemate), but being able to snipe better when needed is a pretty nice advantage for the Ho-Ri 1.

Tier X - Ho-Ri 3

Finally, the glorious box itself - the Ho-Ri 3. Aside from very goofy looks, the Ho-Ri 3 has a fair share of differences to its predecessor. It leans a bit more towards a glass cannon-y side - the casemate armor is identical whereas the hull is only a little better due to troll UFP, but the mobility and firepower improve significantly. This thing is best described as a tier 10 version of the Ka-Ri. It plays very similarly and overall feels very comparable to it. It's probably a little worse overall, but if you enjoy the Ka-Ri, chances are you'll enjoy the Ho-Ri 3 as well.
The gun is simply phenomenal. Aside from slightly slowish aiming time, there's really nothing wrong with the gun. 700 alpha is 700 alpha, it has the 2nd highest standard pen in the game, fantastic 360 mm premium AP shells with very low penetration dropoff (342 mm pen at 500 meters is still fantastic), great accuracy, best DPM of all 15-15.5 cm guns at tier 10, and amazing soft stats for a TD. 0.14 / 0.14 / 0.10 when moving is great - you can actually shoot on the move decently well. The incredible soft stats also make the poor gun arc a much smaller issue than you'd think. The gun isn't particularly exciting, but the all around combination of characteristics makes it a very sweet gun. A shame it no longer has the 1300 m/s velocity premium AP (it's now 1150 m/s) like it had on supertest, but can't have everything, I guess.
Mobility is the greatest upgrade over the Ho-Ri 1. Not only the top speed has improved to 35 km/h base, but you also get access to a field modification that significantly increases top speed at cost of slightly worse reload. This is 100% worth it, because the base top speed is increased to 39 km/h. Even with the field modification that improves camo for worse reverse speed, your reverse speed is still great, especially with turbo. The mobility of the Ho-Ri 3, when setupped correctly, is actually surprisingly good. It accelerates quickly, turns lightning fast (making it impossible to circle, unless its tracked), and has a good reverse speed. It's very similar to the Ka-Ri, actually.
Armor is... not great.
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Ho-Ri 3's armor vs its own standard AP (305 mm pen)
As I mentioned before, the casemate is mostly identical to the Ho-Ri 1, aside from the upper portion being slightly stronger. At tier 10, there's a plenty of more guns with more than 300 mm premium penetration, meaning that the casemate armor doesn't really cut it, unless you're fighting certain targets like Kranvagn, AMX M4 54, Type 5, or tier 10 LTs. The upper plate is...interesting. It's very close to being at autoricochet angle, but it's thin. This means that it's very weak if the Ho-Ri 3 isn't angled; however, if it angles a little bit or uses its gun depression:
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...It becomes autoricochet!
This makes wiggling against AP/APCR very effective, but 330-340 HEAT will pretty much obliterate you from...anywhere.
Armor isn't the highlight of this Ho-Ri 3 (nor is it the highlight of most of the Japanese TDs for that matter). WG keeps claiming that these tanks are all about "strong armor", but in reality, that's not the case. The armor is actually the weakest are of the Ho-Ri 3 I'd say - it has an impressive gun and its mobility is actually surprisingly good, comparable to a slow medium tank with turbo and field modifications. It doesn't need the great armor. Regardless, like the Ka-Ri, 300 mm thick casemate with no weakspots is going to be very handy against lower tiers and people who happen to fire standard ammo at it. It's kinda like the Type 5 Heavy in that regard, except the significant difference is that the Type 5 Heavy's supposed "selling point" is the armor, whereas on the Ho-Ri 3 it's far from being it its strongest suit.
Ho-Ri 3's camo rating goes down to fairly crappy 12.14 base. Still, with the camo field modification, crew skills, consumables and a paintjob, the camo is good enough to be somewhat stealthy with vegetation in play. This is another thing that contradicts what WG stated for the Japanese TDs, as they supposedly have "no concealment", when in reality their concealment ranges from just "mediocre" (that can be upped to average with field mods) to average or even above average. Lastly, the Ho-Ri 3 has 400 meter base view range, which is very surprising and actually the best of all tier 10 TDs in the game. No other tier 10 TD has 400 meter base view range.
It's pretty hard to tell how good the Ho-Ri 3 will end up being. It's basically a tier 10 Ka-Ri, which IMO is genuinely a great TD, but it's worth noting that tier 10 is a whole different environment to tier 8. Ho-Ri 3 greatly benefits from right equipment, good crew and maxed out field modifications. Rammer / Hardening / Turbo works well with this thing, but you can replace latter two with Improved Aiming if you want to max out the accuracy. I think the Ho-Ri 3, with such an amazing gun and platform that is surprisingly mobile and has enough armor to sometimes bounce something, has potential to be a very solid TD, even if it's not the most unique one. I feel like a lot of people will try to play the Ho-Ri 3 as an assault TD and fail miserably. It isn't an assault TD - it's most of the time a support or sniper TD, that can only be an assault TD in a very favorable map/matchup (city map with tier 8s), just like the Ka-Ri.

Conclusion

1.20.1 might understandably be a disaster for a lot of reasons, but I'm genuinely very happy how WG has implemented the Japanese TDs. They're a simple line with good guns, nothing crazy. What I really like about them is that they're a significant departure from most modern lines, in that they're a "classic" line of tanks that focus on comfortable, great guns instead of having forced in gimmicks with unnecessarily crippled guns (looking at you, Chinese rocket heavies and Yoh tanks). The balancing isn't completely ideal (tier 6 seems terrible, tier 8 is sub-par and tier 7 seems overpowered right now), but the concept is fine and the tier 10 seems fun enough to me. I'm really excited for the Japanese TDs. It's just such a shame that they're coming in what is otherwise a very controversial patch. Oh well.
Is the Ho-Ri 3 worth grinding? Hard to say yet. I'd say yes, but I'm undoubtedly at least a little bit biased. Most of the tanks have decent stock grind (at least to me, the only terrible stock grind is the tier 7, with an awful 7.5 cm gun and weak stock engine) and couple of the tanks are underwhelming, but the Ho-Ri 3 seems like a fun pick if you want a TD that has a good gun and is neither strictly a sniper or assault TD. The tanks are still susceptible for changes; while I don't think much will change, WG could go in and nerf them for no reason on the 2nd iteration (like they did with the Chinese Rocket heavies).

TL;DR:

• Tier 5: Very much like a StuG III, but with worse armor. Easy stock grind.
• Tier 6: Dicker Max with worse mobility and no gun depression. Terrible, worst in line.
• Tier 7: JPanther with worse top speed, but more HP, view range, reverse speed, camo, and more than double the frontal armor. Pretty insane right now, would expect it to be nerfed but WG is WG.
• Tier 8: Basically a Ka-Ri with 150 more HP and a bit more camo, but a much worse gun and mobility. As expected, the tech tree tank is worse than the premium.
• Tier 9: Basically a Japanese version of the WZ-111G FT that has a little bit of Jagdtiger in it. Could be okay.
• Tier 10: More or less a tier 10 Ka-Ri. Excellent gun, surprisingly decent mobility, but armor isn't all that good. If you like the Ka-Ri, you'll like this one.

Overall: There are some stinkers (tier 6 and probably the tier 8), but seems like a decent enough grind overall, and the Ho-Ri 3 is IMO a pretty fun TD. WG claims that these tanks are "assault TDs with strong armor", but in reality they're support vehicles with great guns and armor that only is there to shit on lower tiers or to occasionally bounce something.