Thank you for the report about the kit! I had bought the Pit-Road one, but I have not yet built it.

As far as I understand, the Mogami design replaced an earlier more LCS-like design, because the range offered by the LCS-like design was considered insufficient. The size was likely also the better choice, because the class is large enough to be a true multi-purpose design.

Interestingly, the follow-on design will be even larger (the one also ordered by Australia).

The JMSDF is still also building normal minehunters, the Awaji class:
Awaji-class (Wikipedia)

I had thought that they would have stopped that, but that is not the case.