It's well known that in terms of Godzilla merchandise, Japan gets all the cooler stuff. In order for someone in the US to get their hands on any Bandai Japan Godzilla figures, you gotta do some looking online.
Much to my surprise, I managed to find this and 2 other figures up for pre-order on BigBadToyStore.com, and I immediately placed orders for them so I could review them.
First up is 'Godzilla 2016' from the new film: SHIN GOJIRA. As the first figure released based on the new design, how does it hold up? Well...
Starting from the top, the head looks fairly accurate and well sculpted. However, I do feel the eyes could have had a small dot added as a pupil.
Something weird I noticed as I was looking inside the mouth is that this figure has no tongue! That was really surprising to me, I thought it might have been an error on the manufacturing part. But I look at other photos of Shin Godzilla and it's true, he has no discernible tongue. Just when I thought this design couldn't get any stranger.
Speaking of strange, lets talk about the arms. Ignoring the fact that I still find the tiny arms to be the only thing I'm unsure of with the new design, is it just me or are the arms on this figure WAY too small when compared to the film version?
I haven't yet seen the film yet, on account of me living in the US (grr!), but I'm pretty sure the arms are supposed to be a bit bigger than that. However looking at them as they are, they look alright and they can even rotate a full 360 degrees around.
Yeah, it's time to address the elephant in the room: the paint job.
I think the area's that are painted look great, but I really don't get why Bandai couldn't have added a bit more red-orange shading to the rest of the body, they way it is now makes Godzilla look like he's wearing a life jacket.
Paint aside the main body does look very nice. The dorsal fins are all nicely formed and detailed.The legs look good with some nice added detail from the hip to the feet. The legs can also rotate 360, but aside from the arms and legs, there is no other point of articulation on this figure whatsoever.
So how bout that tail? Well as long as you have at least 11 inches of shelf space available, this figure will fit in just fine.
Despite it's overly large size, this is a nicely detailed looking tail. The more sharp spines in the middle look odd to me though.
And I do like the detail given to the tip of the tail, still not sure what the deal is with that though. (No spoilers please!)
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| Shin Godzilla stands well aside various Bandai Godzilla figures. |
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| And he even looks good standing beside his cousins from NECA and SH MonsterArts. |
Despite all the little nitpicking I've been doing, this is still a fairly good representation of the new Shin Godzilla. It may not be for everyone, but if you think it looks great and would love to add it to your collection, go ahead and search for it.
As for me, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what NECA can do with the design with their figure that was just announced. Not sure if I can shell out for the SH MonsterArts version though. Only time will tell.
Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and I hope you've enjoyed your time here in my lair.
So long...
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