NECA GODZILLA 2019 | Figure Review

NECA has been rolling out their King of the Monsters figures starting in May with a standard Godzilla.
I know this has taken a little while for me to get to. Hell, I'm expecting the NECA Mothra to show up at my lair any day now. The reason being I needed to take a bit of time after I saw 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' 3 times in theaters, collect my thoughts and get that review done.
(Which you can read RIGHT HERE)

But now that that's out of the way, lets get to NECA's latest offering of the Big G!

 

Back when NECA released their first Godzilla figure from the Legendary Pictures movie in 2014, I liked it overall, but it left me wanting in certain areas. In some ways the 2019 figure improves on those issues and it also doesn't.

 

Let's start with the gorilla mammoth in the room. The head.

Eyes for the most part look aligned pretty well, but I think it's a little off putting that the majority of Legendary Godzilla figures I've seen have yellow around the pupils where this one has white, making it look like weird fish eyes. It only gets weirder if you look at them really close up, from a distance however it's not that terrible.

The mouth is the biggest shortcoming of the figure for me. The paint on the lower lip is a bit sloppy and the teeth (or lack thereof) are really distracting to me.
Admittedly, this was also a problem with the 2014 figure.
The fact that all of the inside of the mouth isn't painted is also off putting to me.

However, the rest of the figure is pretty solid. Despite initial fears that this figure would simply be a modified 2014 sculpt, this is an entirely new sculpted figure.
From head to tail, Godzilla's skin detail looks really nice and the lighter grey skin tone with a light brown wash really makes it pop. 

The dorsal fins looks a lot better than the 2014 figure, just because there is actual texture to them. A few people are actually saying the dorsal fins are oversized, maybe a bit but not distractedly though. 

Godzilla's articulation remains largely unchanged from the 2014 figure, but with one major exception.

Godzilla's head can look down slightly, move left and right. It can't look up to shoot atomic breath unfortunately. 

The neck has rotation, but is hindered by the sculpt of the dorsal fins unless you move it forward before turning.

The arms have a great range of movement, and a new hinge has been added for the hands.

The body can move forward at the waist but it requires a bit of effort, effort that could also lead to puncturing your hands.
It can also rotate.

The legs move forward and backward, bend at the knee and the feet can rotate and pivot.

To go off on a bit of a tangent: I know most NECA figures have peg holes in the bottom of the feet to insert their figure stands for better balance, but I've never understood why the Godzilla figures need them. Who needs figure stands when you've got a large tail balancing your body?

Speaking of tails, NECA has continued to add multi jointed tail pieces in place of rubber bendy wire tips, a change I and many other fans appreciate dearly. The tail has 10 points of movement and flows very nicely.

 

The instructions included with the figure recommend you dip the tail piece in warm water before attaching it. Personally, I didn't need hot water or even a hair dryer, I just pressed and wiggled the tail in with no problem.

Godzilla comes with no accessories unless you count the backdrop inside the box.

As much as I'm very much looking forward to the SH MonsterArts figure, I rather like the NECA version it a lot. At around $22, it's worth all those pennies despite the head issues. For Godzilla fans on a budget (or not), or NECA collectors in general, this is a pretty solid figure.

BTW, what happened to making more 24 inch Godzilla figures?

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and thank you for joining me here in my lair.

So long...

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