With Ebirah,
Horror of the Deep (1966), everyone knew
Godzilla was fighting a giant lobster, or shrimp
if you want to get technical, but about half-way
through the movie Toho decided to throw its viewers
a curve ball. Enter another monster for Godzilla
to fight. The Giant Condor served no purpose in
its film other than to appear and be defeated. On
screen for less than two minutes, it comes as no
shocker the Condor has never been given any sort
of normal scaled figure, by Bandai or Trendmasters,
and has yet to appear in many games, if any at all.
He has only had two types of collectibles that
I know of: A bottle cap and the figure this review
centers on, the tiny high grade-like Giant Condor
released as part of the Iwakura Godzilla line.
There's not much to say here. Anybody outside
the fandom will not recognize it as a Godzilla monster,
or even a monster in general. It balances itself
on a pole (that vanishes up its you know what) that's
then attached to a rock at the base. The figure
hovers in the air about an inch off the ground with
a 2 inch wingspan. As expected, he has no moveable
parts, but can be removed from the pole if one finds
the idea of plastic pole being rammed up the Giant
Condor's rectum offensive.
Details wise, he looks just as good as any High
Grade figure. He has perfect colors of browns and
his eyes are painted a fine black with a tanish
beak. The talons of the Giant Condor seem a bit
big, but I don't actually remember seeing
them much on film anyway.
The detail is where this figure really shines.
The wings are patterned with feathers very nicely
and the rest of the body has awesome amounts of
texture. Even the head, as tiny as it is, is rich
in detail, looking just like the condor's
head if you look closely.
Surprisingly, for such an obscure kaiju, the Condor
doesn't cost all that much. He comes in a
two pack with the Meganulon from the 1956 movie
Rodan.
I got it for just over $12 on E-bay, and there's
still plenty to grab up. You won't find a
better figure of the Condor, and not just the Condor
either. Iwakura has issued figures/molds of several
other obscure kaiju such as the Giant Sea Serpent
from King
Kong Escapes (1967), Prehistoric Mothra
from Rebirth of Mothra III (1998), and much more.
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