2001 marked
a huge turnaround for Bandai. Their line for Godzilla
Island (1997) was okay, while the toys for
Godzilla
2000: Millennium (1999) and Godzilla
vs. Megaguirus (2000) were a small improvement.
For the next theatrical Godzilla feature Bandai
felt it was time to return to the "8 inch line"
that they had ignored since the closure of the Heisei
series. This transition turns out to be a night
and day one for the company, who had been regarded
as a great toy maker for the Godzilla series but
whose attention to detail suddenly took a giant
leap forward. Now while the star from this line
is the amazing 2001
King Ghidorah, this figure for Godzilla is still
very impressive, even to this day. It features a
wealth of detail, a great representation of its
movie counterpart, and also manages to capture the
right proportions not just of the figure but also
compared with its costars in this line as well.
Now the detail placed into this figure is truly
commendable. The hide in particular looks great,
and is varied as well. The chest, for example, looks
different from the legs which look different from
the skin on his tail. It's the type of attention
to detail that is so well done that it really allows
one to just marvel at it on occasion. The proportions
are also done well, the giant feet and relatively
smaller hands all being the correct relative size.
In terms of the paint job, it's simple but well
done. The figure is mostly a charcoal gray, which
is as it should be. The few areas that are colored
include the nails, teeth, tongue, eyes, and dorsal
fins. The face aspect is colored in more precise,
while the nails and dorsal fins are given the "spray
paint approach" with the coloring being less
precise. Despite this, the nails and dorsal fins
still look good and the coloring on the dorsal fins
does actually go all the way down the tail as well.
In regards to moveable parts, the figure has a
good number of them. Head, arms, feet, and tail
can all rotate. Basically it's all the points one
would want to have moveable, allowing it to be posed
in a variety of positions while also allowing the
flexibility for day-to-day wear from a kid playing
with it.
Despite the relative greatness of this figure, though,
it does have a few minor things to complain about.
The first of these complaints is the mouth area,
specifically the teeth. The bottom ones are fine,
but the top is actually a solid line of plastic
which has the teeth painted on that stick slightly
out. This has the benefit of increased durability,
but given that the bottom teeth are sturdy enough
there really was not a good enough reason why a
similar thing couldn't have been done for the top.
For the second complaint, the dorsal fins on the
back are from a separate mold. This means that the
area where they connect to the back is visible.
It would have been nice had the entire body be a
single mold, but it's really a minor complaint.
Overall, this is one of Bandai's better figures.
It's not perfect, but there really isn't much to
criticize.
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