Released alongside the 12" Kiryu shown
in my last review is Godzilla as he appeared in
his final film to date,
Godzilla:
Final Wars (2004). Though billed at 12",
Godzilla actually stands roughly 10 1/2 inches
high, making him a bit shorter than Kiryu. This
is puzzling in itself, as Godzilla stood 100 meters
tall in Final Wars, and Kiryu was built 60 meters
tall in his films. There has been no shortage
of "Finaro-Goji" toys in a variety of
scales, and Bandai Creation has already released
him in their standard sized line, so I personally
question the choice to include it in the first
release of BC's large scaled figures.
With that said, I must admit that for the most
part, Bandai Creation did an admirable job on
the figure. It is also an improvement over their
previously released 6" Finaro-Goji, although
I feel the 6" had a superior head sculpt.
The paint job on the larger figure is better,
with each of Godzilla's fins highlighted in white,
as opposed to the 6" figure, where the entire
back and all the fins were sprayed white. As with
many other figures produced by Bandai Creation,
the tail is molded shorter then usual to keep
it contained in the packaging, and I feel they
did a nice job on this figure, raising and curling
it slightly in an unusual position for a Godzilla
figure. I actually like Godzilla's overall pose
and posture a great deal, as he truly looks ready
to attack as opposed to other Godzilla figures
that end up looking slightly lifeless.
Godzilla features articulation at the neck, both
arms, both legs, and at three seperate segments
in the tail (though I ususally leave these posed
as they are as I don't like to cause the fins
to no longer line up properly) making him highly
poseable and playable. As I previously stated
with the 12" Mechagodzilla, Godzilla is equally
suited to play or display. My main gripe about
this figure, besides being a little too short,
is the head. I feel he actually comes off a bit
ugly in the face, and I'm not a fan of the eyes
either.
Unfortunately for this particular release, it
had a lot to overcome going into this review.
I'm not a HUGE fan of this particular Godzilla
design, it's already been released several times,
in several scales, by several different companies
over the past three years, it doesn't match up
well with the only figure in the same series it
was released with (Kiryu), and just seems like
an overall uninspired choice. With that said,
Bandai Creation redeemed themselves with the nice
sculpt, even if I can't quite put my finger on
everything that irks me about the creature's face.
Perhaps a great deal of it is in Godzilla's mouth
which seems to curl downwards and remind me of
the "bird-like" mouth of the 2003 and
2004 Godzilla. In any event, I can honestly say
this is a "good" figure, earning it
a final grade of three stars.
If Bandai Creation continues their series further,
and I certainly hope they do, and if they choose
to produce more large scale toys, I'd like to
see some Godzillas we don't usually see in the
12" or higher scale, such as a Burning Godzilla
or any of the various Showa Godzillas (just, please
stay away from the 1954 Shodai-Goji as I feel
its been done to death already).
