The second
figure to be reviewed will carry on the theme of "firsts".
The earlier review, Baby
Godzilla, was the first Bandai
figure I obtained. This time, we'll take a look at
the first standard size Bandai Godzilla figure to be
made. Before Bandai started making Godzilla figures
in the early 1980's, most Toho kaiju figures, such
as the ones made by Marusan and Bullmark, were highly
stylized in an unrealistic fashion, with bright colors
such as oranges and blues in often cartoonish sculpts.
Bandai chose to take a much more realistic approach
with their Godzilla line, offering up representations
of the monsters that attempted to mirror their film
appearances as closely as possible. Beginning in 1983
with the announcement of The
Return of Godzilla (1984),
Bandai kicked off their Godzilla line with Godzilla
himself, as he appeared in 1962's King
Kong vs. Godzilla.
Godzilla stands in at around 9 inches tall from the
top of his head to the bottom of his foot, and is approximately
11 inches from snout to tail, though his tail is curved
off to the side. The figure is made of hard vinyl,
and unlike most following Godzilla figures, only features
articulation in the arms and tail. Though most Godzilla
purists hate to think of Godzilla as green, he's certainly
green in this figure, and appeared that way in many
scenes in the film as well. Sadly, King
Kong vs. Godzilla was
not especially well preserved, which is the case even
on Toho's own region
2 DVD release of the movie, as
many colors are prone to yellowing and that may be
why he appears greenish. That's another issue for another
time, however, back to the toy.
Bandai did a decent job with this sculpt. Godzilla
is bulky without looking fat, and they did a fair job
in capturing the unique, almost frog-like face of this
particular suit, though the eyes are a bit bland and
the mouth could've been bigger.
Just like the suit,
the toy features one large row of plates running down
Godzilla's back, with smaller ridges on the sides.
The fins are painted silver, though they appear to
be dark green with yellow highlights in the film, once
again this could be a discoloration issue, or simply
an inconsistency. It's hard to say, as even most production
stills for this particular movie suffer from degradation
with age, as many are heavily tinted blue.
If there's one area of the figure that disappoints
me, its the tail. Bandai made the tail quite thin and
short, lacking the more equally proportioned look it
displayed in the movie, and I don't like the way it
curves off to the side of the figure. The size is my
main complaint, however.
Finally, in the issue of scale, I'm sad to say if
one hopes to recreate the epic battle with King Kong,
they're out of luck. Bandai only made one figure of
the giant ape, and he is woefully out of scale with
Godzilla, as one can see from the included photo of
the two below. This makes Godzilla another one of those
figures that either looks good alone, or with other
Godzillas, which is how I display him. Its a large
and 'prestigious' enough figure to be a centerpiece
in any collection.
Now before I give you my final score for this
particular release, I want to answer a question I received
as to what I am looking for when I grade figures and
what a "good" score
is. I primarily grade on the following criteria:
1 - Color. Do the colors of the toy match that of
the suit? Or, if the toy is meant to be unrealistically
colored, does the chosen color scheme 'work' with that
particular monster?
2 - Scale. How does the monster fit in with other
monsters, particularly those it appeared with on screen
3 - Pose. Does it match the posture shown by the monster?
Can it be put into good display positions?
4 - Sculpt. The most important. In simple english,
does it look like the monster?
With that said, a "Good" score is 3 stars. 2 is
considered Fair and 1 Bad, with 4 being Great
and 5 being Excellent. That leads me to Godzilla
1962's final score of a 3. The pose isn't perfect,
nor is the face, and I do not like the tail at all.
It's very unfortunate that he's too big to be
posed with King Kong (Although this could be King Kong's
fault, as that toy would be released 10 years
later). However for ushering in the "realistic" style
of kaiju figures, Godzilla 1962 is a very good start,
and for the most part Bandai would only improve from
here. The figure is quite rare and can sell in the
neighborhood of $300 and can be very hard to find without
considerable paint wear. Sadly, the paint on Godzilla's
claws is almost completely gone on mine, for instance.
One last word of warning, I recently became aware that
there may be bootlegs of the 1962 Godzilla. I received
an e-mail from a collector who had the chance to purchase
this figure, but they became suspicious when seeing
only "MADE IN CHINA" on the underside of Godzilla's
foot. The authentic toy should have "BANDAI JAPAN
1983" on the left foot, and Godzilla's name on the
right (in Japanese), so I suspect the "CHINA" toy to
be a bootleg. When buying this, or any other figure
online, if you are unsure always ask the seller to
provide additional pictures to help determine the authenticity
of the toy.
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