Back by popular demand, another tag team review effort by myself, Chris Mirjahangir, and Andrew Nguyen.
Chris Mirjahangir
The Godzilla Effect 2 set joins the S.H. MonsterArts line, bringing beam effects and more display possibilities. Let's check them out!
Details
The Godzilla Effect 2 contains quite a few items, these include both the beams, accessories related to them and some added buildings. In total it has:
- Two beam effects
- One explosion add on
- Two beam stands (explosion, shock wave style)
- Two small damaged buildings
- Two large damaged buildings
I'm a big fan of these sets and it looks like quite a bit of love and care went into making them as well.
Accessories
The set does include the four damaged skyscrapers, or buildings, that were previously mentioned. The "destroyed" buildings looks really cool with the bits of detail showing destruction. There isn't quite enough for a full fledged city, but enough to help with the immersion depending how you might set the figures up.
As an added bonus, they have peg holes in the tops so you can mount jets, the beam effects or even the Super-X3 from the Toho Ultimate Weapon Set 2 set if you wish. The set really expands the possibilities of the S.H. MonsterArts figures, which is the nice thing about it.
Articulation
For articulation, there's not much going on outside of moving the stands around. The includes bending and twisting to let you maneuver the beam coming out of the mouth. Everything else is pretty much static, though.
Paint
The paint is pretty well done for the most part. The buildings look really cool with black paint applied liberally to give it a burnt effect which really adds to the effect of the "destroyed" building.
The beams are a little different than what one would expect from this line though. The beams are white and whitish yellow. An odd choice but if you're going for movie accuracy you can always paint them. The explosion effect is a nice big ball of orange with black, white, and yellow mixed in. It looks really cool and under the right lighting conditions it goes from cool to awesome.
Overall
If you're looking to accentuate your figures on display or are looking to create really cool dioramas, you can't go wrong with this set. There's not a bad piece in the bunch and I enjoy these pieces quite a bit and if you're interested in taking creative photos with this set, either by themselves or with a figure, the creative possibilities are endless!
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Andrew Nguyen
A common sight in the Godzilla series is the visage of destroyed miniature buildings, which often show the results of the battles that occur throughout the franchise. Some buildings often ended up in heaps of rubble or ashes. Others had enormous holes torn into them, the result of blast marks or monsters collapsing on some part of the building while the rest remained standing. On the production side of the movies, the buildings as well as other elements of miniature sets required long hours of immense work so that the actors in giant monster suits would devastate them within seconds. It therefore comes as no surprise that there has been an interest in miniature buildings to go along with the kaiju figures so to add in recreating scenes from the movies.
In 2014, Bandai/Tamashii Nations would get in on the act when they released a set of building miniatures on their online store. Released alongside the Toho Ultimate Weapons Effect Set 2, it would give prospective buyers who bought both products the full equipment needed to recreate scenes from the movies, particularly of man against monster.
Details
For this set, there are four buildings along with two atomic ray effects props, two stands, and a prop to show an explosion from the atomic ray hitting a building, a target in the sky, or a monster. The four buildings are the exact same as the two buildings that are on the Toho Ultimate Weapons Effect Set 2. They can function as stands to mount rods for the miniature planes from the other sets in the S.H. MonsterArts series.
As for the new stand, one is the standard stand used for the atomic ray effects pack while the other is a ground stand that has been devastated due to a powerful energy blast passing above it. Basically, imagine something similar to the wake Gamera left when it launched its mana blast at Legion in Gamera 2: Advent of Legion (1996).
Accessories
As the focus is on the effects pack for Godzilla's main weapon, the accessories in question are the four damaged buildings.
Articulation
The only articulation present in this set is the stands. These can bend at the base or also bend in the middle as well. The articulation allows you to angle the beam as needed.
Paint
The four buildings come in pairs and are in dark grey with small sections of black scattered over the building with the black concentrated on the damaged areas. Meanwhile the two atomic ray effects prop are in a yellowish orange color instead of the standard blue or dark orange color as seen in the series. As for the enormous airborne explosion prop, it is reddish orange with lighter orange along the edges.
Overall
Bottom line, this is a nice set to have to complement the S.H. MonsterArts figures. It's a good base to start on creating a diorama of the kaiju ravaging their way through a city. For the price though, the set may seem a bit expensive due to the contents of the set. If one had to choose between this set the Toho Ultimate Weapons Effect Set 2, the buyer would perhaps skip out on this release due to the buildings looking somewhat plain and the atomic breath effect props that are in this set being in a color that was never present in the series.
Still the price should not dissuade a potential buyer from attempting a purchase of the set and it would be a good idea that Tamashii Nations will follow this up with similar releases in the near future perhaps with different and perhaps more detailed building designs, particularly those modeled on Japan's legendary skyscrapers.
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