Hedorah,
released in 1993 in Bandai's standard Godzilla line,
stands a shade over 7 inches tall. Hedorah is crafted
in very hard vinyl, and only sports limited articulation
in his two arms. Hedorah toys are fairly rare when
compared to other classic Showa kaiju, and along with
the recent 6 inch release from Bandai, this is probably
the most well known. However, I don't feel they did
a particularly excellent job in capturing the unique
Smog Monster in toy form their first go round.
Hedorah appears both a bit too lumpy and too thin
here for my liking. He has two small "legs" that are
molded together, forming a flat base for him to stand
on. His "tail" is molded into the back and appears
'melted' into the legs. I really wish he was a bit
more spread out in appearence, it would help make him
look a little more imposing. As is, he almost looks
as if he is perpetually seeking a hug. The strange
upright posture he's depicted in doesn't match the
lumbering, hunched posture of his on screen counterpart
and just seems out of place. Hedorah almost looks like
more of an old timey piggy-bank than a toy!
Hedorah is made of black vinyl, with highlights
ranging from silver to green to red, which does a decent
job of portraying his 'sludgy' nature. Bandai took
a unique approach with the eyes here, as they appear
to be printed on either paper or plastic, then covered
by thick transparent plastic. The effect is somewhat
spoiled by what appears to be a plastic cylinder in
the middle of each eye, perhaps implanted to keep the
eyes in place behind the plastic.
Hedorah, not counting his blink-and-you-miss-it
cameo appearence in Godzilla:
Final Wars (2004), only
had one on screen appearence, that being his debut
film of Godzilla
vs. Hedorah (1971) . He pairs up well with
the Movie Monsters series Soshingeki-Goji, released
in 2006. Godzilla
vs. Hedorah (1971) is known as one of the
more under-appreciated entries in the Godzilla series
(Tomoyuki Tanaka was even quoted to have told director
Yoshimitsu Banno that he "ruined Godzilla" with his
unique film!), and perhaps I'm under-appreciating this
figure, but I just don't love it. It's a passable Hedorah,
but nothing more, and for that I give it a final score
of 2 and a half stars out of a possible five. Bandai
would improve on Hedorah in both color, pose, and overall
look in a future release....but we'll have to save
that for the 'sequel'.
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