In 1991
after a near-twenty year absence from the silver
screen, Toho brought their grand terror from space,
King Ghidorah, back to battle his arch-enemy Godzilla
in the film title, appropriately enough, Godzilla
vs. King Ghidorah. Bandai, as was customary
at the time, issued Godzilla, King Ghidorah, and
Mecha-King Ghidorah to tie in with the movie's release.
Today we'll take a look at the normal King Ghidorah.
Well, as normal as a three headed, twin tailed,
no armed flying dragon from outer space gets, that
is.
At nine inches tall, with a nine and a half inch
wingspan, and running about thirteen and a half
inches from snout to tail, King Ghidorah is decently
sized, but sadly doesn't tower over his fellow vinyl
daikaiju quite like the "real" King Ghidorah
did on screen. Heisei and Showa Ghidorahs alike
stood far taller than his opponents, Godzilla included.
In fact, speaking of the Showa King Ghidorah, let
me get something out of the way right off the bat
that my fellow Godzilla fans may or may not already
be aware of. In 1984, Bandai released the Showa
King Ghidorah as a vinyl figure, coming in both
a yellow or a golden color....but more on him another
time. I bring this up because, unfortunately, Bandai
chose to recycle the mold from their original King
Ghidorah for the Heisei incarnation of the three
headed monster. If you happen to own the 1991 version,
flip him over and take a look at his right foot
and you'll even see the "1984" stamp remains.
Sadly, Bandai chose only to mold new heads for
King Ghidorah, adding the horns of the 1991 version
while removing the molded on "hair" of
the Showa. The wings, tails, legs and body are ripped
directly from the 1984 release, making this Ghidorah
somewhat of a Frankenstein-ish creation of old and
new parts. This does Ghidorah no justice, as the
wing shape in particular is quite out of sync with
the on-screen appearence of Heisei King Ghidorah's
majestic wingspan (which for the record was an issue
with the Showa Ghidorah as well).
Oddly, despite perhaps being Toho's most famous
villain, King Ghidorah has never been captured perfectly
in the eight inch scale by Bandai. They would improve
upon his sculpt with the 6 inch release, but for
years the 1991 8 inch KG was the most widely available
toy until the Trendmasters company released King
Ghidorah in America...and to it's credit, the Bandai
sculpt is far superior to the Trendmasters version
in most ways, but that's nothing unusual.
Re-use of the old mold aside, sadly Bandai went
with a yellow coloration for Ghidorah instead of
a golden shade. This figure has several strikes
against it: An unfortunate color choice, a lack
of size, and a re-used, uninspired sculpt. Despite
being one of Toho's most memorable creations, Bandai
delivered a fairly lackluster figure that I can
only give two and a half stars. Would Bandai's take
on the 1991 Godzilla and Mecha-King Ghidorah fare
better? Find out the answer to that question and
many more (just don't even think about asking me
any G vs KG related time travel questions) soon
here at Toho Kingdom!
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