Despite
being a rather popular kaiju among fans, Kumonga has
been lacking in the figures department for a very,
very long time. Not once has Bandai released an eight
inch or six inch-scaled figure and nor has he ever
appeared in any other media, including video games.
The best the over-sized arachnid has been given was
two very small figures released during the years of
2004 and 2005. This particular Kumonga was packaged
in the High Grade Set #11 along with Godzilla 2004,
Rodan 2004, Gigan 2004, Kamacuras 2004 (who was also
horribly scaled), "Fire" Mothra, and Monster X.
It may come as hard to believe, but this High Grade
Set has one mighty problem with scaling. This comes
in the fact the set features not six figures, but seven,
an idea that is doomed from the start and screws up
the scaling simply because they cut one of the kaiju
in half to form two new figures (Kumonga and Kamacuras).
Why exactly this was done? I have no clue, and wish
it never was. Bandai should have just made a normally-scaled
Kumonga figure, or just ditched both Kumonga and Kamacuras
and released a High Grade figure of the 2004 King Caesar,
Anguirus, or Hedorah.
As shown in the picture (that doesn't include the "Fire" Mothra
because she messed the shot up), both the spider and
mantis have horrible scaling with their High Grade
brothers of 2004, and not only in 2004, but even before
then. As seen in the picture, Ebirah (from the tenth
set) scales fine with Godzilla while Kumonga... doesn't.
He does, however, scale in fine with the uber-tiny
figure set that was also released in 2004.
Not only does Kumonga lack scaling, he also doesn't
look like his movie inspiration. His colors are off
entirely. The movie version was black and yellow, the
toy is brown and tan. This is also an ugly combination
to boost. This will also lead us to the detail of Kumonga,
and there isn't much to offer. For a High Grade figure,
this Kumonga just fails at being High Grade. A matter
of fact, he seems to be more related to those cheap
50-cent toys one gets from those bubble machines outside
the local grocery store. Only his two bigger eyes are
colored while the rest remain the dull brown the body
is. Like all High Grade figures, Kumonga needs some
piecing together. Thankfully it isn't hard in the least
and will take the average Joe only a minute, if that,
to complete.
In the end, Kumonga is a major let down. He doesn't
feel at all like a High Grade figure, his scaling with
the other flies out the window, and his colors are
just off entirely. In the future, maybe everyone's
favorite giant spider will get some more respect in
the form of figures, but for now, this figure deserves
nothing less than being crushed underfoot.
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