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Standing in at a towering 5 1/2 inches, all the
way from 1994 is Bandai's LittleGodzilla, the second "stage" of
Godzilla's "son" from the Heisei Series as depicted
in 1994's Godzilla
vs. SpaceGodzilla. Believe it or
not, this little guy was once considered to be among
the rarest of the 'modern' Bandais, regularly fetching
over $200 if and when they turned up for sale. Now
he appears far more frequently, and at a much more
affordable price.
Toho took the BabyGodzilla from Godzilla
vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) in a strange,
yet familiar, direction. They mysteriously changed
the more realistic looking Baby into the Minilla-ish,
green skinned LittleGodzilla for the following film,
and naturally the toy reflects this change from the
already-reviewed BabyGodzilla '93 from Bandai.
Besides the obvious change in color and appearence,
the first thing you'll notice is the change in body
type. Little G is pretty thick, you might even say
he's getting quite chubby. He features moveable arms,
and limited articulation in his legs, though his enormous
thighs prohibit smooth movement.
Bandai did a nice job in capturing the little monster's
cute appearence. I suppose my main gripe about the
figure would be the paint job on the mouth, which hangs
open yet is not hollowed out or painted in, leaving
a blob of green vinyl between LittleGodzilla's top
and bottom teeth. The rest of the paint job is decent,
with the teeth and fins done in white (though sadly
the claws on both his hands and feet are neglected
and are unpainted green vinyl), his torso with nicely
sculpted individual scales is yellow, eyes are orange
and black, though I must say I wish the green was a
bit darker to better match the suit.
LittleGodzilla's screen time was limited in his
film, so I'm glad Bandai made a figure at all. However,
he's a bit too big to fit in perfectly with the re-re-released
Heisei Godzilla figure, as he seems to stand a bit taller
than he should. At least he looks suitably dwarfed
by SpaceGodzilla, should you choose to recreate their "epic" standoff.
Minor issues
with the choice of color and scale aside, LittleGodzilla
gets a 3 1/2 out of 5 from me. I've always had a soft
spot for the character, but he's just a bit too big
and the color is just a little off. Good figure, but
I'd like to see him re-done some day. LittleGodzilla
toys are incredibly scarce with most companies simply
not producing him, so if you're a fan by all means
hunt down the Bandai, it's a lot easier now than it
was about 7 years ago....when I paid more than I'd
like to admit for the damn thing...
Now, as a word of caution, oddly enough, perhaps due to
the one-time demand and selling price for this figure,
LittleGodzilla is heavily bootlegged. It is not always
easy to tell the bootleg figure, though it is slightly
shorter than the authentic Bandai. The yellow torso
also looks a bit orangeish, though this can be hard to tell
if you do not have the genuine Bandai to compare it
with side by side. As a general rule, check the
bottoms of the feet. Bootlegs generally do not have
the "BANDAI" name stamped into the foot.
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