Upon release,
Bandai had a trio of fantastic toys in the form
of Godzilla 2001,
King Ghidorah
2001, and Mothra 2001 for the latest movie with
the three title characters. As the years have dragged
on, the first two toys still hold up amazingly well,
but how does the Mothra figure fare today? In all
honesty, it's not quite as impressive as it was
when it debuted, but still is a high quality release
from the company with a lot to praise.
First up, the detail here is pretty great. There
is an almost fur like quality to the wings, and
the stinger looks flawless with a lot of work put
into making it look as complex as it does. The legs
and face are a little on the simple side, and do
drag the figure down a little, but the other aspects
do well enough to carry the toy from a detail standpoint.
Mothra really shines, though, from its coloring.
To start with the bad, the gradient "spray
paint" brown at the base of the wings and the
body is a little poor. It looks disjointing from
where the wings meet the body. The rest of the painting
though is fantastic. The stinger looks good, with
no sloppy painting done on its streaks of orange.
The face also looks good, especially the deep purple
eyes. The tour de force, though, is easily the wings,
which have the detailed color scheme down flawlessly.
In regards to proportions, the figure is okay.
Its biggest flaw, though, falls in the realm of
its jumbo sized legs. They just look off. In the
movie, Mothra does have very long legs, but on this
figure they are simply too fat and draw too much
attention to themselves. On the plus side, this
does add durability, and if they were the exact
width of its movie counterpart it would be easy
to see them being broken during casual play. However,
Bandai's solution is simply too extreme and a thinner
alternative would have been better. The antenna
suffer from this same problem: too thick and bulky.
Otherwise, though, the figure is very good with
its proportions and also fits well with the others
in the line. It feels especially at home when placed
with the Godzilla toy. Its about 13 centimeters,
but has a wingspan of over 30 centimeters. This
allows it too look impressive next to Godzilla,
but still be dwarfed. The figure is easily positioned
on the back of the Godzilla toy as well.
Sadly, articulation wise this figure is pretty
simple. The wings can flap ever so slightly, the
head can turn, and the back feet can rotate... but
otherwise this toy is immobile. Mothra figures tend
to always suffer this problem, though, so it's not
much to complain about. It would have been nice
it all of the legs would have been moveable, especially
with how oversized they are, but it's a small loss.
Overall, the Mothra 2003 figure is better, but this
one is still a solid representation of this version
of the character and also fits well with the others
in this line.
Rating:  |
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