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S.H. Monster Arts 50th Anniversary Hedorah set


At the end of last year, Tamashii Nations announced that they would be releasing a special set of Hedorah the Smog Monster, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the film that was first released in 1971. I was surprised, as they don’t tend to release a lot of kaiju from the Showa era, and I was especially shocked to see it would be this monster. This weird thing is probably my favorite Godzilla foe; I instantly fell in love with it when I finally watched the equally weird film in the 80’s on TV. They did this character justice with this great set.








The set comes with three different forms of the creature, including tadpole, flying and adult. The tadpole form is two separate pieces. The head can plug into a stand that resembles a pile of sludge to duplicate the opening scene when you see it coming out of the water, or it can plug into a tail piece to form a complete tadpole. The flying form resembles a flying saucer/trilobite, with red eyes in front and tentacles underneath. This is a solid piece. And the final adult form that resembles an upright walking pile of sludge with eyes, arms, legs and a tail. The only other form he had was his crawling form, when it first came ashore and fed on toxic exhaust from a smokestack. Tamashii Nations didn’t include that one, and while it would’ve been nice, it would’ve made the price of this release much higher. I’m satisfied with the 3 forms we got. They also included 2 stands for displaying both tadpole and flying version, and both figures fit snuggly onto them. The eyes on the small tadpole head are translucent, so if you put a light underneath them, they’ll glow. Everything is wonderfully sculpted and painted, and the adult form sports multiple shades of gray, red, blue, yellow and some metallic highlights throughout. The eyes look particularly good, especially on the adult and flying form.







The articulation is limited to only the adult form, and includes head on a ball joint that turns fully around, the back segment of his head that’s also on a ball joint and can move out to aid in moving it forward and straight, ball jointed waist that can twist a good amount in either direction, 3 joints throughout the arms that can move up and twist a bit, with the final “hand” joint being able to turn completely up. The joints on the thighs allow it to kick forward and to the sides, with 3 flaps of sludge in the front that peg onto joints and can move out, allowing more movement for the legs. There are a few joints in the leg and “ankle” that can twist. And the tail sports multiple jointed segments that allow it to bend to the sides and up a bit. His articulation isn’t particularly expressive, but considering he’s a pile of sludge, he’s able to move better than I was expecting.










Like I stated before, Hedorah’s release took me by surprise. I was expecting Tamashii Nations to give us a Showa Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra or Ghidorah before they’d ever give us the Smog Monster. This gives me hope that they may give us a 72 Gigan, Megalon, Titanosaurus or even King Caesar someday. The 1971 flick Hedorah hails from is a personal favorite, with its weird mix of cartoon sequences, psychedelic imagery, goofy music by Riichiro Manabe (including the English language theme song Save The Earth that’s sung by Adryan Russ from the AIP dub), the environmental message, and of course Hedorah, the offbeat star of the film.









S.H. Monster Arts 50th Anniversary Hedorah Set is one of their better releases, up their with SP Jet Jaguar as far as giving you more bang for your buck. The sculpt and paint are on point, so if you’re a fan of this swimming, flying, walking pile of pollution producing toxic sludge, you’ll want to get your hands on one of them. When it first went up for pre-order, of course I jumped at the chance to own Smoggy. I love this weird, goofy thing, and Tamashii Nations gave him respect with this great release.








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