NECA Rodan 2019

I went and picked up the new NECA Rodan from my local shop called Zonkey Toys. I know that several retailers had gotten it already, while others are still waiting to receive their shipments. 

 

 

 

 

 

This figure is smaller than NECA's average Godzilla line. I don't really mind that as the sculpt and paint apps are surprisingly detailed. He sports a medium brown color, with lighter highlights towards the edges of the wings and tail.

 

When holding it in front of light you immediately notice a red translucence that's really nice. That gives his wings a nice, extra fiery detail that fits well with the kaiju.

 

 

 

 

As for accessories, you get a stand that's a duplication of the top of the volcano where he emerged from, along with fire and smoke that is also translucent in front of light. It’s nice that they included that as part of the base, but the actual plastic part on the stand that holds Rodan is rather flimsy. You can set him on it, but so much as a mild shake and the figure will come toppling down. Luckily I have many other stands from past figures so I can prop him up on one of those.

 

 

 

Now, as for the articulation, this is where the greatness drops several notches. Instead of giving him a mouth that opens and closes, they instead include 2 separate heads, one close mouthed and the other open mouthed. I really don't know why they did this. Some have said that since the head is small it may have been too hard to design a hinged mouth that opens and closes. 

 

I haven't seen any official statement from NECA regarding this, but if it is their excuse, it's a bunch of baloney. Revoltech has a Rodan figure that is the same size and that figure has a mouth that opens and closes. S.H. Figuarts has a few figures with small beaks that can open and close (Alien Guts, Pandon to name a few). This just seems to be straight up laziness on their part, or just wanting to cut corners.

 

The other areas of articulation are the neck which moves around, the head which moves around and can swivel a bit forward and backward, the legs which move forward, backward and can swivel out slightly, and the wings. There's a swivel in the middle so they can fold in and outwards. And finally, at the shoulders, the wings move forward about 90 degrees. Unfortunately they can't move up past the shoulders, so that limits them as far as raising his wings. You can swivel them inwards and around, so that helps with putting him in dynamic poses. The round hinge that the wings are on is similar to what they did for Mothra's wings. I can already tell they will get loose with time and drop down. There is no waist or tail articulation. I wish that there was an extra joint in the waist, and at the knees so you could give it some extra bending poses. The way they are, they look bow legged when moved back.

 

This figure could've really excelled with some tweaks to the joints. However, it’s still pretty good, and much better than the half-assed Godzilla they released. It seems to be nicer than their Mothra release as well, which sported some nice colored wings but limited articulation. I went ahead and skipped that one and just pre-ordered the S.H. Monsterarts that comes with Rodan that will be released late in the year.

 

I’ll have to say that Rodan is so far the best of their KOTM figures. They seemed to be phoning it in with this series, but Rodan has enough things right that you can overlook the lack of hinge on mouth or articulation on body/legs. I’m curious as to how Monsterarts’ version will turn out, but for now, NECA Rodan is a worthy purchase.