S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 1972

A new release that I've been excitedly looking forward to since it was first announced has finally arrived: S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 1972. This figure was an instant preorder for me when the promotional pictures were first shown, and about a week ago, when it was released in Japan and the YouTube reviews started pouring in, it made me want the figure that much more. Now I own him, in all his goofy glory.

The reason I'm so psyched about this release is because this is my favorite Godzilla suit from the Showa (1954 - 1975) era. It's actually the suit that was made for the 1968 film Destroy All Monsters, and Toho got a lot of mileage out of it, as they used it in three more films: 1969's All Monsters Attack (aka Godzilla's Revenge), 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah (aka Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster), and the final use was in 1972's Godzilla vs. Gigan (aka Godzilla on Monster Island). By this time, the suit was practically falling apart, and you could see pieces of it worn off and falling off during the film. Toho would usually make a new suit and use it for 1 or 2 movies, but by the early 70's, they were probably trying to cut costs, so they made sure to get their money's worth with this one. Bandai released this figure to go along with their Gigan from last year.

The figure came out looking fantastic, accurately capturing the appearance of this suit, with its longer neck, raised eyebrows, bigger eyes, sleek body and large, silver dorsal spines running down his back. Godzilla is painted a dark charcoal grey, with a darker gradient shade on those spines that spread out to silver on their edges. His eyes are white with black irises and white pupils, his teeth are nicely sculpted and painted fairly well, with red gums and tongue. He has a light coat of green spray running down his torso, as well as on his feet. The nails and toes are painted a dull yellow, getting darker at the base. Other than a small bit of extra silver paint bleed on one of his spines, everything else is painted well. For accessories (What? An S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla with an accessory???), he comes with an alternate head that has blood running down from the top, from the scene where Gigan stabs him in the head with his claw and makes him bleed. You change the head by simply popping it out of the socket, and it's fairly easy to swap. No atomic breath beam is included, but at least he got something, and its actually reflective of his appearance in the film.

Articulation includes head on a ball joint, two more ball joints in his neck, ball joint upper torso, waist, shoulders, thighs, wrists (2), ankles, and several in his tail. His elbows and knees are double jointed. His lower jaw (on both heads) is on a ball joint, allowing it to open and close, as well as a ball peg tongue. The top dorsal spine on his back is on a hinge joint, allowing you to slide it up and down, so that it doesn't rub against the neck when moving it up. They did the same thing with Minus One's dorsal spines at the back of his neck. Pretty cool engineering to prevent rubbing. They added extra floating pieces to his shoulders, thighs and ankles, so that they can hide any potential gaps when posing. He's able to look up and down, twist and crunch his body, kick his legs up, raise and lower his arms, and his tail can curl around quite well, allowing you to recreate the flying pose from the Hedorah film, and the infamous tail slide from the Megalon film. While not as expressive as the Final Wars Godzilla figure, he can still achieve a variety of fun poses. As with most S.H. MonsterArts figures, if you find he's stiff out of the box, you may need to apply some heat (preferably from a blow dryer) to help loosen some of those joints to get the maximum benefit of his engineering.

S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 1972 turned out to be a winning release. He looks great, moves well, and I'm psyched to finally have my favorite Showa Godzilla suit in super articulated form. Even though it's early in the year, I know that this guy will make my year-end list of top 10 favorites. Whenever I would come across online surveys asking which suit I wanted Bandai to give us in their MonsterArts line, this is the first one I always listed. And now that he's a reality, I can recreate my favorite scene from the dubbed version of Godzilla vs. Gigan, where Goji and Anguirus speak to each other in horrid, warped voices. Haha!