One of the figures that I've been anticipating for months has finally arrived: S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 1975. This is the suit used in the film Terror of Mechagodzilla, which was a fitting end to the Showa era (though technically, Godzilla 84 was the last film of the Showa era). In addition to being one of my favorite Godzilla films of the 70's, the '75 suit is one of my favorite Godzilla looks. While he was very similar to the 1974 suit, the most noticeable difference was that his face and eyes looked meaner.
The first thing to note about the sculpt of the figure is that it's not 100% accurate to the suit. However, it comes close enough. It still captures his mean face, with a few elements of the 1974 suit, such as slightly bigger eyes. At certain angles, especially looking straightforward, he's undeniably the 1975 suit. They did a fantastic job of accurately sculpting his bigger dorsal spines. Over the years, they became bigger and less jagged. The body is painted in a dark charcoal grey, with silver on the spines, red inside the mouth, bone white on the teeth and some lighter grey on his fingers and toes. There's not a lot of shading on the figure. His eyes, however, really stand out. His large black pupils are looking up, with some red to duplicate a slight bloodshot appearance. Bandai tends to stylize the figures in the S.H. MonsterArts line, but this doesn't stray too far. He's undeniably Godzilla 1975. And finally, he's quite tall, standing a few centimeters taller than some of the other SHMA figures. He's actually taller next to my Hiya Godzilla 2002 figure. That was quite a surprise.
His only accessory the figure comes with is an extra pair of closed hands. Since this Godzilla did quite a lot of brawling with Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla, fist-shaped hands are much appreciated. They could have given us a bare-bones release, so I guess this will do in lieu of a breath effect, which they seem to have scaled back on.
The big star of this figure, however, is its engineering. Maybe Hiya's increasingly great releases have lit a fire under Bandai's ass, maybe not, but they've upped their articulation game considerably these last few years. He sports multiple pull-out joints; one in the upper torso, two in the neck, his thighs, his knees and his ankles. These not only allow the figure to have extra range, but when you activate them all at once, it actually makes the figure slightly taller, though a bit lanky. His shoulders sport slight butterfly joints that help the arms move forward more, and his waist joint can spin fully around. His upper torso can crunch far forward, though it will leave a gap if you push it to the limit. Four of his larger dorsal spines on his back are on ball pegs, so you can twist them slightly so that they don't get in the way when bending or straightening out the torso. That was a pretty cool feature. His mouth is sculpted so that it can actually close all the way, which is a feature of the 1975 suit that made the face so memorable. The 1972 figure, while great, is unable to fully close the mouth without his big teeth showing, so this effort to more accurately sculpt his teeth inwards to allow his jaw to shut is much appreciated. The only part of his body that could have been better is the tail. While the 1972 figure can twist and curl the tail joints considerably, this one's joints are more limited. You'll be able to twist it downward and to the sides, but that's about it. You will not be able to duplicate '72's infamous tail balancing pose. Other than that, you can still twist and turn Godzilla '75 in all sorts of fun ways.
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This figure turned out much better than I anticipated. Once you have it in hand, the detailed sculpt is quite arresting, and his engineering makes him fun to pose. I've always wanted an articulated figure of the 1975 Goji suit, so I'm glad to finally have one. I suppose if they had released one several years ago, it would've had a now outdated sculpt that probably wouldn't have moved as well. He was announced last year, as it was the 50th anniversary of the film. At the event where they had the figure displayed, they had him next to drawings of his two co-stars, Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus. Does this mean they'll be releasing those sometime in the near future? That would be awesome. They've already released a classic Mechagodzilla 1974, but that one is quite small compared to this G75. An updated Mechagodzilla '75 is most definitely in order.
Here’s a short clip.
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