Product Line / S.H.MonsterArts
Scale & Class / Non-Scale Collectible Figure
Manufacturer / Bandai Spirits / Tamashii Nations
Release Date / 2021
Appearances / Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)
The massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe caused a frenzy in Hollywood and sent all studios into creating their own flavor of a shared cinematic universe. For Legendary, this resulted with the creation of the Monsterverse based on Toho’s Godzilla franchise, starting with the 2014 film of the titular monster. Many knew it was only a matter of time before the film series touches upon Mechagodzilla, the franchise’s mechanical counterpart. This finally came in 2021 when Godzilla vs. Kong premiered and saw Mechagodzilla as the foil for both Godzilla and Kong. Several months following the film, Tamashii Nations releases their take on this Mechagodzilla design as part of the S.H.MonsterArts line.
Compared to its previous incarnations, the Monsterverse Mechagodzilla looks more organic with its longer tail and more mechanical thanks to the copious armor details, both of which are captured in this figure. The tail alone is fully poseable thanks to each segment being connected with ball joints. And you can’t go wrong with the sheer amount of sculpted panels, rivets and other mechanics on the armor. That said, Mechagodzilla has moderate articulation at best. It has no torso movement and the legs are slighly limited by a fragile piston assembly on the hips. Many suggest removing these plastic pistons not only to increase range, but prevent them from breaking as well. Mechagodzilla would also benefit from more paint as while the silver looks really good, none of the red energy bleeding out of the armor panels are reflected in the figure.
