SH MonsterArts Discussion ( + related military vehicles)

[Gojira Prime]

Images are starting to trickle out from the SDCC on Bluefin Tamashii's Facebook page and twitter:

http://www.facebook.com/Tamashii.USA



We get a better look of the final product in and out of the box. Looks pretty sweet!

I'm hoping we see some new stuff tonight!

[MekaGojira3k]

That thing looks a lot better than I thought it would.

[Timz]

[Gojira Prime]

Another pic:



I want this diorama!

I can see KG's tail on the left, and Little G on the far right. Hope we get some new reveals soon!

[MekaGojira3k]

[Jomei]

[klen7]

[sachiel]

[klen7]

[sachiel]

[Poe Ghostal]

[Baltan II]

I know I said this before and I'll say it again - barring some incredible change in how anything Bluefin has ever worked, some product shortage or more demand for a creamsicle Godzilla than anybody anticipated, Bluefin exclusives are not difficult to acquire. In past years major retailers including BBTS and Amazon have all been able to list the figures for sale with little or no markup. It requires a bit of patience since none have been listed in advance of SDCC, but it will happen. Bluefin also does not run out of exclusives at SDCC and end up selling them at later conventions they attend for the same price. It takes months, if not a year for their SDCC exclusives to dry up and increase in price on the secondary market. Keep calm and don't spend $100+ on SDCC "preorders".

You may also call me a hypocrite if you like for having someone at SDCC get one for me, but he volunteered out of the goodness of his heart and we're also meeting up at a convention at the end of this month, which is when I'll have mine. I would too otherwise be waiting.

[sachiel]

Sachiel here with another SH MonsterArts review. This time its going to cover Moguera, my third Monster Arts figure in my collection. For some odd reason I decided to skip getting Space Godzilla first. I currently don’t have any plans to get him anytime soon. In any case, Moguera is a great addition to any Gfan’s figure or SH MonsterArts collection. I would have to say that it features more accessories than any other figure in the toy line. Anyways enough of my blabbering, onwards to this comprehensive photo review.





Moguera’s packaging features dark blue with a rather prominent shot of the mech’s glowing eyes. A nice plastic window on the left side showcases the figure in all its glory. As usual the reverse side of the box features Moguera in various poses accompanied by a summary of the mech’s history. The remaining sides of the packaging feature Moguera with its cone hands open. As usual the name of the monster both in English and Japanese is printed in metallic font.




Inside the box sits Moguera in its plastic tray along with all its accessories. Tape on the sides of the plastic tray securely holds the figure from moving around. Thankfully no need for removing wired-twist ties from Moguera. Kudos to Bandai for neglecting to use that really annoying packaging tool.






As mentioned before, Moguera comes with a wealth of accessories, more so than any other SH MonsterArts figure released so far. Everything from alternative cone hands, to plastic stands, beam accessories, chest maser to smoke contrails for Moguera’s missiles. Great stuff Bandai!



We’ll be examining the accessories in greater detail as we go through the review.



The figure is a piece of art, designed and mass produced by Bandai. We have come a long way since the mid 1990s and the toys of the previous two decades. With the artists that Bandai has enlisted, including the individuals involved with Heisei Moguera’s suit design, along with advanced computer software design has produced a figure with unparallel sculpt accuracy, articulation and all around durability.

The figure is made of a combination of plastic along with diecast. The diecast portions are located most prominently in the feet and central torso of the figure. This way the figure gets a really solid feel with perfect balance without being top heavy.




Really I can’t say that I’ve seen a Heisei Moguera figure that looks better than this. All the details are here and proportionally it looks the same as its on-screen counterpart.



I do appreciate the smaller details like the insectoid honeycomb eyes on the figure, featuring yellow and orange translucent plastic. Really I can’t see too many faults with this figure’s sculpt.




The chest maser is certainly less detailed than its onscreen counterpart, but I would think that was done for durability reasons. The blades on Moguera’s back are rightfully proportioned and shaped accurately. Maybe a bit too accurately as they are razor sharp. If one is not careful you can probably cut yourself. Never leave your Moguera on the ground as stepping on it barefoot will send you to the hospital!!!

And yes if you haven’t noticed you can see the cockpit windows right at the base of Moguera’s neck.


The drill nose is articulated and can be turned manually. Neck joints are present for some restricted articulation. Arms can move freely and twist 360 degrees. Bandai has done a great job with concealing the arm socket joints. Especially near the shoulders of the mech as observed in the photo below.




Additionally the big selling point this time in my own opinion is Moguera’s ability to open and close its cone hands to expose or conceal its missile warheads. The cone hand doors flip open and can stay open at varying degrees opening so far as 90 degrees. Very nice.....







Legs of course can be articulated. Feet can swivel but the extent to which you can move the legs is hampered by the robot’s sculpt/armoured skirt. To be fair thats normal with Moguera. Its not that we saw Moguera doing the splits or running around.



Moguera’s tail can also be articulated and positioned in varying degrees to support the figure and maintain its balance.








The figure can also be converted into flight mode by swapping out waist pieces and back saws. In flight mode- I also noticed that the robot’s thrusters are visible on the bottoms of both feet and its tail. Not just merely painted but represented by orange translucent plastic pieces. Very nice Bandai.









The figure comes with a wide selection of accessories. 2 sets of cone hands are provided. Ones that remain closed and a separate set that can be opened and closed at will.



The cone hands that do open up on Moguera allow the owner to remove the missile warhead so that one can stick it onto the tips of the missile smoke contrail accessory.




Missile contrails along with the plastic city bases that come with plastic arms, support the missile smoke contrails very well.





The chest maser accessory requires the owner to eject the cover for the maser from Mogueras chest. To do so you can lift the back piece for the figure to reveal a button. Press the button all the way until it disappears into the back to eject the cover to reveal a hollow hole in Moguera’s chest. The chest maser can then be inserted into Moguera.






To answer Gforever’s earlier question, I do confirm and agree that his assessment where the chest maser pit fits into the figure should be tighter. Its all too loose when fitted onto the figure. In fact if you were to have Moguera’s chest face downwards, the chest piece will come falling right out. A shame that Bandai didn’t try harder to give us a better fit for the chest maser.
Speaking of the chest maser, as usual Bandai does provide us with the “beamâ€

[Poe Ghostal]

I'm curious how those who think the beams look too much like water think the beams should have been made. Are there some better examples from other figures you could point to?

EDIT: It occurs to me that the spiral beam that comes with Rodan looks better, and I think one reason is that the sculpted furrows for the flames aren't as long, regular, and parallel as the ones on the blue beam, giving it less of a continuous-stream look and more of a flame look.

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

[Hesei]

[MekaGojira3k]

I concur! Sachiel takes quality photos and actually takes shots of all the stuff you want to know about the toy.

[Gojira Prime]

Great review, Sachiel! Nicely thought out, and great pictures to boot!

@Poe Ghostal- I don't think it's the sculpt of the beam that's putting some people off, but rather the color. It's almost clear with very little blue. Godzilla's beam should have been a richer blue (similar to Ultra Act's Ultraman Specium Ray). I think if the color was changed, it wouldn't suffer from the barfing water effect.

The red breath ray from the effects pack doesn't suffer from this problem nearly as much as the blue one, imo.

[Godzilla 2000]

Well it's here at last; SHMA Mechagodzilla.



I'll be doing a first impressions text review (since the video review wont come for a while). I've had some time to fiddle around with it.



First off, the sculpt is very nice, as to be expected. Every detail is there, and it just looks cool. Even though there isnt a lot to this MechaG's design, they managed to capture him just perfectly. He has a nice, silvery shine to him, despite being plastic, and the diecast parts blend in just fine. The only issue I have is the color of his eyes. Something a bit more brighter and more yellowish would've looked better.



In terms of the scale of this thing, he's taller than Godzilla, and that's all that really matters.



Here he is compared to older Mechagodzilla figures.



I do have another issue though. Maybe it's just mine, but he cant seem to hold a basic stance very well. He tends to fall back on his tail for balance, which is odd, considering how hollow it is.



How I managed that, I'll never know.

As far as articulation and overall posability go, he's even better than Godzilla. He's much more flexible, and allows for more dynamic poses.





And yes, he can do the splits.



Because someone out there cares.


And now, accessory time!

Man oh man, what an improvement over Godzilla. Mechagodzilla's accessories dont actually suck!




The base, while an ugly POS, is at least a bit sturdier than Godzilla's. The stand, though, is the real kicker; it actually fits snuggly into the peg holes! Crazy right? Seems they fixed that issue no problem. It's no longer flimsy, loose, or a pain in the ass to reposition. And it doesnt hurt that the Mega-Buster looks just great.



It has a nice, pulsating look to it, along with that signature rainbow color scheme. It's just a shame that the head cant be posed up or down. Even though this was likely done for the sake or accuracy, it severely limits your options for posing it with the beam.

One thing I wanna point out is the issue of his teeth. Supposedly, they're a bit delicate and break off if you try shoving the beam into the mouth. That's kind of, ya know, BAD.

But to be fair, the front sticker does show how it should be positioned. Still, it's little solace to those who found out the hard the hard way.



Next is the plasma grenade launcher. It's an easy part to swap that stays in and looks cool. Not much else to add exception that it didnt come with an effect part. But I suppose you can always substitute some other beam effect for it, if you really want to.




And now, the hands...



Um...yeah...



These kinda suck. I mean, whats the point? Why not clenched fists instead? It just seems weird. But if you wanted to make Mechagodzilla pose like a nazi, then I guess you're good to go...



Supposedly these are meant for flight mode, but is the difference really enough to warrant an extra set of hands? I dont think so, especially given the tiny pegs they rest on. I was very nervous about them snapping on me, so I wont be putting them on again.

Next is the tail.



It's a tail...with barely a difference in position. Yay?

Whatev's. Here's flight mode.



The neck part requires some swapping too, but as with the hands, I was too afraid that they'd snap from overuse, so these flight mode parts will likely stay in the box.

They're not bad, though.



Overall, first impressions are good, and I'm really diggin' this guy. I know a lot of fans dont care for this MechaG, but I grew up with him, and if you like Mechagodzilla just in general, I'd say this is a fine addition to your collection. Just dont pay $70-80 for one. I got this for $60 off of Amazon.com, and really, thats about what he's worth IMO.

Of course, he would be worth a bit more IF HE CAME WITH GARUDA LIKE HE SHOULD HAVE.

But on his own, he's one kickass toy.

[klen7]

^^ Thanks for the poses, I have seriously been under utilizing the articulation of this series

[sachiel]

[Godzilla 2000]

[sachiel]

Thanks Hesei and MekaGojira3k for your kind praise. I'll continue to post reviews here as I get new figures. Speak of the devil while we're on the subject, heres another review!



Sachiel here with another SH MonsterArts review. This time its going to cover the Garuda and effects part set in my collection. For the uninitiated, Garuda hails from the Heisei Godzilla film, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II. This set was a special Bandai web exclusive that was reportedly only made to order for fans who placed pre-orders on the Tamashi Nation website. In any case I got my set from Tokyo Hunter, a proxy website that hunts down web exclusives for you. I got the set for a decent price at about $40.00. The set due to its rarity is now selling for much much more. Is it worth it? Read on to find out!







The set features a chrome style silver box with basic Garuda and Mechagodzilla logos on the front and back of the box. The SH MonsterArts name is featured prominently on the top of the box. The box unlike other sets in the MonsterArts series does not feature a plastic window.
Inside the box sits Garuda in its plastic tray along with all its accessories. Tape on the sides of the plastic tray securely holds the figure from moving around. Thankfully no need for removing wired-twist ties from Garuda. Kudos to Bandai for neglecting to use that really annoying packaging tool.




Instructions are also included and they are a welcome addition since without it would be all the more challenging to figure out how to attach Garuda to Mechagodzilla.




Garuda comes with a fair amount of accessories. Being a web exclusive vehicle figure, its warranted that the bulk of the set will consist of supplementary accessories. The set here includes Garuda itself, beam effects for Garuda.



We’ll be examining the accessories in greater detail as we go through the review.






The figure is a fine reproduction of the Garuda vehicle from the film Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II. With the artists that Bandai has enlisted, including the individuals involved with Heisei Garuda and Mechagodzilla’s suit design, along with advanced computer software design has produced a figure with unparallel sculpt accuracy and articulation. Heh.....I suppose I articulation here when compared to the rest of the SH MonsterArts line is a joke. However, considering everything being equal, the SH MonsterArts figure features unparalleled articulation and moveable parts. I’ll explain that in further detail in the articulation section of this review.

The figure is made of a combination of plastic along with diecast. The diecast portions are located most prominently in the feet and central torso of the figure. This way the figure gets a really solid feel with perfect balance without being top heavy.



Really I can’t say that I’ve seen a Heisei Garuda vehicle figure that looks better than this. All the details are here and proportionally it looks the same as its on-screen counterpart.




The decals for the G-Force logo is also printed on the vehicle. Laser canons on the vehicle are translucent and made out of clear plastic. The vehicle’s jet engines are also well sculpted and feature clear orange plastic parts to simulate active thrust.





Surprising as it is, Garuda as a vehicle does feature a variety of moving parts, that one would suppose would count as articulation on a figure. The most noticeable piece of articulation on Garuda is the laser canon/arms on the vehicle. These can swivel up and down with almost 60 degrees of movement.
The secondary articulated piece is the cockpit area. It can backwards to rest on the central fuselage of the vehicle as part of the transformation sequence before docking with Mechagodzilla. Additionally Garuda’s engines can also pivot and swivel slightly. Not bad for articulation on a somewhat static vehicle.








Well at last we get to the accessories. The whole entire set is pretty much an accessory kit to Mechagodzilla. In a way it seems this Garuda review will turn into a Mechagodzilla review. Heh....
Anyways.....beginning with Garuda, the set does come with beam effects for the canons. Its actually quite interesting how the beam effects fit on Garuda. Initially I thought the extra beam effects would just fit snugly on the tips of the canons. Thats apparently not quite true......
In fact the clear tips on Garuda’s canon arms can actually be removed and pulled out.




Once removed, an empty peg hole allows you to plug in the beam accessory snugly into the canon arms of Garuda. Nice.... I’m glad to see Bandai went with this route when designing the accessory as there may be a severe case of laser beam droop or falling off syndrome if it were done in any other way. The beam accessory itself is also very light. It appears to be as light or even lighter than a paper clip. Hence the lack of droop on the canon arms or need for a separate stand to support the laser beams.





Oh and yes the plastic stand that comes with Garuda is very handy to use. Without it the scenes with Garuda floating and flying through the air would be all the more challenging. Garuda itself is also a very light paper weight, so supporting the vehicle/figure on one plastic arm isn’t very hard at all. I do believe that Garuda is actually hollow inside, thus explaining the lack of weight on the vehicle/figure.

Mechagodzilla’s shock anchors are also another nice supplementary addition to the set. The anchors play pivotal moments in the film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Moments that usually involve Godzilla’s suffering followed by Mechagodzilla’s demise.

The shock anchors are plastic covering a thin flexible wire core. They work well and plug into the wrist ports on the Mechagodzilla figure. Unfortunately, the wires don’t fit too snugly and tend to be loose. So loose in fact that one touch or repositioning the arms on Mechagodzilla is enough to make them fall out of the wrist port. Shame Bandai didn’t give them a tighter fit. Then again the shock anchors are somewhat fragile too, so a tighter fit could result in a sheared shock anchor cable if you tug too hard...


In any case, the photo opportunities with it are nice. Observe.....







And of course lastly, the transformation sequence......



As seen here the back plate on Mechagodzilla needs to be removed and replaced with another accessory back plate from the Garuda set. This new back has the prongs necessary to attach Garuda to Mechagodzilla.





Similarly, the Garuda also requires some fiddling around with to prepare it to dock with Mechagodzilla.



Alternative concave parts with smooth groves are included in the set to swap out with the panels on Garuda’s underside.




Once swapped out Mechagodzilla can finally dock with Garuda!














\
Overall the Garuda set is a fun set to have. Bandai has certainly upheld and maintained the high standards already seen with the normal releases in the SH MonsterArts line. Garuda looks very screen accurate. Much meticulous detail has been given towards designing the set to be faithful to Gfans and practical for figure collectors. The design work involved in getting Garuda right and having it attach to Mechagodzilla is very nice. The canons on Garuda additionally are very well executed. For me swapping out the clear tips for the laser beam effects parts is the icing on the cake. And the inclusion of the shock anchors for Mechagodzilla and extra stands shows that Bandai is willing to please.


Though I do agree that Bandai should have included the Garuda as part of the Mechagodzilla set. $55 is still a steep price to pay for a set like this. Regardless this set will get rarer as time passes. It is very unlikely that Bandai will reissue this set as it was just a web-online exclusive. Anyways hope you guys enjoyed my review.

Next up, SH MonsterArts Rodan!!!!

[Gojira Prime]

Another nice and in depth review, sachiel! Pictures are really good too!

I love the Garuda upgrade, and it does complete the look for Super MechaGodzilla! The fact that the back piece on MG is removable pretty much indicates that Garuda was always planned.

It should have either came with MG from the jump, or it should have been mass released, instead of being a web exclusive. Your right that it'll be harder to get down the road as it's unlikely it'll be reissued.

Out of curiosity, which Monsterarts mech do you like better, Mogera or Mechagodzilla?