Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Review - Gamera 1995

Gamera, the friend to all children, is one of my favorite oddball kaiju; and, his 1995 reboot film, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, is definitely among the all-time best giant monster flicks - in my highly coveted and respected opinion, of course. In 2020, Bandai released a Movie Monster Series vinyl of the titular flying hero-turtle... and, well, here we are. Not all that much context needed on this'un, just a great figure.

Gamera is really flawless - a near one-to-one recreation of the suit design, covered from head to tail with wicked, intricate detail. The deep grooves and stony ridges defining his shell, the heavy wrinkles of his multitextured skin, even simply his fierce, yet cute likeness - it all looks excellent. I dig his battle-ready stance, with five points of articulation giving him a pretty good range of poses - for a turtle, of course. GotU's Gamera just might be my favorite of the superturtle's many designs; a perfect balance between doofy daikaiju dork, and diabolical destructive dickhead - and its well-rounded charm is perfectly captured here. 

Gamera's paint work is also extremely well done. No overspray, no slop - you can really tell Bandai felt especially dedicated for these 2020-2023 Gamera figures. Largely a dark, desaturated green-blue, a light brush of sandalwood bronze defines his chest's patterned sculpt, and though I can't quite tell where it begins and ends, there's also a very subtle fade into dark green separating his shell from his skin; his face being my personal highlight, with his adorable, sharply painted green eyes, and very clean gaping maw - just look at those individually painted teeth. Beautiful. Even his tusks have a nice bit of shading - just all-around amazingly done, especially for modern MMS' occasionally stingy standards. 


Though this is the proper MMS release of Gamera '95, it's not his first Bandai vinyl in a broader sense; that award going to the older 8" Gamera '95, released alongside the movie. Sadly, I've never owned him, but he looks just about as nicely detailed, albeit a bit stilted and less sharp. The vibrant color scheme is fun, though - you might even argue the 2020 figure could've used a bit more green in the mix.

Gamera's an excellent figure, and as mentioned before, feels very elevated in quality. He may be, traditionally, second in command to the ole Godziller, but that sort of gives him this endearing underdog prestige - especially in the figure department. This is one of those borderline perfect MMS figures, and, like the film it came from, is definitely among my all-time favorites. 


Check out my previous MMS reviews:

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