It's been a long time coming, but he is finally here! The golden dragon of terror from outer space, King Ghidorah! The notion of King Ghidorah being made by X-Plus has been around for a while. Much experimentation was done to get the figure just right. Finally, late last summer we got our first glimpse at X-Plus' King Ghidorah 1968 figure (from the film Destroy All Monsters.) Some months later preorders popped up online. I had my initial doubts about getting this figure, and I still had doubts up to the moment it was delivered.
Have X-Plus' ambitions paid off? Let us take a look at this grand figure....
King Ghidorah is the second largest figure in the X-Plus Toho Large Monsters Series figure line (right after Biollante,) but it's certainly the tallest with the tip of its wings being at least 18-inches from the ground. The height to the tip of the horns on its middle head is a tad over 12-inches making it stand eye-to-eye with most figures in the 30cm figure line.
Before I proceed forward with the rest of the review, I'd like to explain the issues surrounding this figure upon its release. Many of you may be aware of this, so just bear with me. Some merchants and stores in Japan, notably Amiami, were guilty of mailing out the X-Plus King Ghidorah in just its regular packaging, not inside a shipping box. Most of them were sent out not even bubble wrapped for safe measure. The sender would slap the postage stickers and labels onto the figure box and away it went! This has caused a bit of outrage amongst the collecting community as figures were delivered broken, shattered, and sometimes had parts missing. While 99% of the issues were indeed fixable, it is no excuse for a company nor individual seller to mail out such an expensive figure without any sort of protection. Because, I mean, come one.... Have you honestly seen how some products are delivered?
I feel sorry and sad for those who got their figure broken, or had their packaging ruined by postage labels. That's no way for an expensive collectible item to be shipped and received. I am just over-the-top fortunate that Plamoya.com had wrapped my figure's box in bubble wrap, and on top of that packed it into a larger brown shipping box that was padded all over with crumpled paper. It arrived intact! Kudos to them.
Continuing with the review King Ghidorah is just filled with extraordinary detail from top to bottom. The heads all are well sculpted and seem to give off a different expression - the left one's roaring, the middle one's looking down while the right head looks straight ahead. Inside each of the necks is a metal rod that prevents the surrounding vinyl neck from sagging over time. I give X-Plus mad props for that. They certainly are thinking in the long run more so in the past (recall the effects of gravity on the X-Plus Rodan's wings?)
Speaking of wings, they're the only thing that need to be attached to the figure straight out of the box. You don't necessarily need to utilize a hairdryer for this figure, but if you want to be safe then go right ahead. The wings and the socket that they plug into on the main body are sculpted out of ABS plastic, the same material that they used to sculpt the X-Plus Toho Large Monsters Series Mothra Adult's wings out of. The use of ABS is the genius way to prevent the wings from sagging over time, (again, kudos to X-Plus!) All one needs to do is simply plug the wings into the sockets until they're snug. From there they should hold up just fine. If they feel like they're not in all the way, don't worry, they are! Mine's been fine for over a week and a half already.
As for the detailing on the wings, while the plastic is quite solid, the sculpt work on them is purely amazing and they look much softer and flexible than they really are.
I don't have any other Large Monster Series figures on hand to scale King Ghidorah with, so I utilized whatever 30cm figures I had around me. As I had mentioned earlier, King Ghidorah pretty much stands eye-to-eye with many of the 30cm figures, however the only one that does look good displayed next to is the Sakai Godzilla 1989 figure since it's on the smaller side (as far as 30cm figures go.) Despite the main body not breaching the height of most 30cm figures, the wings easily tower over all of them. It's one figure that commands a lot of space - certainly a piece that should be displayed on a top shelf or on top of a dresser, or something.
What else is there to say about this thing? The X-Plus King Ghidorah is an absolutely glorious figure. For me, it is my holy grail. The one piece I will never ever sell. I'd take it to the grave with me if I had to. It's that good. It's huge, the detail and paint work is fantastic, and the fact that mine arrived here in one piece has me farting rainbows and confetti, (boy what a disturbing image that is!)
I'm glad I went with my gut instead of my brain on this figure. King Ghidorah is my favorite Kaiju in the Godzilla series right after the Big G himself. This has been the figure of my dreams for years. If I had skipped it... I would have regretted it BIG TIME!
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