Well, with my previous blog I showed off the 18 inch Gigantic Burning Godzilla 1995 from X-Plus. But in addition to that huge hulking vinyl figure, I also went ahead and made the decision to get a 30 cm (or 12 inch) X-Plus figure of the 1989 Godzilla from "Godzilla vs. Biollante." My reason was just that I wanted a "normal" Godzilla figure without the burning patches. The 30cm figures are also extremely suit accurate, which would be a nice difference from the very stylized and exaggerated design of the 1995 Gigantic figure.

The figure finally arrived, and uh... well, I can only say that I'm quite let down by X-Plus. After the tremendous quality control and overall perfection of the 1995 Burning figure, I was expecting more of the same from the 1989 Godzilla, and sadly that just isn't the case. It's definitely a disappointment in several ways. For a 160 dollar collector's figure, the quality control just isn't up to snuff. Read on as I explain.

Well, at first glance, it looks fine doesn't it? The big muscled chest and thighs of the '89 Heisei design are well represented on the sculpt. The tail curves off to the side to allow a little space savings on the desk, and the claws and toes are all finely painted with yellowish tints to convey a realistic animal look. The mouth is open with good looking multiple rows of teeth, all individually painted. It's a nice first impression. However, it doesn't take long to notice the first problem, which starts at the feet:

The feet don't actually lay flat with the desk. While the undersides of the feet are actually sculpted, the feet themselves are completely off the ground at the heels. It's like Godzilla is simply walking around on his tip-toes. That's just not a good look. Now, I have heard that vinyl tends to droop and sag as it ages and gravity eventually takes a toil, so perhaps in a year or two this problem will go away. This is the first 30cm vinyl figure I've bought from X-Plus, so I have no real experience with the phenomenon. I sure hope that happens, because having Godzilla perpetually tip-toeing is quite embarrassing.

The next problem is found on the head:

Now, the head sculpt itself looks quite good. It's a good feline-looking design and definitely resembles the movie suit's head. The teeth are all sharp and individually painted so they look fantastic. The eye itself is painted with a yellowish pupil and then a darker brown on the outside. Looks fine. However, turn the head and you see:

No, that's not a shadow over the other eye. What you're seeing is a very different looking eye. The brown paint of the outer part of the eyeball has spilled over and covered up most of the pupil's yellow. This is a bad paint mistake that completely changes the look of his right eye. I have no idea why this wasn't caught in quality control but it should've been. As it is, if you're simply looking at the figure from a profile view, it isn't so bad as you only see one eye... but if you ever look straight on at the figure from the front, the two different-looking eyes definitely stand out, in a negative way. *sigh*

Now, let's look at Godzilla's back and dorsal plates.

While it's mostly good and uniform, you can see that the red arrow is pointing to a centerline dorsal plate that is clearly crooked. I'm not sure what happened there. While sticking the tail piece onto the main body, I certainly didn't hold onto the dorsal plates, so it wasn't my clumsy doing.

Now, one unique gimmick of this 30cm figure is that it has an articulated mouth. Unlike the other vinyl figures made by X-Plus that are solely meant to be statues, you can move Godzilla's lower jaw so his mouth is either wide open or somewhat closed. I say somewhat closed, because you certainly aren't able to close it. The range is quite limited, as the picture shows:

That's about the extent that my figure will close. Now, while it seems like a neat feature... I have absolutely no idea why anyone would choose to do this, as the closing of the jaw opens up a huge seam right underneath the jaw, where it meets the neck.

This big ugly gap under the jaw looks horrible and guarantees that I will never be closing his mouth. On super articulated figures like those made by S.H. MonsterArts, these seams are alright since they're necessary for the articulation, but for a finely detailed display piece like this, that gap is simply intolerable.

Finally, I have to explain the biggest flaw with the figure I've found, which is only somewhat noticeable in the above photo. And that is simply that the figure does not stand up straight, at least on mine. The figure is very obviously leaning somewhat to the left side. All the ads and promo pics of the figure showed it standing proudly straight up, at a normal 90 degree angle. Here's an example:

Yet my figure can't help but lean to the left. I'm not sure if it's connected to the problem with his heels not touching the ground. Another photo makes the lean even more obvious:

As you can see, he's definitely leaning toward something on the left. I wouldn't be much bothered by this, if I thought that this was how the figure was supposed to be posed. However, everything I've seen has shown the figure standing straight, so the leaning tower of Pis--I mean Godzilla just feels incredibly disappointing. If it ends up bothering me too much, I suppose I could maybe even stack something under Godzilla's right foot to correct the lean, but that feels like a shoddy, makeshift solution for what's supposed to be a high quality display piece.

At the end of the day, it's not quite a dealbreaker and I won't be returning the figure and demanding a refund. It's simply not what I expected from X-Plus, given their great quality control and attention to detail on the 95 Burning Godzilla. Anybody paying 160 bucks or more for a rubber monster figure probably has a pretty high standard of quality they're expecting for their money, and I really don't think that standard's been met, just judging by my experience. Hey, maybe I'm an extreme outlier, and 99% of the production run is absent most of these flaws. I certainly hope so, because if not I can see X-Plus's reputation being tarnished by these issues. And well... I'd still like to see 30cm releases of the other major Heisei monsters: King Ghidorah/Mecha-King Ghidorah, Super MechaGodzilla, and Destoroyah.