Apologies, because my photos are less than stellar here, but I wanted to do a quick review of this new display item from Bandai. Nearly two full years ago, I reviewed the Godzilla Effects Set 2, and now two new "buildings" sets have come out. Are they worth it?
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| The contents of the "Damage Ver" (blue box) set. |
Well, pretty much, but with a few minor gripes. First of all, what is a better addition to your display of figures from the Monsterarts or Ultra-Act lines, than buildings? Even the buildings between the two Godzilla Effects series of 2014 were identical, so any new buildings would help. Of course, lots of folks are going to be put off by the scale being wrong, but I don't think there's much that can be done about that.
The set works like this: the two baseplates can be combined in any orientation, and are held together with clips from the underside. The street-looking plate actually has small pegs, so that it can be fit into the baseplate from either orientation. The gray plugs can be used to anchor the buildings to the remaining sides of the baseplates.
The problem is, they only give you one "street" plate, and two baseplates. If you connect them together long-ways ("A," below) , you end up with lots of holy-baseplate showing. In the above photo, they are connected as in the "B" diagram, and you still do, too:
I understand that two "street" surfaces would be too long for the "B" configuration, but better to have and not need, as they say. It just feels cheap for a set around the $25-mark to leave out a second "street" plate. Also, the deco on the "damaged" street is a little overdone. A series of alternate "street" plates would be the best of all, that you could buy separately.
The buildings themselves are very nicely sculpted; the small structures on their top are removable. The damaged buildings do not come apart. One of them sits very crooked, almost diagonal, so bear in mind how to position it, to keep it from going completely diagonal.
While I'm thinking about it, only two of the four buildings are even "damaged," and it looks that the two non-damaged buildings are repeated in both sets...so why not go all the way here, Bandai, and make these four "damaged" to prevent the duplication? Re-using molds? That's an American toy company move, Bandai. (Okay, that was unnecessarily nasty; I take it back!)
While I'm thinking about it, only two of the four buildings are even "damaged," and it looks that the two non-damaged buildings are repeated in both sets...so why not go all the way here, Bandai, and make these four "damaged" to prevent the duplication? Re-using molds? That's an American toy company move, Bandai. (Okay, that was unnecessarily nasty; I take it back!)
In the end, this set just needs more pieces...and a backdrop of some kind. When mine arrived, I turned around and ordered the non-damaged version (Green box), but the seller sent me the wrong item, so it's going to be a while before I can connect the two together and have a long enough area to put an Ultra one one side, and an enemy on the other.
I really do like what Bandai is doing here, and I appreciate the opportunity...I just hold Japan to a higher standard!
