In 1995, Godzilla died. As Toho anticipated handing off their Godzilla franchise to America as a brand-new blockbuster franchise (and yeah, we all know how that turned out), they decided to bid farewell to their beloved radioactive dinosaur by giving him a going-away party called Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. The film included many references to the original film, including the origin of its villain, Destoroyah – a demonic creature formed by prehistoric crustaceans mutated by the weapon that killed the original Godzilla, the Oxygen Destroyer.

With Burning Godzilla already on the way, it was only a matter of time before Tamashii unveiled the S.H.MonsterArts Destoroyah. He’s absolutely massive – the largest SHMA figure to date – and will cost around $150 (suddenly I’m collecting something getting up into the Hot Toys range…I basically have no non-MOTUC, non-SHMA toy budget at this point).

It looks like he won’t come with any accessories, no doubt due to the already-high price, but Tamashii recently unveiled the “Crab Aggregate” and “Flying Aggregate” Destoroyah forms at an event for Godzilla’s birthday; they will probably be Web exclusives, but available via U.S. retailers.] You can pre-order Destoroyah at BBTS, and Amazon should have him fairly soon too.

While I’m not a huge fan of the Heisei series of Godzilla films, I do like a few of the monster designs from this era, and Destoroyah is one of them. While ostensibly a giant mutant crustacean, Destoroyah looks more like a demon – an intriguing notion since Toho once had a concept for a movie called Godzilla vs. the Devil. [Apparently not.]

Anyway, enough preamble – on to the pics!