Gamera: Guardian of the Universe
Viras
4 Inch Scale
By: Trendmasters
$13.99 (price varies)
This is my final Trendmasters Gamera figure (toys I began reviewing over a year ago) and it's our seventh day on the 12 Days of Gamera but I assure you this one's a winner. Viras is my favorite of the Trendmasters Heisei designs and easily the best "toy" of the Trendmasters Gamera series. Heck, I'd say it's probably the best Viras figure ever made!

Fusing together, hideous space squids from a distant water world from the mega-monster Viras,a beast with the power of mind control! Using his six thrashing tentacles to squeeze the life out of his monster foes, Viras plunges his spear-like head into his adversaries to finish them off. Can Gamera ward off the awesome mental powers of this alien menace who's bent on taking over Earth

As usual, Trendmasters has a fantastic bio on Viras and of all the kaiju that they suped up for their Gamera line, Viras is far and away the most fantastic. Viras just screams evil and with just a few tweaks, he's able to become something awesome.


This figure is a perfect compliment to Dark Horse's Viras character and a great little toy regardless of if you're a fan of Gamera or not. Trendmasters, I love what you guys did here. If the guy who designed this figure ever visits the site, just know, good going bro!

Packaging:
I'd love to tell you that there's something new and exciting about the package, but the Viras package is the same as everybody else in the line. With the exception of his Viras name card.


The back of the package is universal, which has bios for everyone, They're pretty fun and well written. The font is a bit small, but it's great for kids who want to know the "story" of each of these guys and they go hand in hand with the Showa films.

Sculpt/Paint:
Viras has always had a pretty interesting look, but he definitely seemed cooler in artwork than in the Showa film. The poor actor was forced to wear a suit where he couldn't really use two of his six arms and his legs almost had like elf shoes on. It was definitely one of the weaknesses of the era... But the design's concept was cool and that's exactly what Trendmasters was able to exploit.


Trendmasters didn't have to do much to Viras' face, which has always looked sort of evil. Plus squids and such are freaking creepy. Trendmasters has added some extra arms on the top of his head. I don't love them, but I don't hate them either.


Real squids have eight arms and two extra tentacles, but Viras only ever had six arms, with two acting like legs and the other four as arms. Trendmasters gave Viras some squid inspired tentacles, with neat little shards and stickers on them. It reminds me a bit of Neo-Otyguh from LJN's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons line.


Instead of goofy "human" legs with little boots, they've given him two static folded legs that look like a squid would use if he sat down. This helps make him fairly stable and they are the only arms that are not bendy wire material. There's a nice amount of paint and wash throughout the figure, which makes these little suckers pop out.


"Get off my planet's lawn!"
He's also the biggest of the Gamera Trendmasters figures, which helps to make him seem like an imposing, destructive monster. The added head tentacles just give him more height and general nefariousness.

Articulation:
Surprisingly, Viras is the most articulated of all the Gamera Trendmasters figures. In fact he may be the most articulated Trendmasters kaiju in all of their monster lines. He has swivels at each arm (except the two "legs" which keep him standing) and his head turns as well.


I realize that doesn't sound like much, but then you have to remember that most of these figures only had a few cuts and he also has the addition of wire in all of his arms/tentacles. That means you can move those around a fair bit. There's really only a few poses where he can stand properly, but if you used a posing stand of some sort, you'd be able to do quite a lot with him.


The wires all feel fairly solid and I'm not worried about any breakage. Trendmasters did a lot of bendy wire figures and they were always pretty sturdy. This seems to be the case here as well.

Accessories:
Viras doesn't shoot anything, so he has no accessories. This isn't a bad thing in my book and there's really no accessories that would have made sense, other than perhaps the small alien ship.


Thankfully Figumate already took care of that for me.


Since he's the non-electronic version, he does have the stuff for the sounds, but they don't work. However I must say, they're hidden much better in Viras than any of the other figures. Another reason he's my favorite.

Value:
I'm not certain what these retailed for originally but it would have been a reasonable price as Trendmasters were always good on pricing. I heard these ended up at discount stores and my guess is that many major retailers didn't bite. It's a shame as these are fantastic figures for the era and the property and Viras is stunning.


Score Recap:
Packaging - 7
Sculpting - 9
Paint - 8
Articulation - 8
Accessories - N/A
Value - 9
Overall - 9 out of 10


Viras gets the highest score out of any of the Trendmasters figures, because he's the best. He's almost a perfect figure and like I said before, he's easily the best Viras figure I've ever seen. That's pretty impressive for an American Trendmasters toy!


We've got a lot more Gamera figure reviews to come in the 12 Days of Gamera! Until next time, don't let any monster alien squids take over your brain!