Trendmasters Godzilla Toys Thread

[daikaijusaurus]

Just thought it would be fun to create a thread for the Trendmasters Godzilla toys from the 90s. These toys hold a very special place in my heart. I have a huge collection of these toys that I've had since the 90s, and kept them all in great condition. The first line of Trendmasters Godzilla toys that came out was in 1994, but previous to that Godzilla toys were, for the most part, imports that were expensive and hard to find. But thanks to Trendmasters, I was finally able to own Godzilla action figures of not only the Big G himself, but also every other kaiju in the series. That was such an exciting time for me as a kid!

Yes, there were quiet a few criticisms of these toys for not being as accurate as they should've been. For example, a few of the figures, such as Baragon, Varan, Megalon and Anguiras, they made unnecessary changes to the original designs. They made Varan, Baragan and Anguiras upright and muscular, which made many fans angry. With the exception of Anguiras, I have all these figures and I didn't mind the changes very much. To me they looked like a lot of fun and I was just thankful to have toys of my favorite monsters.

So to pay homage to this awesome toy line, I decided to start creating a series of video reviews of all the Trendmasters Godzilla toys that I own. The first video is of the Power Up Mechagodzilla figure from 1995. This Mechagodzilla was actually inspired by the poster art of Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla (1993), and it looks absolutely fabulous, especially with all his power up weapons and accessories. Here is the link to my video:

Power Up Mechagodzilla Action Figure Review
https://odysee.com/@daikaijusaurus:5/po ... mHsZkm8NSA

More review videos to come in the future.

If anyone else have any fond memories of Trendmasters, please feel free to share here. I will be also be posting pictures of my Trendmasters collection very soon, so please feel free to do the same.

[NickMockoviak]

I only had a few figures from this line, but my favorite was the 10" Light-Up and Roaring Godzilla. I won that figure in a contest that TNT had at the time during their Monstervision program (man- I miss that series). I wish that I had collected those figures more, but my time and efforts were more tied up with the Hasbro WWF figures (another great toy line).

[daikaijusaurus]

My favorites were the 6" line figures with sound. Most of the monsters in the line were extremely well done, especially Mechagodzilla, Moguera and Space Godzilla. Their roars weren't always accurate, but the sculpts on those were extremely well done. I have a bunch of the 6" figures such as Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, Rodan, Space Godzilla, Gigan, Biollante, Moguera, and Mecha King Ghidorah. The only ones I don't have are Mothra and Ghidorah, which I remember skipping because I didn't care for Mothra and skipped Ghidorah because I already had Mecha Ghidorah.

[GojiDog]

One fond memory I have is for my 8th birthday. The line had just been released and my birthday was basically all Godzilla themed.

Being a Godzilla fan in the US was lame as a kid. The movies were sometimes hard to find, people made fun of me for liking it, and there wasn't much merchandise.

Well the toyline by Trendmasters changed that for at least a little bit. For my B-Day, I got the entire first wave of 6' fingers (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Mechagodzilla, King Ghidorah, and Mecha Ghidorah) and the Large Godzilla and Mechagodzilla. It was one of my favorite childhood birthdays!

The funny thing about the toyline was when it included characters like Mecha Ghidorah, Battra, and Spacegodzilla, and also provided radically different origins and/or designs for the monsters than their Showa counterparts (Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Moguera, etc.), I honestly didn't know that all of these stemmed from movies. Again, being a fan in the US at that point was lame, and this was before I had internet access, so I didn't know about the 90s films. As far as I knew, Godzilla Vs. Biollante was the last one. I thought that these "new" monsters and updated origins/designs were done strictly for the toyline. Even when they started airing commercials showing footage of Spacegodzilla, I thought "Whoa, they went all out for this commercial" lol. Looking back on it, it feels weird that this line was being released while the movies were not. I wonder if there was supposed to be some kind of a tie in to coincide with the films' releases in the states, and things fell through. Oh well.

In any case, one thing I loved about the line (aside from being generally well made Godzilla toys at a time when I was starved for them) was the level of creativity they put into it. There was kind of a no holds barred approach to it. The armored monsters toys with cybernetic weapons added to Godzilla, Rodan, Mechagodzilla and Mecha Ghidorah were really cool entries (In hindsight, the Mechagodzilla also kinda, sorta looked like a Kiryu template). I'll never forget my jaw dropping when you could detach the Mecha Ghidorah head and wings to serve as its own separate "ship" or Mecha-Monster and basically turned Mecha-Ghidorah into a combiner of sorts. The Mighty Max/Polly Pocket style Godzilla mini playsets were also a blast to me as I loved Mighty Max, so to see these kind of sets were delightful. I had the Godzilla Vs. Rodan and Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla sets and I loved them. And one of my prized possessions as a kid was the 40th Anniversary set of 3' mini-figures. Of all the toys I had as a kid, this is near the top of the list of ones I still had.

Now this approach of breaking out into various different sizes and kinds of toys could be seen as them chasing trends like Mighty Max, Ninja Turtles, and heck, even selling a color coded group of G-Force pilots was an obvious Power Rangers knock off. But as a fan, this all made the toyline seem more fun.

There are many toylines I loved as a kid. Some of them were slightly before my time, but passed onto me by my big brother (He-Man, Transformers, GI Joe) and some of them I was right in the thick of it at their peak (Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Mighty Max) but the Trendmasters Godzilla scratched a very different itch and came around at a time where I was starved for Godzilla merchandise, and for filling that need, I am greatful to Trendmasters for being there for me.

[Thanos6]

The funny thing about the toyline was when it included characters like Mecha Ghidorah, Battra, and Spacegodzilla, and also provided radically different origins and/or designs for the monsters than their Showa counterparts (Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Moguera, etc.), I honestly didn't know that all of these stemmed from movies. Again, being a fan in the US at that point was lame, and this was before I had internet access, so I didn't know about the 90s films. As far as I knew, Godzilla Vs. Biollante was the last one. I thought that these "new" monsters and updated origins/designs were done strictly for the toyline. Even when they started airing commercials showing footage of Spacegodzilla, I thought "Whoa, they went all out for this commercial" lol.

I thought this too, but none of the video stores in my area had Biollante, so I thought '85 was the last one. Definitely just thought Trendmasters was just making stuff up, lol. "Mechagodzilla doesn't look like that! And he was built by aliens, not the UN!" "Mecha-King Ghidorah? Well, he looks undeniably cool, but..." "Biollante? Battra? SpaceGodzilla? What are these random things?" I didn't know anything about the rest of the Heisei series until the Official Godzilla Compendium came out.

[Noble Saber]

I have the 40th Anniversary Collectors Set from Trendmasters. Here they are out of the packaging.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

Just an observation about the 4" line, many like Moguera, Mechagodzilla, and Ghidorah are obviously based on pre existing molds while some are clearly new like Space Godzilla.

[daikaijusaurus]

Love hearing other people's memories of the Trendmasters toys. One funny memory I'd like to share, and I mentioned this in my Power Up Mechagodzilla review video. I was a teenager back then in the 90s, and one day I was at Toys R Us with my cart full of Trendmasters toys. When I went to the cashier, she asked me if the toys were for my kids, and I said no I'm a Godzilla collector. She then rolled her eyes at me and said,"Oookay." So yeah, being a Godzilla collector back then definitely got you interesting reactions from people. But I didn't care, I loved my toys! Below are a few pictures of my collection. For years I had my toys displayed out of the packaging, but the last couple of years I've become more of a mint in box collector, so I put most of them back in the packaging.











And lastly, because I was so crazy about the Trendmasters toys back then, that I managed to record the toy commercials on video tape. I recently uploaded the commercials to Odysee. Here is the link to the video:

https://odysee.com/@daikaijusaurus:5/Tr ... QgiGSC319z

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

I got Doom Island Varan on a blister card a few years ago. Still hoping to grab Baragon and Megalon sometime in the future.

[GojirO]

Okay, so a little story to set this up:
When I was 5 (1998), TNT had Monster-Vision, of which it held an airing of Mothra vs. Godzilla.
From that moment, I was hooked, even though all I can remember from that time was seeing the ending and an interview Joe Bob Briggs held.
So fast forward a few months down the line: birthday happens.
I receive a lot of Godzilla stuff, which only grew as I collected.
Moving and growing up, I lost a lot of these but I do remember some of what I had:
10in Roaring Godzilla with glowing eyes (though mine didn’t glow, probably something with the lights)
10in MechaGodzilla
10in Gigan (bone variant)
Two of the roaring small Godzillas (one in the Supercharged variant)
Some sort of collective set that I can only remember having Godzilla, blue “Do you even lift, brah?” anguirus, Rodan, mothra, battra, bronze Mechagodzilla, radioactive-green biollante and a fiery Godzilla.
Roaring mothra
Armored Godzilla
As for the “Godzilla Wars” stuff, I remember seeing one of those and I don’t think I owned anything from that. Not 100% sure though.

I always have to credit GODZILLA (1998) for my introduction to Godzilla.
If it had not been for that film, we would have never got the wave we got.

EDIT: I completely forgot I owned the Micro-Battle playset of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.

[G1985]

Just an observation about the 4" line, many like Moguera, Mechagodzilla, and Ghidorah are obviously based on pre existing molds while some are clearly new like Space Godzilla.

You're exactly right. Those "pre-existing molds" were Bandai's first and second assortments of "Big Godzilla" candy toys from 1993, which included Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mecha King Ghidorah, MechaGodzilla and MOGERA. Trendmasters resculpted the face on Godzilla and the heads / wings on Ghidorah, but otherwise left them as is. The parts are interchangeable between the Bandai and Trendmasters versions!

https://showcasedaikaiju.com/shop/ols/p ... lla-series

[Platypus Prime]

I still have my mecha-Ghidorah (the only one I ever had out of that line), it was given to me as a birthday present and despite the years still hangs out on my ever-so-slowly expanding Godzilla display.

[Mr. Yellow]

I remember being confused about all the different versions of monsters from the Heisei movies that didn't come out in the US. I thought they were just making things up, but I still loved it.

[Major sssspielberg!]

My introduction to Godzilla was a Trendmasters Godzilla!
It was given to me by a friend of my granddad. It was explained to me what a "Godzilla" was, my jaw hit the floor, and being like four, I quickly moved on to the next thing that blew my mind. Ffw a few years and Mothra vs Godzilla found its way into the VCR, and that set me on a mad dash to dig up every Trendmasters I could at every yard sale I encountered. Trendmasters is how I found out about Mecha King Ghidorah because I found one of the smaller figures (missing the organic heads unfortunately).
Unfortunately I don't have any of them anymore, but by the time I moved on to Bandai I had Godzilla, a smaller Rodan, Mechagodzilla and Gigan (my personal favorite) as well as an assortment of '98 stuff and the aforementioned MKG. In recent years I found out about the various Toho kaiju that got Trendmasters figures, and I've been considering grabbing a few for nostalgia's sake.

[Executive Hamster]

I don't own any Trendmasters (I should say, outside of the 1998 figures) at the moment, but Im dying to get them. Ever since I saw the big Gigan figure on the shelf of a comic store in St. Augustine a few months ago, I've had a burning urge to try and find it again.

[SpaceG92]

I swear there was a Trendmasters Thread before this one...

As my avatar at the time of this shows, I too grew up with my Trendmasters and love them dearly and violently defend the line. Played with them growing up and still have these little rubber bastards in rather decent condition, sans the parts I gnawed on as a child. Seriously love their 4" line to death and their 6" Power Up line has to be on the greatest things they produced. Trendmasters holds the most special place in my heart and im actively trying to build my collection of them as an adult.

Still trying to find a Doom Island SpaceGodzilla with that exclusive Doom Island card to go with it. The other Trendmasters holygrail is the short printed SpaceGodzilla Microset. Seriously, I NEVER saw that thing in stores growing up and I swear to god it was a short print production run. Helped a friend get his due to a mutual pact of "One of us needs this set in our collection" promise we made years ago. Working on finding mine that doesnt involve me blowing $389 for it. I still have a screenshot of the last one that sold for like 455 USD on evilBay.

[Mac Daddy MM]

I swear there was a Trendmasters Thread before this one...

As my avatar at the time of this shows, I too grew up with my Trendmasters and love them dearly and violently defend the line. Played with them growing up and still have these little rubber bastards in rather decent condition, sans the parts I gnawed on as a child. Seriously love their 4" line to death and their 6" Power Up line has to be on the greatest things they produced. Trendmasters holds the most special place in my heart and im actively trying to build my collection of them as an adult.

Still trying to find a Doom Island SpaceGodzilla with that exclusive Doom Island card to go with it. The other Trendmasters holygrail is the short printed SpaceGodzilla Microset. Seriously, I NEVER saw that thing in stores growing up and I swear to god it was a short print production run. Helped a friend get his due to a mutual pact of "One of us needs this set in our collection" promise we made years ago. Working on finding mine that doesnt involve me blowing $389 for it. I still have a screenshot of the last one that sold for like 455 USD on evilBay.

There is. viewtopic.php?f=11&t=726&start=580

But it's been dead since 2018. So anyway. That card of yours, YOU'RE WELCOME MATTHEW.

[Creature22]

There were several Trendmasters threads before this one; I just resurrected my account to see that the old "2.0" one hasn't been updated in years.

It's interesting seeing them make something of a "comeback". TM always had its fans but there are definitely a lot more now than when I first made an account on here. I went from being able to buy them at flea markets to not being able to afford them on eBay.

[DrPhilizSick@sHell98]

The only thing I have from the Trendmasters line is the godzilla attacks NYC playset. I've been using it mostly for toy photography. It's pretty fun to play with as well. I would've loved it as a kid especially. It's probably a little controversial these days due to the fact that it has the Twin towers in the background of the playset in flames and almost eerily destroyed in the same spots that the actual buildings in real life were hit by the planes on that tragic day of September the 11th. The playset came out in 1995 so you could take it as one of those weird Simpsons coincidences that the show is known for. Is it art imitating life or life imitating art? Makes you wonder huh.

[cloverfan98]

The only thing I have from the Trendmasters line is the godzilla attacks NYC playset. I've been using it mostly for toy photography. It's pretty fun to play with as well. I would've loved it as a kid especially. It's probably a little controversial these days due to the fact that it has the Twin towers in the background of the playset in flames and almost eerily destroyed in the same spots that the actual buildings in real life were hit by the planes on that tragic day of September the 11th. The playset came out in 1995 so you could take it as one of those weird Simpsons coincidences that the show is known for. Is it art imitating life or life imitating art? Makes you wonder huh.

Ehh not really for me. The Twin Towers were a landmark and landmarks destroyed in all kaiju/disaster epics. I do vaguely remember seeing youtube videos that clamed G98 predicted the events of 9/11 because of the news broadcast in the helicopter claiming Godzilla's arrival as the biggest disaster since the world trade center bombing. I'm guessing the video creator didn't pass history class.