There’s a particular high that comes from watching a kaiju charge up before it levels a city block, and Hiya Toys has bottled that exact moment of blue-white dread into plastic. The Energized Godzilla Exquisite Basic (EXQ Basic) 7-inch action figure, based on Godzilla’s power-up state in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, is one of the more visually striking releases in Hiya’s ever-expanding Monsterverse lineup. It’s not a brand-new sculpt, it’s not the biggest Godzilla on your shelf, and it’s not cheap for what it is — but as a display piece that captures a specific, iconic beat from the 2024 film, it earns its spot in a serious kaiju collection. Here’s the deep dive collectors actually want: sculpt fidelity, paint application, articulation, accessories, and how it stacks up against the rest of the Godzilla figure market.

In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Godzilla travels to the Hollow Earth and absorbs a massive surge of radiation, visibly supercharging his internal power levels before his climactic showdown with the Skar King and Shimo. That “charged up” appearance — glowing purple-blue dorsal fins and a skin tone shifted toward an electric hue — is the specific look this figure is built to replicate. Rather than sculpting a brand-new Godzilla from scratch, Hiya Toys took the movie’s official 3D CG model data as the foundation, ensuring the proportions, musculature, and skin texture match what audiences saw on screen rather than an artist’s loose interpretation.

Sculpt

This is where Hiya has consistently separated itself from budget kaiju toys, and the Energized Godzilla figure is no exception. Because the sculpt is derived directly from the film’s CG asset library, the anatomical proportions read as unmistakably screen-accurate: the squared, blocky head shape introduced in Godzilla vs. Kong, the pronounced brow ridges, the thick neck-to-shoulder taper, and the heavily textured, almost bark-like skin detailing across the torso and limbs. Every dorsal plate is individually delineated with sharp, clean edges rather than the soft, mushy sculpting you sometimes see on mass-market PVC figures. The spinal fin row curves and staggers in height the way it does in the film’s hero shots, and the tail carries the same segmented, tapering musculature down to the tip. It’s worth noting up front for value-conscious buyers: this is a redeco, not a newly tooled figure. The base body is shared with Hiya’s standard-release Godzilla figures from the Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire line, meaning the sculpt itself isn’t “new” if you already own one of Hiya’s other New Empire Godzilla releases.

Paint Applications:

If the sculpt is the skeleton, the paint job is what makes Energized Godzilla worth a dedicated release rather than just being folded into the standard figure’s assortment. Hiya applied multiple layers of paint to recreate the mottled, uneven coloration Godzilla displays on screen when charged, and the blue tonal work is genuinely comprehensive — it isn’t a simple dry-brush pass over a single base coat. Painters worked the hue into the recesses of every scale and spinal ridge, so the color reads as baked into the skin rather than sprayed over the surface.

The headline feature is the fluorescent, UV-reactive coating applied to the dorsal fins and select areas of skin. Under a blacklight, those fins glow, simulating the visual buildup of nuclear energy coursing through Godzilla’s body just before he unleashes his atomic breath. This is a genuinely fun party trick for photography and display cases with LED blacklight strips, and it’s a detail that elevates the figure from “another Godzilla on the shelf” to a conversation piece. That said, collectors should manage expectations: the glow effect requires an actual UV light source to activate — under normal room lighting, the fins simply read as a slightly different shade of blue rather than glowing on their own. This isn’t a flaw so much as a physics reality of fluorescent paint, but it’s worth knowing before you buy if you don’t already own a blacklight setup.

Facial paint apps hold up under scrutiny too — the eyes are cleanly picked out with minimal bleed, the teeth show individual definition, and the transition zones where the energized blue fades into Godzilla’s more natural charcoal-grey base tone are blended rather than hard-lined in most production units, though as with any mass-produced PVC figure, expect minor unit-to-unit variance in overspray or paint bleed at this price point.

Articulation: Posing a Titan

Godzilla figures live or die on whether you can actually pose them like the apex predator they’re supposed to be, and Hiya’s engineering here holds up well. The figure carries more than 20 points of articulation, distributed across a ball-jointed head and neck, articulated shoulders, elbows, and wrists, a jointed waist, hip and knee articulation, and — critically for a kaiju figure — a multi-segment articulated tail. That tail articulation matters more than it sounds like on paper; a stiff, single-piece tail is one of the fastest ways a kaiju figure ends up looking static on a shelf, and the ability to sweep or coil Godzilla’s tail dramatically changes the sense of motion and weight in a display pose.

The joints have enough tension to hold heavier action poses without drooping, a common failure point on lower-tier PVC figures where knee and hip joints loosen over time under the material’s own weight. Hip and shoulder rotation allow for believable four-legged stomping stances and the classic “roar to the sky” pose, while wrist articulation lets you angle the claws for a more menacing silhouette.

Accessories

Accessory count is modest, which tracks with the “Basic” tier naming in Hiya’s Exquisite Basic branding. The figure ships with one extra set of interchangeable hand parts, giving you a choice between a relaxed claw position and a more clenched, aggressive fist for combat poses. There’s no interchangeable head, no swappable atomic breath effect piece, and no display base included — all reasonable omissions at this price tier, but worth flagging for buyers coming from Hiya’s higher-end Exquisite Precise line or from companies that bundle in FX parts as standard.

Energized Godzilla stands roughly 7 inches tall out of the box, putting him in a comfortable desk-and-shelf-friendly non-scale range rather than attempting strict 1:1 movie accuracy (which, given Godzilla’s in-film size of well over 300 feet, no tabletop figure realistically attempts anyway). The figure is molded in PVC and ABS plastic construction typical of Hiya’s articulated kaiju line, giving it enough heft to feel substantial without being fragile. This release carried a retail price around $49.99 before tax at launch — a noticeable premium over Hiya’s standard-decoed Godzilla figures from the same film, which is the ongoing trade-off with variant recolors across the collectibles industry: you’re paying for the paint work and the fluorescent tooling process, not new sculptural information.

It’s also worth noting this figure was distributed as a PX (Previews Exclusive) release, meaning it was made available specifically through the direct market/specialty comic and collectibles retail channel rather than sitting on mass-market toy aisles alongside standard-release Godzilla figures. If you’re hunting for this one, specialty toy and comic shops or their online storefronts are typically a safer bet than big-box retail.

How It Compares to Other Godzilla Figures

Versus Hiya’s own lineup: Hiya has built out an extensive Exquisite Basic catalog covering both Monsterverse and classic Toho-era Godzilla incarnations, from the Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) sculpt to the Godzilla: King of Monsters Heat Ray variant, which notably features 26 points of articulation and an even longer tail sweep. Compared to that earlier King of Monsters release, the New Empire sculpt trades a bit of tail length for the more compact, blocky New Empire design language, and the articulation count sits a shade lower — a reasonable trade given the different source anatomy rather than a step backward in engineering.

Versus NECA: NECA’s Godzilla offerings, such as their larger head-to-tail figures built around the Legendary film continuity, tend to skew bigger in scale and lean on NECA’s signature soft-goods-free, high-detail sculpting philosophy. NECA figures are generally excellent for owners who want a taller centerpiece figure, but they don’t currently cover the New Empire “energized” variant specifically, making Hiya’s release the more directly relevant option for fans chasing this exact movie moment.

Versus Banpresto: Bandai Spirits’ Banpresto line takes a completely different approach with pieces like their Enshrined Monsters and Monster Roar Attack Godzilla figures — smaller (roughly 4.5 to 5.5 inches), largely static PVC statues without meaningful articulation, priced well below Hiya’s offering. These make for solid, budget-friendly companion pieces or gift-shop-tier collectibles, but they’re not competing in the same category as an actual poseable action figure. If display posing and screen accuracy at a mid-size scale matter to you, Hiya remains the stronger pick; if you want an affordable static shelf piece, Banpresto fills that niche well.

A few details make this release stand out to the more obsessive corner of Godzilla fandom. First, the use of the film’s actual CG model data as a sculpting reference is a workflow increasingly common among licensed Monsterverse toy manufacturers, and it’s part of why modern Hiya figures tend to read as more “correct” compared to figures sculpted purely from concept art or promotional stills years earlier in the franchise’s toy history. Second, fluorescent/UV-reactive paint is a genuinely tricky process in mass toy manufacturing — it requires separate paint formulations and additional curing considerations compared to standard enamel or acrylic toy paints, which is part of why glow-application variant figures like this one typically command a price premium over their standard-decoed counterparts industry-wide.

The Energized Godzilla EXQ Basic figure isn’t reinventing Hiya’s Godzilla sculpt, and buyers already owning a standard New Empire Godzilla from the brand should go in knowing they’re paying primarily for a paint variant. But taken on its own merits, this is a genuinely well-executed release: the CG-accurate sculpt holds up to close inspection, the multi-layered blue paintwork looks purposeful rather than slapdash, the UV glow gimmick is a legitimately fun display feature for collectors with blacklight setups, and the articulation is sturdy enough to actually pose rather than just display statically. For hardcore Monsterverse collectors chasing every iconic beat from The New Empire, or casual fans who just want a Godzilla that looks like he’s about to end someone’s day with an atomic breath blast, this figure delivers convincingly on its core promise. It’s a specialty variant priced like one — but for the right shelf, it’s worth the radiation exposure.