Legion

Legion is the villain kaiju in the second modern Gamera movie: Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (Gamera 2: Legion Advent).

Legion is a space alien that lands on earth in hopes to colonize the planet. The Queen Legion has a horde of smaller creatures that attack all those who threaten her. This figure is of the larger, Queen Legion, but it is known simply as Legion.

This is a curious piece to me. First of all, it’s made by Yutaka – a cheap toy manufacturer, and came with a tag and a hook to hang by. It’s small and cheap; something meant to be piled up in a bin by the cash register or something, but there is something oddly compelling about it.

In the movie, Legion has the appearance of a giant mutant alien with a multitude of legs and spines. It’s hard to get a good feel about what exactly the alien looks like, but this toy distills the character down to its bare essence. It takes away all of the complication and over-design that I think plagues a lot of the modern kaiju.