8-ka de shinda kaijû no 12-nichi no monogatari [The 12 Day Tale of the Monster that Died in 8] (2020)

Wikizilla described this one as the first black and white Kaiju film since the original Gamera in 1965. Well…I guess. Maybe. You might call it that. If you absolutely had to. Now the reality is that this is instead a strange found footage film made during the height of the pandemic which just happens to […]

Shin Ultraman (2022)

This one wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Or maybe it was. I’m not sure. After all, I’ve been waiting for it a long time. It was announced, supposedly due to be released, delayed, delayed again, and finally came out — in Japan. More waiting. What I expected, when it was first announced, was a […]

Daikaijû Gamera (Gamera: The Giant Monster) (1965)

I suppose you could say it is a tradition. Although it isn’t too hard to spot the moment when it actually began. When Toho’s first major monster epic, Godzilla, first came to the United State, the U.S. producer added a lot of new footage with Raymond Burr as a reporter (with the funniest moment coming in […]

Daikaijû no atoshimatsu [What to Do with the Dead Kaiju?] (2022)

There have been a lot of Kaiju parodies coming out of Japan lately. I suppose it is inevitable as it has been six years since Godzilla stomped through Tokyo in Shin Godzilla and Godzilla: Final Wars premiered over a decade before that, while the last Gamera entry fizzled badly at the box office in 2005. Clearly, […]

Konga TNT (2020)

And once again I watched a movie I was never, ever going to watch. Let’s face it: I’ve seen Brett Kelly’s movies before. Well, to be precise, I’ve seen one of his movies, Raiders of the Lost Shark (2015), it just feels like I’ve seen a lot more of them because that one is so bad. […]

Kingu Kongu no gyakushû [King Kong Escapes] (1967)

This is one of the strangest Tokusatsu films Toho made. Admittedly, that’s an awfully big claim, and there are a lot of contenders for the crown, but let’s just point out a few salient points: Despite what you might think, this is not a sequel to Toho’s classic faceoff between Kong and their own in-house […]

Nezura 1964 (2020)

In 1963, Daiei started production on their attempt to break into the market for movies featuring giant monsters. However, instead of yet another giant lizard creature, they hit on the notion of something very different: a movie featuring a horde of deadly beasts. Giant rats, to be precise. But things didn’t work out as planned […]

Sengoku machine GoShogun: toki no ihôjin [GoShogun: The Time Étranger] (1985)

(aka, GoShogun: The Time Stranger) There’s weird, then there’s Japanese Anime weird. And if you want proof you need look no further than GoShogun: The Time Étranger: here we have a children’s bright and colorful Giant robot television series, much in the vein of Voltron, which was adapted four years after the series ran into […]

Yamata no Orochi no Gyakushu [Eight-Headed Giant Serpent’s Counterattack] (1985)

Now those of you familiar with Japanese mythology (or who are obsessive Toho monster fans) may have heard of Yamata no Orochi. This was the monstrous, eight-headed dragon god the legendary hero, Susano-o fought to save a girl who was about to be sacrificed to it. This story appears in the classic 1959 Toho epic, […]

Pengin haiwei [Penguin Highway] (2018)

What we have here is a Miyazaki-esque Anime Fantasy/Science Fiction film for young viewers about Aoyama, a nine-year-old boy who is obsessed with, ummm… Boobs. Yes, you read that right. Women’s breasts. And he’s in love with One, the girl from the Dentist’s office because she, ummm… Has an exceptionally large pair. Right. In a […]

rivets on the poster

“The difference between science fiction and fantasy … is simply this: science fiction has rivets and fantasy has trees.” — Orson Scott Card

Kaiju! God Bless You!