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Then and now.

Fun note: Gigan is canonically a cybernetic “space dinosaur,” according to the 1985 book Godzilla Monsters All Overall Encyclopedia. His design was influenced by birds as well.

Apologies, as our website is currently down. We have technicians working on restoring the site as well as fixing a few nagging issues with it.

Shunsuke Kikuchi, who composed the scores for Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera vs. Jiger, Gamera vs. Zigra, and Gamera: Super Monster, is an incredibly prolific composer whose other work includes Kamen Rider, Doraemon, and even Dragon Ball Z.

Yumi Kameyama became the first known woman to wear a kaiju suit onscreen in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, in which she portrayed the Super Gyaos. According to Shinji Higuchi, he cast Kameyama because  "the shape of a woman's body is different from that of a man's" and "since virtually all of the people who work in the special effects field are men, I thought that I could make it a little easier for women to enter the field by having one play Gyaos."[

Takateru Manabe and Jun Suzuki both served as Gamera’s suit actors in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. They were chosen for their short stature as, according to special effects director Shinji Higuchi, "I wanted to shoot a large amount of low angle footage of Gamera and Gyaos, and the only way to avoid having the ceiling of the set be seen in the footage was to have short actors play the monsters" and  "If the monster actors are tall, the miniature sets must be large, but if the monster actors are short, smaller sets can be used. We saved money by using small sets because it costs more to construct and maintain larger sets than smaller ones. In addition, if the monster actors are short, only two people are needed to help them get in and out of their costumes."

Unfortunately, none of the suit actors for Gamera’s many foes are currently identified.

The original Gamera suit was so heavy and hard to move in that Daiei recruited weightlifters from a local weightlifting school to wear the suit. None of them were able to last more than a day of filming. Members of the filmmaking staff then took turns wearing the suit during the rest of filming.

In 1978, with the Godzilla series on hiatus, Tomoyuki Tanaka asked screenwriter Shuichi Nagahara to rewrite Bride of Godzilla? He completed three drafts, retaining the giant flea from the original story, which became Shockirus in The Return of Godzilla.

Two Godzillas: Japan S.O.S.! was a precursor to Son of Godzilla written by Kazue Kiba, the first woman ever to write for a Godzilla film. In the story, there was a thirty meter blue-skinned juvenile Godzilla named Godzilla Junior who unlike Minilla was a threat to Japan. He hunted giant mussels in the ocean. This screenplay was discarded, but the idea of Godzilla having a son was retained in the finished product, on which Kiba still served as a writer.

Very few kaiju films are actually in the public domain, though they are often assumed to be by home video companies who release them without licensing them. This especially applies to the Showa Gamera movies and films like Gappa and Magic Serpent. However, it does appear Gammera, the Invincible (U.S. theatrical version of the original Gamera) and War of the Monsters (AIP-TV’s version of Gamera vs. Barugon) are actually in the public domain. Warning from Space is apparently in the public domain as well, though it will be getting an official Kadokawa-licensed Blu-ray release in the West later this year.

Concept art of Bagan from the second version of the unmade film Mothra vs. Bagan. The first two pieces are by Minoru Yoshida, and the third is by Yasushi Nirasawa.

As for how public domain works in Japan, we’re sadly not experts on the copyright system in Japan, so we’re not the right people to ask. 

Today marks the 54th anniversary of the Japanese theatrical release of The War of the Gargantuas. Directed by Ishiro Honda, this loose sequel to Frankenstein vs. Baragon was written by Reuben Bercovitch, Kaoru Mabuchi, and Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and Teruyoshi Nakano and a score by Akira Ifukube. It stars Kenji Sahara, Russ Tamblyn, and Kumi Mizuno with Haruo Nakajima and Hiroshi Sekita as the two titular Gargantuas.

Today would have been Tadao Takashima’s 90th birthday. Godzilla fans know Takashima as Osamu Sakurai in King Kong vs. Godzilla and Dr. Kusumi in Son of Godzilla. He also starred in Atragon and Frankenstein vs. Baragon, and had a humorous cameo in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II where he meets Kazuma Aoki, played by his son Masahiro Takashima. Takashima’s other son Masanobu played the character Sho Kuroki in Godzilla vs. Biollante, a role his brother Masahiro played in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. Tadao Takashima passed away last June 26.

Today marks the 51st anniversary of the Japanese theatrical release of Latitude Zero, often regarded as a cult classic among Toho’s library.

To reassure you that Wikizilla is on top of only the most important information, we are pleased to announce that we now have a page for Shin Oji from the latest episode of Godziban.