#Megalon 50th

[indragonsaur]

Godzilla day sketch before it ended

[gojira-ekkusu]

[thomasinarat]

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the film Godzilla VS Megalon! So here is a poster I made to celebrate!

[biorante]

Happy 50th anniversary to GODZILLA VS. MEGALON!

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (January 14-20, 2024)

Ultraman Blazar's finale aired on Friday. It was a solid capper to what's easily the best entry in the Ultra Series since I was an undergrad, full of heart and pyrotechnics. There were a few major loose ends—Captain Gento is better at keeping secrets than most hosts—which I'm hoping the movie, due in late February, will address. If you're looking for a place to start with the long-running franchise, it would be one of my first recommendations. Great effects, great cast, tons of new kaiju, and a blend of novelty (lots of focus on the tensions between the defense team and the larger monster-fighting organization; a host who's in charge of said defense team) and returning to form (Blazar yowls plenty but is an Ultra of few words; the power-ups and goofy weapons are kept to a minimum). And even if you don't want to commit to a whole show, episode 22, focusing on a hapless salesman of kaiju insurance, is a must-see for any fan of the genre. There seem to be no worlds left to conquer at Tsuburaya for lead director Kiyotaka Taguchi, so as I've been saying since around 2015: Toho, are you paying attention?

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, the regraded black and white version of Godzilla Minus One, is coming to North American theaters for one week starting January 26. Toho's yanking both versions from theaters after February 1—puzzling considering that the film is likely going to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar tomorrow. Takashi Yamazaki led a Godzilla delegation to the Academy's visual effects "bakeoff", in which voters watch highlights from the ten shortlisted films and their VFX teams explain their work. IndieWire reports that Yamazaki's presentation drew the most applause, describing Minus One as the "potential frontrunner." The Hollywood Reporter likes its chances too. Nominations will be announced starting at 8:30 AM EST. The Creator seems to be its biggest competition.

Godzilla Minus One also recently cleared $50 million at the U.S. box office, in the process passing the first Demon Slayer as the highest-grossing Japanese-language film ever released in the U.S. Some outlets are reporting that it's the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released here, which isn't accurate; the English-dubbed Pokémon: The First Movie made almost $86 million back in 1999. (And I think it's plausible that something like Rodan or Godzilla vs. Megalon would be the champ if you figured out how much they grossed and adjusted for inflation.)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #4 brought Godzilla and Tiamat to Atlantis, forcing Aquaman to release the Kraken to defend his city. Incredibly, this is the third Kraken associated with the Monsterverse, after Na Kika (called Kraken when it was introduced in the King of the Monsters novelization) and the main antagonist of the Skull Island cartoon. I'm guessing it's going to have a shorter lifespan than either of them though.

In other Godzilla comic news, IDW will be putting out another intriguing one-shot in May, titled Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary. Past comics from the publisher have included multiple Mechagodzilla models, but this one seems to be going above and beyond. Rich Douek is writing; Andrew Lee Griffith is illustrating. The logline:

For 50 years, the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has gone toe to toe with its robotic doppelgänger, Mechagodzilla! As an intrepid reporter profiles the history of Mechagodzilla and its creator before the launch of the newest model, he finds himself entangled in a much deeper conspiracy. A decades-spanning adventure celebrating the mechanical monster's milestone!

One of master kaiju illustrator Shinji Nishikawa's books will receive an English translation courtesy of Titan Books. Awkwardly titled Godzilla: The Encyclopedia of Godzilla, the Japanese edition included over 100 full-bodied illustrations of various Godzilla series kaiju and analyses of their designs (alongside plenty of Nishikawa's trademark chibis). I'm sold, suffice to say.

Ryo Momota, director of the short tokusatsu film Revive! Smile Rock Giant God, has put the whole thing on YouTube with English subtitles for your amusement. It posits that a real rock formation outside of Tamano City will come to life to help its citizens in their hour of need. Very low-budget.

Kaiju Brooklyn is a one-day con that began filling a longtime void for East Coast kaiju fans last year. Here's the first major piece of news about their June 1 event: they'll be screening The Return of Godzilla outdoors at day's end. Consider me highly tempted.

Kaiju United has a new, wide-ranging interview with Barry Goldberg, webmaster of the legendary Barry's Temple of Godzilla. That fan site was my first window into the wider world of Godzilla in the early 2000s, and it's only been updated a few times since, so I was pretty interested to read how its creator was doing. Don't get your hopes up for a revival: he's still a Godzilla fan (loved Minus One, Shin not so much), but has moved on to other things. Great insights from a Big Name Fan who stayed humble.

[azure-anima]

Happy 69th to this fucked up lil beast!!!

(and a happy (belated) 50th to Megalon!)

Pumped out a few sketches for the sake of celebrating Godzilla Day! Hoping the day's been treating everyone else well, and wishing everyone a spoiler-free rest of the month. have fun and sparkle on!

[ericmhe]

This is a sequel to this: https://www.tumblr.com/ericmhe/718956033150795776/i-missed-the-anniversary-of-the-movie-and-figured And since making that I hear we now know it's Jet Jaguar getting the 50th anniversary treatment and not Megalon. I don't care I'm going ahead anyway. It's all very silly, I used to do ridiculous Godzilla comics in like, Middle School or something, so it's like my drawing hobby has made a gigantic circle right back where it started. There are some inconsistencies because some of this was drawn much earlier than other parts but whatever.

[kaijukoffee]

Happy godzilla day!

Godzilla vs Megalon is one of my favorite movies and I'm happy to celebrate the 50th

[citystompers1]

Godzilla vs. Megalon 50th anniversary poster

[thekaijudude]

[Gemstone] Godzilla vs Megalon Trailer

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Godzilla vs Megalon, the sequel of Godzilla vs Gigan Rex trailer has just dropped

(Recall, this is the third installment of the Gemstone canon)

Full movie will be shown at G Fest 2023

[napkinzilla]

Godzilla vs. Megalon 50th Anniversary and the Origin of Jaguarposting

I started this account in November when my Godzilla hyperfixation was in full force thanks to a series rewatch I was doing and G-Fest. A lot of that hyperfixation was focused on Anguirus, Baragon, and Jet Jaguar.

I don’t exactly think they’re great characters or anything, I just kind of gravitated towards them for some reason. I know why for all of them, Anguirus having an off-screen reconciliation with Godzilla while forced to live together on Monster Island was actually sort of neat, I don’t like that we never get to see it and are forced to just assume it happened but its also nice to see something interesting and new, especially since this was at a point where the Showa era just kind of felt like it had grown entirely creatively bankrupt (The last truly creative Showa film is Hedorah, ik its a polarizing movie and I think that actually kind of proves my point a little). For Baragon, its that I just found it funny how they paired him with two far more popular monsters for this movie and then had him get his shit wrecked really quickly (he also has the most creative fight in the movie but I’m pretty sure I just liked him cause he’s a jobber). And for Jet Jaguar, its sort of hard to say. I know most of the western fanbase for the character likes him because of MST3K, but I never watched the GvM episode (except the Jet Jaguar song sub but that was after the hyperfixation kicked in).

The only reason I can think of is that he’s just funny to me. He’s basically the star character of this movie he isn’t in the title of and his plot just goes all over the place. He starts the movie as the invention of an engineer who wants to protect the world by piloting a robotic suit (which, considering there is an island full of monsters that is so poorly secured they could just leave anytime they wanted if they can swim or fly (almost all of them can), which they did in the last movie, its understandable why he’d do this). And by the end the suit has gained full sentience, befriended Godzilla, and defeated a bunch of underground men who control a giant bug with a drill head and drill hands. There isn’t that much explanation for most of these things either, they just sort of happen suddenly. Godzilla vs. Megalon is a terrible, terrible movie, and Jet Jaguar is the central character. Godzilla vs. Megalon is also an immensely enjoyable movie that I have subjected multiple people to so that I could see their reactions. I love it, its so fun, and Jet Jaguar is a big part of why the movie is so fun. He’s so fucking silly and stupid, I love him.

I said its hard to say why I like Jet Jaguar as much as I do, but its not impossible, in fact I basically just did. This overly long post has been mostly me saying why I like Jet Jaguar. But I haven’t really talked about Jaguarposting. Why the fuck do I post this guy? Because he’s funny to me, I made Baragon my Discord pfp for a while because he’s funny to me to. Its not super complicated, I am a very simple man. I main Blanka and Faust because they’re goofy guys, and in the same vein, I fixate on Jet Jaguar because he’s a goofy guy. The legacy of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that its a stupid fucking movie. Jaguarposting is a celebration of that movie’s stupidity, the idea that a post is funny solely because it features a character from the film.

I didn’t realize March 17th was Megalon’s birthday, I didn’t see any posts about it on the day and didn’t have the date committed to memory. So this post is late. But I still want to wish GvM a happy 50th. Maybe go watch it in it’s honor and hopefully see what I’ve been rambling on about for this long.

If you don’t know what Jaguarposting is, don’t worry, I’ve only ever used the term once and made like 5 posts in the genre across all social media. However its my first post on Tumblr, so I felt it was about time to explain myself.

[tyrannoraptorrex]

Brutum Megalon

Happy Megalon 50th Anniversary! I redesign Megalon more brutal and deadly

[namesisfortombstones]

Images you can hear. I love this guy.

[cultfaction]

Godzilla vs. Megalon short film trailer revealed

The official Godzilla YouTube channel has revealed the trailer for the upcoming Godzilla vs. Megalon short film. It serves as a sequel to the Godzilla vs. Gigan Rex short film. It will be released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of 1973’s Godzilla vs. Megalon. The short will also have live-action segments filmed by Akihiro Shibata and will be directed by Takuya Uenishi (Shin…

[rainofkaiju]

Zone Fighter Thoughts #01: "Destroy the Terror-Beast Missile!"

Hey all, welcome to rainofkaiju! A place where I plan to make semi regular posts of my toy photography, fan fiction and reviews/ musings of kaiju related media.

To start, I decided to make my first entry about an often forgotten about character: Zone Fighter, the Meteor Man.

Debuting in 1973 (after Godzilla Vs Megalon), it was Toho's attempt at capitalizing on the Ultraman phenomenon. Needless to say, it didn't catch on. There's plenty of other places 'round the web that offer more information, so I'll keep the intro short!

Im going to review/ react to each of the 26 episodes of this series. 2023 is his 50th anniversary afterall. And, I've never seen it. Alas, it will be in an order of my own preference, not exactly chronological.

It's an open secret that Toho included a few marquee names alongside the titular hero. Those being Gigan, King Ghidorah and of course, Godzilla! We'll cover the Zone Fighter solo episodes first, then the guest-starring ones last, leaving off on an epic note.

Join me on this journey as we get to witness a forgotten hero in his fansubbed glory, and hopefully convince Toho to bring him back. (Instead of just a Keychain. Lol.)

Let us begin!

We hear Godzilla in the first like 10 seconds! Albeit for the wrong monster... he uses Kong's later.

Awesome theme song, and a great moody score to boot.

An interesting concept of an alien refugee family saving the world in secret.

Some great Kamen Rider esque fight choreography in the human battles. Really digging Hikaru's moves.

This brings us the debut of....

"CANNON TERROR-BEAST" Red Spark!

And, well... meh. Sparkler noodle hands sadly aren't very impressive.

Cool night fight tho.

Zone Fighter himself is pretty neat. Also, a tad creepy with his lit-up eyes in the dark.

But, that's not all! We get the other monster in the episode...

"MAGNETIC TERROR-BEAST" Jikiro!

Now this is a cool kaiju. Unique mecha design, and certainly more memorable than Red Spark. Still doesn't stand a chance against Zone Fighter's Meteor Missiles however.

My fav bit in this entire episode was when Jikiro uses his magnetic pincer to grab hold of a commercial plane. Really good editing, very suspenseful the way the passengers are saved in the last second, as the plane gets yeeted into the night by Zone Fighter.

Never have I seen such a toyetic series shown in such a short amount of time. Jam-packed in 20 minutes. Space stations, spaceships, henshin devices, two kaiju, multiple transforming heroes, a flying fucking car, and the best ever:

ZOBOT!!!

a communicator, drone, weapon, this little guy can do it all. Must've been the coolest shit for kids in the 70's.

All in all, a fantastic start IMHO. One of the most entertaining first episodes from the showa Era of tokusatsu.

Join us next time for Zone Fighter episode 02: " Attack! Destro-King!"

Don't miss it!

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (October 8-14, 2023)

This week was defined by a barrage of news on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, with new posters, a trailer, a viral site, a screening of the first episode at New York Comic Con, and critic reviews dropping for the first five episodes. Fans being fans, most of the ensuing discussion has centered around which of the Monsterverse Godzilla's designs is superior, as both will appear. (Unless we get an intermediate stage for the part of the show set in 2015.) But going off the reviews, those of us who prefer to obsess over worldbuilding will have plenty to delight in while the dorsal plate debates rage.

Toho may not be building a Megalon suit this year for his 50th birthday, but he's still going to star in a short film dropping on November 3. Godzilla vs. Megalon (spelled with VS instead of 対 in Japanese) is the sequel to last year's Godzilla vs. Gigan Rex, again directed by Takuya Uenishi. The computer-animated monsters will be joined by at least one live-action person (a Seatopian, natch).

Almost a year after its Godzilla DLC, GigaBash is adding another quartet of characters from a famous tokusatsu franchise—the Ultra Series. No surprise that one of them is the original Ultraman. I figure Gomora's a shoo-in for the second spot, and after that, I'm not sure.

Crunchyroll has picked up Toho Animation's Kaiju No. 8. They didn't specify a release date besides April, but I assume this will be a simulcast, since that's also the month the show premieres in Japan.