Next we have a recording of the direct-to-video kaiju panel from G-Fest this July:

There’s one more recorded panel from the summer to hopefully get posted in coming weeks, so stay tuned!

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This went up on YouTube back in September, but somehow I missed linking it on the blog: a presentation Mike Dent and I did at G-Fest 2023, covering the history of late-night tokusatsu shows. Due to the plethora of content and the limitations of time, we only got up to 2007, so a part 2 will follow in some form eventually.

And actually, while we’re at it, here’s the Kaiju Transmissions panel from the same show:

There’s one more panel from G-Fest that still needs to be edited and added to YouTube, so keep an eye out.

This summer’s G-Fest panels were also recorded, so those are next on the agenda.

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Of course, we recorded right before the Decker movie hit, so we had not seen the teaser for the next series yet.

Also:

We talked about Ms Ai’s career on Ultraman Leo, her time at Toho with Terror of Mechagodzilla, as well as a stint at Toei including guesting on Goranger and (almost) leading in The Kagestar. It was a fantastic experience for us, and hopefully this recording is a good overview and is a suitable consolation for anyone who also wanted to go and couldn’t make it to the convention this year.

Special thanks to Chris Marti for help with editing this episode!

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Show notes:

Follow Error 4444 on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram

Buy Anatomia Extinction

Buy Funky Forest and Warped Forest

A comparison between the original and remastered Centipede Horror and Red Spell Spells Red prints:

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Warning: Part of the episode has John recounting the early days of the pandemic in New York City, which gets a bit grim, so be prepared.

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There’re lots of cool guests this year, including Ryuhei Kitamura, Tom Kitagawa, Kazuki Omori, Fuyuki Shinada, and more; check out the schedule for when each interview will go live (though they’ll remain online in perpetuity)!

Of course, on the Maser Patrol front, Kevin will be giving a solo panel Saturday at 1PM EST, this time on the complicated entertainment business background of the Tsuburaya family, as well as joining Kaiju Transmissions‘ Matt and Byrd, along with The Lost Films Fanzine‘s John LeMay, 3PM Sunday to discuss the 50th anniversary of Gorgo.

On top of that, Amanda will be interpreting for several of the guests, including Tom Kitagawa, Reijiro Koroku (in his first-ever English-language interview), and Makoto Inoue.

It’s sure to be a fun, busy, educational weekend; hope everyone is able to tune in! Opening ceremonies are tonight at 8PM EST.

I was recently able to present at the Anime Lockdown online convention and salvage the doomed “Ultraman in Animation” topic from a few years ago. Thanks to John-Paul of Anime Lockdown for having me on and running a fantastic convention!

In this episode, I’m joined by Henning Strauß (not “Straub”!) to discuss the history of kaiju (and also of other tokusatsu, anime, and manga) in Germany, along with how the development of fandom there has in some ways similar or different to the US and other countries.

Germany has a vibrant otaku community that puts the US to shame in some regards, so it’s always neat to see what can be learned from our fellow Japanophiles around the globe.

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Notes:

Title Frankensteinification:

More name swaps:

Heidi, Girl of the Alps, whose crew included Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Yoshiyuki Tomino:

Operation Mystery (“S.R.I. und die unheimlichen Fälle”) is kind of like a police procedural show, I guess.

Surprisingly Winspector was one of the rare titles on tokusatsu titles on TV! It was even novelized (so was Saban’s Masked Rider).

German dubs are the only way to watch some Taiwanese edits. For example The Iron Superman is on Tubi in its German dub subtitled in English.

Shogun Warriors and Micronauts in German:

We didn’t mention it in the podcast, but Germany also got a proper release of Takeshi’s Castle (or, at least much less mangled than the US release). Here’s one of the episodes where Ultraman shows up:

Many manga anthologies in the early 2000s, including Banzai, which was the first foreign edition of Shonen Jump. Manga Power led the charge in the late 90s.

Numerous shows have original German opening themes, but Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball‘s banging Eurobeat tunes are my personal faves:

Those irritating FSK ratings on every home video release:

The German equivalent of MST3k: Die Schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten (or SchleFaZ for short). They even got cameos in the Sharknado franchise!

Recommended reading (auf Deutsch):

Fan magazines:

• 1988-1989: 9 issues of “Godzilla Family”
• 1989-1998: 10 issues of “Godzilla Fanzine”
• 1996-2018: 41 issues of “Pranke” (continuation of “Godzilla Family”)
• 2006: 1 issue of “Asian Cinemagic”

Kaiju-con in Uelzen (not to be confused with German Kaiju Con, which was supposed to start in Hamburg last year, but got derailed by pandemic):

A documentary on kaiju fan culture:

Gazorra: The Beast from the Depths of the Earth, Jörg Buttgereit’s short from 1984.

Kongula: Affengigant des Grauens (2003)

The Gualagon audio drama:

The anthology novel German Kaiju:

No Budget Nerd’s YouTube channel:

For as many titles that the US has gotten but Germany hasn’t, the grass is always greener on the other side. Here’re some titles available in Germany but not the US, in case you’re up for some importation:

• Anolis’s excellent transfers of Toho’s tokusatsu films
• Terror Beneath the Sea subtitled
• Necronomicon, Armicron in Outlaw Power (only available on VHS stateside)
• Physical releases for Gantz: O, the Godzilla anime trilogy, Samurai Flamenco, Tomie Unlimited
• The Next Generation Patlabor, Bloody Chainsaw Girl, Ninja War Torakage, Tokyo Ghoul S, Hentai Kamen, Ajin, Space Firebird 2772
• Manga: Q, DNA^2, Katsura & Toriyama Short Stories, Billy Bat, most of Gou Tanabe’s HP Lovecraft adaptations, Killing Bites

Check out Henning’s audio commentaries (in German) for Frankenstein’s Kung-fu Monster and Gamera vs Barugon and articles (in English) in G-Fan!

That’s right, this time around Josh and Kevin discuss the sweet Swan Songs of the Valkyries in the Senki Zesshō Symphogear franchise. It’s largely a synopsis of the five seasons, but hopefully our enthusiasm (and a little bit of the historical context) gives a sense of why it’s a program absolutely worth checking out.

Warnings: Many spoilers. Also, the editing for this podcast might not be all that tight due to Audacity problems (but it’s Maser Patrol, so of course it’s a couple hours long anyway).

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Show notes:

• Buy Season 1 here
• Buy Season 2 here
• Watch on Crunchyroll
• The indispensable Symphogear wiki
• The Shooting the Moon fansite

Marketing

• How Symphogear is marketed in Japan:

• How Symphogear is marketed in the US:

• How Symphogear probably should be marketed:

• But what Symphogear is really about:

Sample clips:

• The marketing leading up to season 1 all implied that Kanade would be a main character, and not, say, someone who would die halfway into the first episode:

Talking about the show:

• Hibiki Tachibana in a nutshell:

• The Noise designs are very much like Tohl Narita’s Ultraman monsters:

• Even more psuedo-Ultraman: The Nephilim was modeled after Zetton, while Hibiki turns into a red-and-silver giant at one point.

• Yumi’s self-awareness:

• Ignite module vs Kill la Kill god robe:

The mobile game

• Symphogear XD Unlimited mobile game opening:

XDU Collaborations that’d be of interest:

• SSSS.Gridman

• Godzilla

• ULTRAMAN

• Nanoha Detonation

• Attack on Titan

• the Gamera trilogy

• Nendoroids mentioned:

Hopefully that all sheds some light on why the franchise has such a devout fanbase, and why “watch Symphogear” has become a meme associated with rabid, proselytizing otaku. But seriously, if you’re even a bit curious, it’s worth checking out.

• Down to Hell
• Versus
• Alive
• Aragami
• Longinus

He’s a favorite director of mine, so it was great to geek out over.

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Expect something else Versus-related shortly!

However, I have not been completely off the radar! Here are a few activities you might have missed:

• First of all, Alex of Control All Monsters and I sat down to recreate our G-Fest panel from last year on the Gamera trilogy, in time for the Arrow Gamera set.

• Amanda and I were also on Kaiju Transmissions to talk about the Ultra Q movie and what a translation nightmare it posed to fansubbers for decades. I also joined them (along with Justin) to talk about Masaaki Yuasa’s new Netflix series Japan Sinks 2020. Again, if you’re not subscribed to them, I’d encourage doing so.

Ultra Q the Movie:

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Japan Sinks 2020:

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• This weekend is Kaiju Masterclass, the year’s second online convention for giant monsters. The guest list is jaw-dropping for a first-time convention (or any convention), so I’m quite honored to have three panels over the course of the three days: a solo deal on Toho Tokusatsu on Television, one with Matt Parmley and Stan Hyde on the 1970 Osaka Expo, and a 25th anniversary panel on Godzilla vs Destoroyah with John LeMay and the Kaiju Transmissions crew. Full schedules are posted on their website, but keep an eye on their YouTube page in case you miss anything; all will be available after the livestreams. Hopefully you can attend this weekend, but if not, you should be able to check out the videos below:

• I might start up a Maser Patrol Facebook feed to keep some bite-sized findings and fun-facts up-to-date between longer blog posts. I’ve been experimenting with the format on another page, so if you want an idea (or just want to read up on tokusatsu-related manga), give that a look.

On that note, I’ll wish everyone a safe continued existence during these unusual times. We’ll return to normalcy at some point, and Maser Patrol will get back into doing some proper write-ups again as well.

Shinpei Hayashiya’s Deep Sea Monster trilogy

Howl from Beyond the Fog

Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster

I won’t embed each one here unless someone really wants me to, since hopefully you’ve already heard the episodes!

Apologies for the lack of blog posts during all the lockdown. A lot of steam was let out of the weekly news recaps due to all of the depressing coronavirus-related news, so they’ve basically fallen on hold. However, both myself and Amanda have been doing well, and I was able to participate in a number of virtual events to keep social during the pandemic (arguably more social than I was beforehand!). Last weekend was the stellar Kaiju Con-Line event from KaijuCast‘s Kyle Yount, and I had the good fortune to present two panels. But seriously, check out the whole playlist; there’s a lot of great content.

As for my panels:

Great Yokai War or Greatest Yokai War

Before Kadokawa rebooted Gamera to be more Brave or gave Daimajin a brand new Kanon, they revived their third most-popular monster franchise: Yokai Monsters. The resulting picture, The Great Yokai War, has an interesting history tying together Japanese mythology, manga, and popular culture in a way that hasn’t been replicated before or since. Join Kaiju Transmissions’ Kyle Byrd and Kaiju for Hipsters’ Kevin Derendorf as they unpack this maze of monsters, Miike, Mizuki, and Megolopolises.

…and

Non-Kaiju Movies! (…with Godzilla and company)

Controversial opinion: We should sometimes watch something other than kaiju movies. The world of cinema is vast, and there are many wonderful aspects to enjoy in other genres…including appearances by Godzilla, Gamera, Guilala, and Ultraman! This panel covers some to the less-discussed, often zany minor appearances by our favorite monsters outside of their usual kaiju eiga stomping grounds, and discusses why we might be more likely to see a Godzilla cameo in Hollywood than in Japan.

Thanks to everyone who watched live in the broadcast, and for those who have yet to see them, enjoy!

Download here

Unfortunately we had some serious Skype lag during the call, but for the most part I was able to clean it up in post, so it only gets confusing on occasion.

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Direct download

Show notes:

• Follow Byrd on Kaiju Transmissions
• Follow Justin at Man Creates Dinosaurs (on an unrelated note, his recent MonsterTalk appearance is fascinating)
• The ad for Criterion’s never-made Godzilla laserdisc set:
  
• Criterion’s Godzilla: The Showa Era Blu-ray set is half-off at Barnes and Noble right now. All Criterion releases are discounted 50%, so now’d be a great chance to pick up Jellyfish Eyes, House, Kwaidan, and When Horror Came to Shochiku (a four-movie box including The X from Outer Space and Goke the Bodysnatcher) as well.
• Arrow Releases are also half-off at Barnes & Noble, so it’s also a good time to pick up The Bloodthirsty Trilogy, Terra Formars, Happiness of the Katakuris, the Ring Collection, Dark Water, Akio Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy, and more.
• Arrow has added Gamera movies to their streaming channel, so a set may be in the works.
• Mill Creek’s ambitious Ultraman release schedule:
  
• Shout Factory’s Super Sentai releases
• The Fiveman release was teased back in March; but then there was a Tweet from July saying there are no releases in the works.
• Discotek’s X-Bomber, Juspion, and Message from Space sets
• Section23 titles, including the Kraken releases of Garo and Return of Godzilla, are available through the Sentai Filmworks website. These titles are available elsewhere, but the steepest discounts will show up from there or Rightstuf. Tokusatsu fans should also check out their releases of Kaiju Mono, Cheer Fruits, Skull Man, and Patlabor.
• The SRS releases of Reigo and Raiga
• SRS has also announced the licenses to Attack of the Giant Teacher and Raiga vs. Ohga.
• Kino Lorber has Konga coming soon, which will go great next to their release of A*P*E.
• Synapse just released Undertaker and is allegedly working on a Blu-ray of Sompote Sands’ Crocodile
• Funimation’s upcoming release of SSSS.Gridman, in limited edition and standard versions
• Media Blasters/Tokyo Shock is still kicking, as is evidenced by an upcoming re-release of Machine Girl
• Generation Kikaida also still exists, but haven’t released anything lately

There are other cool new titles out there, from Legend of the Demon Cat to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, but I think we hit the major tokusatsu releases. Hopefully this helps someone to make good decisions with their holiday shopping, add to their personal collection, or just feel more educated about the products for knowledge’s sake!

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Photos after the jump.

Permanent attractions:

• Anata no Warehouse arcade

• Eiji Tsuburaya Museum

• Kaiju Sakaba

• Osamu Tezuka Museum

• Sega Joypolis

• Shinjuku Gracery

• Tokusatsu Bar

Some temporary exhibits we went to:

• Attack on Titan the Final

• Eko Eko Azarak

• Genju Shinwaten

• Godzilla vs. Evangelion and Attack on Titan the Real at Universal Studios

• Shinji Nishikawa exhibit

• teamLab Borderless exhibit

• Ultraman Festival

• Ultraman exhibit at the Tsuburaya Museum

Recommended Shopping:

• AmiAmi
• Animate (a massive chain)
• Astro Zombies
• BookOff (another massive chain)
• Evangelion Store Tokyo 01
• Gee! Store
• Ghibli stores
• The Godzilla Store
• Hero Gangu
• Jungle
• Junkudo
• Mandarake (chain, check out Nakano Broadway specifically)
• Pokemon Center (massive chain)
• Tokyo Character Street (includes Ultraman store, One Piece store, Shonen Jump store, etc)

Stuff we’ve done before but forgot to mention on the episode:

• the Hibiya Godzilla statue

• Ultraman Street

• the Ghibli Museum

• Gundam Front

• the Kyoto International Manga Museum

• the Tetsujin 28 monument

• Toei Studios theme park

Here’s a video of one of the panels I was on at G-Fest this year. The camera is aimed more at the panelists than it is at the screen with our visual aids (including both concept art and newly-commissioned art that Greg had done for the panel), but you can still get most of the information from what we’re saying.

Otherwise, you can always just follow along in the slides here.

Also, Justin was correct about Rolling Bomber Special at the end.

Oh, I guess we talk about two movies.

I recommend both, but if you only care about one movie or the other, we shift topics at the 57 minute mark. Also, the end music came in a little early due to technical difficulties, but you didn’t miss much.

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Links:

Matt’s Godzilla review on Kaiju Transmissions

Justin’s Godzilla review on Film Find

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(Spoilers: The answer is yes. Go see the movie.)

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As mentioned:

• First trailer for the movie in question:

• I forgot to mention how ace the music is in the OVA:

• Yukito Kishiro’s poster:

• The cast meets Kizuna Ai:

• Giving away actual cyborg arms seems like a pretty cool way to promote a film.

…and of course:

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Show notes:

• They made a new suit for promotional purposes; compare old versus new:

• A trailer for SSSS Gridman:

• Ninja Slayer:

• Some of the familiar animation cuts:

• There’s a lot of Transformers mash-up stuff; here’s an example of how four members of a group in one episode are all based on different version of Jetfire.
• Mike Dent’s Twitter account is an invaluable resource for notes about each episode, as well as funny mash-ups like this:

https://twitter.com/Mach_Dent/status/1058200546522341376

Download link

Notes:

• The original:

• Syber Squad:

• Boys Invent Great Hero:

• If it wasn’t clear, “Yume no Hero” is beloved (we opened with the Katokutai cover):

We intended to talk about the influence that Gridman appears to have had on Digimon, but then we forgot. Oh, well, there’s still plenty that was covered.

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Notes:

• Many manga

• Novel

• Toho movie

• Toei movie (NSFW)

• JC Staff OVA series

Expect an actual Maser Patrol podcast shortly.

Podcast Download

Buy Godzilla the Series

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This is part history lesson, part list of movie recommendations, so it might be a little more high-brow than my usual panels.

Enjoy!

Download link

Download here

So get ready (war ready) for a long review about troubled production history, Chinese pandering, three prequel comics plus a novel, and a general sense of anticipated letdown!

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Programs discussed:

Voltron: Legendary Defender (~0:15-1:10)

Castlevania (~1:10-1:20)

Death Note (~1:20-1:50)

Devilman Crybaby (~1:50-2:35)

(I said “Ryo” a bunch of times when I meant Akira. Not sure what’s up with that; I’ll just plead demonic possession.)

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2:35-end)

Also mentioned:

Okja

Mob Psycho 100

Blazing Transfer Students

Erased

Blame

Knights of Sidonia

Kong: King of the Apes

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Covered in Part 4:

• Demonbane
• Song of Saya
• Nyaruko: Crawling With Love
• Project Nemesis
• Kaijumax
• Gou Tanabe’s adaptations

Of course, there’s plenty else out there that we neglected to mention.

• the upcoming Force of Will movie
• the claymation HP Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and Other Stories
• the hentai Mystery of the Necronomicon
• the Moe Moe Cthulhu Mythos Dictionary
• Princess Resurrection, whose opening credits starts with “That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange eons even death may die.”
• Bungo Stray Dogs, which has a character named after Lovecraft, who can turn into a tentacle monster

The list goes on, but after eight hours it does get a little exhausting! The main point is, there’s quite a lot of influence to have, and like Nyarlathotep, it takes many forms.

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Covered in Part 3:

• Necronomicon
• Godzilla at World’s End
• Godzilla vs. Cthulhu in Famous Monsters of Filmland
• Is Pacific Rim a Lovecraftian movie?
• Archangel Thunderbird
• Junji Ito – Uzumaki and The Thing that Drifted Ashore
• Ken Asamatsu
• Queen of K’n-Yan
• Lairs of the Hidden Gods
• Daimajin Adventure

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Covered in Part 2:

• Masumune Shirow’s Orion
• Chiaki J Konaka’s works: Terror Rate, Shadow over Innsmouth, Marebito, Big O, Digimon Tamers, Armitage III
• Midnight Meat Train
• Lovecraft in Ultraman

Shinji Nishikawa’s “Cthul Fight” is a parody of Ultra Fight.

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Covered in Part 1:

• Who was HP Lovecraft? What is Cthulhu Mythos?
• When was the mythos introduced to Japan, and why would it resonate?
• Footsteps of the Underground
• Matango
• Yokai Hunter
• Eko Eko Azarak
• Iczer 1
• The Challenger to Great Old Ones
• Megami Tensei

Check out a whole series of Lovecraft-inspired ukyoe prints here!

The slides don’t quite match the audio because of some technical difficulties, so this is a reconstruction of sorts.

As for other issues…well, it was the first panel on Sunday morning. I was a little frazzled and mangled some Japanese here and there. I promise the other ones are better. I said to watch the other manga one first, right?

Oh, and for the record, yes, Michiru Oshima did the music for M78: Love & Peace (good catch, audience!), the 31st episode of Digimon Adventure has the Godzilla vs. Hedorah sequence in it, and I need to learn to say “GunBot” instead of “GunBorg”.

Download link

Movies discussed:

• House

• Visitor in the Eye

• Adventures of Kosuke Kindaichi

• Targeted School

https://vimeo.com/65926689

• Exchange Students

• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

https://vimeo.com/65995327

• Deserted City

• Kenya Boy

• Lonelyheart

• The Drifting Classroom

https://vimeo.com/64345732

• The Discarnates

• Chizuko’s Younger Sister

• Haruka Nostalgy

• Samurai Kids

….and of course:

A couple slips of the tongue:

• At one point I say that The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had done well in Japan; I meant that it had done well in America and was soon to release in Japan.
• When asked if the new Godzilla movie would get a dub, I said they all did. Actually, the 1954 original technically does not have a dub. Conversely, King Kong vs. Godzilla hasn’t ever officially been made available subtitled (fansubs abound).

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Show notes:

• Hollywood Reporter’s article on Thomas Tull’s Universal/Warner dealings for Kong
• Sonic’s “King Gong”:

• The statue that scandalized Paris:

• Some reading: Apes of Wrath, Kong: King of Skull Island, All Yesterdays, Dinomania
• King Caesar’s head:

• Van-Pires (watch at your own peril)

But mostly, we talk about Shin Godzilla. We recorded on the topic previously in an attempt that we couldn’t use, so this one is a resurgence. “Personal service”, even.

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Persecution of the Asses!

Spoilers abound, so beware.

Things we didn’t mention:

• Amanda caught the movie in Japan recently, and despite the movie being several months into its theatrical run, there was a good-sized crowd. The theatrical booklet has a “beware of spoilers” band around it.
• Off mic we were drawing interesting parallels between the discourse on this movie and the backlash against what Eric Powell was trying to do with Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters. This movie is much better than that comic, but the attempts at socio-political commentary in the face of a recent natural disaster are there for both, love it or hate it.
• All that talk about Dr. Maki, and we never once mentioned that another Dr. Maki was in the movie! (Yu Kamio was also in Ultraman X, Higuchi’s Attack on Titan, Anno’s Ando Lloyd, not to mention all of the Rider/Sentai roles.)

Also referenced:

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Quick Addendum: 

Recommended titles:

• Blassreiter

• Madoka Magica

• Fate Zero

• Psycho Pass

• Kamen Rider Gaim (Kevin got a lot of details wrong on this one, apologies!)

• Expelled from Paradise

• Thunderbolt Fantasy

Also discussed:

• Song of Saya
• Phantom of Inferno
• Gargantia on the Verderous Planet
• Aldnoah Zero
• Gunslinger Stratos

Like we said previously, this is partially a repeat of other stuff up on the ‘blog, but some of it may be new. (Somehow I managed to talk extensively about both Godzilla vs. Gigan and Shigeru Mizuki without connecting the dots between the two, though.)

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Show Notes:

• Superflat Monogram, the advert made with Takashi Murakami:

• This trailer is 100% Children’s War Game footage, even though the actual “movie” has three Digimon flicks spliced together. They knew what was up.

• Howl’s Moving Castle storyboards

• The allegedly-cathartic One Piece movie:

• And of course, the “Mamoru Hosoda collection”:

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Show notes:

• Murakami’s book Little Boy

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Some related trailers for TV shows:

Trailers for movies/OVAs:

Direct download

An overview (mostly in the form of damned-cool MVs found on youtube) after the jump:

• The original Garo TV series from 2005 (AKA Chapter of the Black Wolf) features a Makai Knight named Kouga Saejima, who hunts demonic horrors by night, each battle ending with him transforming into the golden Garo armor.

• The 2011 second season, Makai Senki, is a direct follow-up to the first season, reuniting the cast of the first season, the two-part TV special, and the theatrical film.

• The third season, Yami wo Terasu Mono/The One Who Shines in Darkness is a radical departure from the formula, taking place in the far future (?) and features a new cast. Ryuga Dogai is now Garo, trying to restore the armor to its previous shine/power.

• Black Blood is a miniseries about Kouga’s rival-turned-pal Rei, the knight titled Zero.

• Makai no Hana/Flower of Makai is the fourth season, starring Raiga Saejima, Kouga’s son, as the title Garo. He’s “the strongest knight ever” according to the creators of the show.

• Set in medieval Europe, Honoh no Kokuin/The Carved Seal of Flames/Garo the Animation is actually available streaming legally. You should be watching. This Garo is Leon Luis, and his father is the show’s Zero (or “Zoro”).

• Gold Storm, the latest movie and 6th/current season, returns to Ryuga as the hero. So far it’s been good, but dang it, all of Garo is good!

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Show notes:

• First: We totally spaced and forgot to mention Ando Lloyd~AI knows love, the romantic Terminator-esque TV drama about a woman whose husband is assassinated by robots from the future, then she’s rescued and protected by another robot… with her dead husband’s face. It’s pretty sweet, and naturally full of Ultraman and Doraemon nods.

• The God Warrior:

https://vimeo.com/64987176

• The Daicon openings:

• Return of Ultraman:

• If we weren’t clear, Gunbuster is freaking great.

• The Cutie Honey movie is a live-action cartoon:

Because it’s a slide show, we’re trying something a little different for this episode and going with video instead of just audio. Hope you enjoy, and let us know what you think!

If you wonder what we think about Parasyte the Maxim, Garo the Animation, Cross Ange, Sailor Moon Crystal, Aldnoah Zero, Terra Formars, Blue Blazes, Kamen Rider Drive, Kikaider Reboot, Yatterman Night, Gonna be a Twin Tail, Assassination Classroom, Stardust Crusaders, Jaco the Galactic Patrolman, and other recently-released entertainment, well, this might be worth a listen.

Direct download

BTW: The music cover at the end of this episode comes from our buddy at Fireteamtorch Piano. He wrote a pretty swanky Cutie Honey theme cover for me a while back, and I still haven’t found occasion to include it.

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Show notes:

• We read verbatim from an article posted on The Good The Bad and Godzilla, so it’d be rude not to link it.
• For the record, DNA computers and cooling lasers are real things, just not like in the movies.
• Godzilla Pachinko footage:

• The opening to Always Sunset on Third Street 2:

• Toho’s Chouseishin series:

• We mentioned this off-topic:

Anyway, this time around, we take a fond look back at the Heisei Godzilla period (1984-1999, not to be confused with the actual Japanese Heisei period, 1989-present). We’re quite fond of the movies during this time (blame nostalgia goggles or whatever), so we went a bit longer than usual. Okay, way longer. Instead of delivering a single 4-hour mp3 (we’re not HJU Radio, after all), I split this into two two-hour parts, breaking right before 1993’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Enjoy!

Part 1:

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Part 2:

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Show notes:

• Sea Baragon, Machine Godzilla, and King Godzilla from the Hiroshi Kawamoto manga:

• Monster Planet of Godzilla footage:

• Godzilland episode 1:

• The weird mash of monsters in Godzilla Trading Battle:

• Most of the alleged Godzilla Island clips on youtube are from fan projects. This one, however, is straight from the real show:

• The strange tale of Wolf Man vs. Godzilla at SciFi Japan. Also at Kaiju Gaiden!

Apologies if this is less focused and less witty than the usual discussion episodes; the next one should return to the multiple-host format!

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Lecture slides

The rest of the Godzilla retrospective is coming soon, but we figured this would take the priority for now, since, well, it’s on everyone’s mind. Spoilers abound here, but we assume listeners have probably seen the flick by now; feel free to leave your own opinions in the comments section.

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Notes:

• It was sort of late when this was recorded, so mental dyslexia caused me to accidentally say that Ultraman comes from Nebula M66 instead of M78. Hey, it wouldn’t be a show without a slip-up, right?
• Seriously, anyone know anything about Marusan’s King Godzilla?

We did have some recording issues here, so there’s occasional static or audio spliced in from our secondary mic; we should hopefully have that fixed for the subsequent installments.

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Simulcast/streaming links:

• Kill La Kill
• Samurai Flamenco
• Nobunagun
• Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure – Stardust Crusaders
• Space Dandy
• Inari Kon kon
• Captain Earth
• NoraGami
• Black Bullet
• Chaika, Coffin Princess
• Mushi-shi
• The File of Young Kindaichi Returns
• Ping Pong
• Majin Bone
• Daimidaler: Prince vs. Penguin Empire
• We never mentioned Brynhildr in the Darkness, but it’s an alien-themed show from the creator of Elfen Lied, and also looks intriguing.

You’ll have to get fansubs for Kamen Rider Gaim, Marvel’s Disk Wars: Avengers, Garo: Makai no Hana, Ressha Sentai ToQger, Kampai Senshi After V, and Happiness Charge Pretty Cure. Knights of Sidonia will be coming to Netflix after its airing completes in Japan.

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Notes:

• We made up some slides with helpful illustrations. Not necessary for listening, though.
• Kevin messed up and implied that Haruo Nakajima preferred Pulgasari over Godzilla ’98. Actually, it was Ken Satsuma who said that.
• Comics Alliance recently talked about the Marvel Godzilla comic in pretty fine detail.

Cartoons:

Audio dramas:

Commercials:

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Show notes/random clips from youtube:

A look at the Slayers RPGs:

Samples of the dub:

Trailers:

Everyone’s favorite theme song (and yes, Lina’s sister is in this OP, too):

Stay tuned for more installments of the Godzilla podcast mega-retrospective! (Hopefully they won’t be quite so delayed!)

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Topics include:

• Ultraman the Next
• Negadon the Monster from Mars
• MM9
• Sazer X
• Tetsujin 28
• Ultraman Max
• Gamera the Brave
• Mirrorman Reflex
• Ultraman Mebius
• Big Man Japan (spoiler talk from 48:30-54:30)
• the Evangelion rebuild
• Ultra Galaxy
• Ultraseven X
• Metal Kaiser
• G
• Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit
• Reigo: The Deep Sea Monster vs. the Battleship Yamato
• the Godman revival
• Assault Girls
• Attack on Titan
• Demeking the Sea Monster
• Jaws in Japan
• Ki-Gai
• Gehara, the Dark and Long-Haired Monster
• Deep Sea Monster Raiga
• Daimajin Kanon
• Death Kappa
• Hakaijuu
• God of Clay
• Earth Defense Girls P9
• Henge
• Ultra Zone
• Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo
• Neo Ultra Q/Ultraman Ginga
• Upcoming kaiju stuff: Earth Defense Widow, Zella: Monster Martial Law

And our “cameo” list:

Trailers and more:

Manga Entertainment has posted the entirety of Negadon: the Monster from Mars free on youtube!

Gamera’s enemy eats humans. For kids!

Hakaijuu short with Henge trailer:

As a word of warning, the audio sort of sucks this time. We were recording two microphones onto one track, so we wound up getting a lot of echo on one of them, and the air conditioning is also going in the background. Just pretend that Josh is proclaiming his opinions from Mount Olympus, and we’ll try to avoid the echo problem during future recordings.

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Anyway, some of the topics include:

• Kill La Kill
• Samurai Flamenco
• Beyond the Boundary
• Gingitsune: Messenger Fox of the Gods
• Pupa
• Wanna Become the Strongest in the World
• Galilei Donna
• Coppelion
• Gundam Build Fighters
• Innocent Lillies
• Higanjima
• Gouraigan
• Kamen Rider Gaim

At around 46 and a half minutes in, we get to discussion of Pokemon Origins:

The series can been seen November 15 on the Pokemon website.

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Show-note miscellanea:

One Pound Gospel is mouth-watering:

The series that Viz was built on:

Kuno is basically one of the best characters in all of anime:

Ranma 1/2 never got a “Final Act” to complete the story from the manga, but the end of the manga was animated as a pachinko game. Obvious spoilers:

Chinese Inuyasha adaptation, The Holy Pearl:

Rumiko Takahashi Anthology trailer:

Rinne never actually got animated.

Moeyo Ken trailer:

Urusei Yatsura cast shows up in Maris the Chojo:

Finally, the crossover that preceded the OVAs that were produced for the 50th anniversary of Shonen Sunday. These really ought to get a US release, but I’m not sure what sort of format they could be put out in:

Check out Rumic World for more info!

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Show Notes:

–Here‘s a cool visual analysis of the movie that was posted after we’d recorded; it’s worth a read.

-If you want to throw a lot of money at the movie, there’s a $400 Gypsy Danger statue coming soon.

-The Japanese poster from Katsuya Terada:

-Also, here’s the Pacific Rim trailer set to the theme from Gunbuster. It works shockingly well.

• The Red Crow and the Ghost Ship (?)
• Genpei Toumaden
• Cyber Ninja
• Mobile Sheriff Jiban the movie
• Shin Kamen Rider, Ultraman vs. Kamen Rider, SD Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider ZO, Kamen Rider J, and Kamen Rider World
• Mechanical Violator Hakaider
• Moon Over Tao
• Tales of Terror From Tokyo the Movie
• G-9
• Unholy Women
• FX Work: Peacock King, Saga of the Phoenix, Zipang, Gunhed
• Design Work: Ultraman – The Adventure Begins, Lady Battle Cop, Meatball Machine, Skull Soldier, Deep Sea Monster Reigo, Dai Yogen- Fukkatsu no Kyoshin, Juskiss

There’s some popping in the audio early in the episode, but that mercifully goes away after a couple of minutes; not sure what the cause of that was. Also, I had a lapsus linguae at one point and referred to Yuko Moriyama as Yuko Moriya. Oops.

https://maserpatrol.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/maser_patrol_podcast_4_-_films_of_keita_amemiya.mp3

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Show-note Miscellany

Here are some youtube videos so you can sort of see what we were talking about:

I don’t actually see Amemiya’s name in the SD Kamen Rider credits, so I think imdb might be wrong about this one.

Trailer time!

More clips! These are to take a look at some of Amemiya’s effects work.

The Peacock King trailer credits Takashige Ichise, but both Amemiya and Shinji Higuchi were also on effects.

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We forgot to introduce ourselves this time, but Kevn is the one annoyingly starting every statement with the word “yeah” (I’ll work on fixing that, I promise!) and Josh (AKA Captain Casual) is the one doing a very good job of ignoring the Texas Rangers game in the background.

Show-note miscellanea:

The BBC Urusei Yatsura dub:

Beautiful Dreamer trailer:

Takahashi’s hair color-blindness:

The annoying neighbors of Maison Ikkoku:

Mermaid Forest opening:

Check out Rumic World for more info!

and this

and this

Just not those things specifically because we forgot about them.

The slides are up here.

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Anime shows discussed:

• Attack on Titan
• Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
• Majestic Prince
• Valvrave the Liberator
• The Devil is a Part-Timer!
• Red Data Girl
• Date A Live
• Nyaruko-san: Another Crawling Chaos W

and tokusatsu:

• Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger Season 2
• Garo: The One Who Shines in Darkness
• Random Hero
• Vampire Heaven
• All Esper Dayo

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