RUCKING FOTTEN クソ 腐った GOJIRA Available for 24 Hours Only!
Two Japanese inspired sci-fi tees from Gojira are available for pre-order now – for 24 hours only!
Godzilla
COMET TV: Monster Summer Giveaway
“We need an exterminator, one that would drive away King Ghidorah.” Comet TV and Attack from Planet B want everyone to enjoy their summer, catch some rays and protect themselves from an atomic-breathing beast, by giving one randomly chosen person the firepower to win Monster Summer merchandise. “Are you serious?”
Competition ends Friday, June 15th 2018
Shin Godzilla (2016, Japan)
Once I heard the news that the new Japanese Godzilla film was going to be playing in my city, I was overjoyed. Ever since I was a child, I have always loved Godzilla. I went into Shin Godzilla very excited to see how my favorite giant monster was going to be reimagined.
Shin Godzilla (also Godzilla Resurgence) is the latest installment and 31st film in the Godzilla franchise. Produced by Toho, this film is a reboot in which Godzilla’s origin story is retold in modern Japan. The film was written and directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi.
“A god incarnate. A city doomed.”
Kaiju Neutral Alignment (Part IV: A Personal Godzilla)
“As I watched the World Trade towers collapse on September 11, I felt guilty. The scene looked similar to those that had entertained me in many Godzilla films. But it wasn’t a fantasy, the people were real, and their fear and suffering were heartbreaking.”
Over the years Godzilla has changed roles significantly from once being the ultimate threat to Japan, to now being Japan’s protector. One could believe that this change was made to make the monster appeal to a broader audience resulting in much larger profits for the studio or perhaps it is the result of the fears Japan once had post-war becoming less and less significant?
Is the fascination in Japanese culture for science fiction Kaiju films and its symbolism born from the fears of nuclear war?
Kaiju Neutral Alignment (Part III: Looking upon an Entire Empire)
How can we understand Japan’s mindset after World War II? How did they really feel after the atomic bombings and their subsequent defeat? Was any blame placed upon a particular nation, including their own, for how the war ended?
Every culture has it’s fears… Godzilla itself is a creation born from the fears of another future nuclear disaster. Modern technology of the time created nuclear weapons and from these nuclear weapons came Godzilla! Tom Miller believes however that through the film’s inherent symbolism Godzilla represents more than just the atomic bombing of Japan. In his article “Struggling With Godzilla: Unraveling the Symbolism in Toho’s Sci/Fi Films” Tom states: “In the movie they made, Godzilla represents more than the A-Bomb; Godzilla is the United States itself”, but didn’t the United States have a motive for the atomic bombings? Godzilla needed no motive… Just the animalistic desire to survive.
Is the fascination in Japanese culture for science fiction Kaiju films and its symbolism born from the fears of nuclear war?
Kaiju Neutral Alignment (Part II: Fandom from an Academic Viewpoint)
William Tsutsui is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Kansas, an author of many books on Japanese history and a life-long fan of the mutant lizard having authored “Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters” (First published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004).
Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Godzilla “Godzilla on My Mind: Fifty Years of the King of Monsters” discusses how it grew into a global phenomenon thus exploring the monster’s lasting cultural impact on Japan, the United States and the rest of the world whilst a video entitled “Godzilla and Post-War Japan” uploaded onto the web for UCTV (University of California Television) presented Professor William Tsutsui arguing that the evolution of Godzilla, throughout it’s many films, reflects the social and political changes of post-war Japan and Godzilla’s lasting cultural impact on the world.
Is the fascination in Japanese culture for science fiction Kaiju films and its symbolism born from the fears of nuclear war?
Kaiju Neutral Alignment (Is Godzilla truly the King of the Monsters?)
After World War II Japan’s economy made one of the most remarkable recoveries in the history of the modern world.
Arguably one of their most vital post war recoveries was that of their film industry and by 1953, the industry had entered its Golden Age.
This study of Japanese culture looks at the fascination Japanese audiences have for the symbolism found in these science fiction Kaiju movies. Are they just presented as brainless entertainment or are they born from an ingrained fear that their could perhaps be another disaster like the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the future?
