Recommended! Godzilland – Learning Hiragana

aka すすめ！ゴジランド – よめるよかけるよひらがな

1994

First up is Godzilland video Learning Hiragana (よめるよかけるよひらがな)! Are you cool enough to learn hiragana with Godzilla? Of course you are! Also you are probably a young Japanese kid, or else this would be really weird, like some sort of adult watching these decades after he should have. As these are weird and watching them may rot your brain if not prepared, I’ll be overly descriptive and include a bunch of images.

Godzilland theme has Godzilla jumping up and down on a slot machine, he hits the jackpot and thus all the kaiju flood out as prizes! Godzilla! Rodan! Baragon! Mothra! Mothra! Mothra! (three Mothras, one adult and two larvae) Anguirus! King Ghidorah! It’s monster time, baby!

Godzilland is a cool place to explore, please do so. It is required. You can’t leave if you don’t explore, citizen. Please explore only in the clearly defined zones, if you explore in a Red Forbidden Zone, you will be sent to the Judicator to be processed into protein feed. Have a pleasant stay on Godzilland!

For the Monster Roll Call, please check out the complete cast list for these educational Godzilland episodes!!

Ms. Mothra has grown some nice strawberries and invites all the monsters to come try them via letters she drops off. She knows these kaiju are greedy for food and will surely come to pig out. King Ghidorah takes a break from showering (by spitting on himself!) to read the letter. Anguirus is so eager to get a letter he trips over a stump. Godzilla is interrupted from practicing breathing fire by the letter. Rodan immediately shoots off to get strawberries first, but King Ghidora and then Baragon pop up to eat as well. The others arrive, except for Godzilla and Anguirus, who are nowhere to be found. The monsters that did arrive soon eat all the the strawberries.

Just then, Godzilla and Anguirus burst into the scene, but only because Godzilla was chasing Anguirus and breathing fire at him and they just happened to run that direction. It turns out the two cannot read, which is sort of bad when you get letters that are invitations to a banquet. I guess a bunch of kids living on an island where the only thing close to a parent is a giant moth with her own offspring means no one really learns things. So the kaiju who can read decide they will teach Godzilla and Anguirus to read Hiragana! What about Katakana, you ask? That’s not important right now, please zip your lip! And don’t even get started on learning Kanji, this video is only 30 minutes long!

Thanks to the power of learning, we will go over all the characters as well as have words that use the characters we are learning to help with remembering, accompanied by graphics of the word. Occasionally there is a theme in the group of characters they cover, but not always and not consistently through the whole group of characters. And some of the graphics are weird and fun, and some are not. Also I’ll use the English words for the words being covered by the characters, which is why they won’t always seem to match up with the group their are in. It just reads clearer that way than dumping a whole bunch of Japanese words on you, got it? If you really want to learn hiragana, just watch the actual episode!

First we learn the vowels – A-I-U-E-O! This is brought to us by the power of learning that “An ant bit my foot!” Now you can tell everyone you know and love about the power of ants biting your foot.

Next up is Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko – A turtle bites Godzilla, but it is just a fox in disguise (who also is disguised as the other things they use for sounds, including a bear and caterpillar!) This fox is amazing, hire him for his own magic show!

We then hit Sa Shi Su Se So – This one is food themed with Rodan ganking food from a monkey, a polar bear, Anguirus, and Godzilla. Rodan is a stone cold thief and needs to get Ka Ki Ku Ke K.O.ed!

Ta Chi Tsu Te To – This group has no theme, except two of the words are exercised themed, I guess we’ve just moved beyond themes to pure randomonium! Thinking of five related concepts is hard, people!

Na Ni Nu Ne No – We are done with the former patters and just to a quiz show. Baragon is the quizmaster complete with suit and bow tie and microphone. The words waver between food and pet themed. Godzilla wins a trip to Godzilland, which is where they are, so PRANKED!!! Godzilla was so pranked! Next time take what is behind Door #2, Godzilla!

Ha Hi Fu He ho – Animal themes again, except with descriptive states. A tanned swan! A sheep with three braids! An owl scared of the dark! A snake doing push ups! And gaudy fireflies

Ma Mi Mu Me Mo – This group has a vague lady of the lake theme as Ms. Mothra pops up halfway through from a lake Ghidorah is drinking from. The words are full moon, lake, a lost straw hat, glasses, and a peach. They get a golden ma-mi-mu-me-mo for being honest, but that wasa different fairy tale…oh never mind…

Ya Yu Yo – This spooky bunch gives us a kettle, a ghost, and a yokai. Kettles are spooky.

Ra Ri Ru Re Ro – This group has a vague story with a camel, a squirrel, a crane (the bird crane, not the construction vehicle), the squirrel having some lemons, and the camel dying (!!!) so they call in a donkey to help. Wow this got randomly morbid all of a sudden! No wonder Godzilla ended up so angry he killed millions of people, he had to learn about dead camels.

Wa O – This group gives us crocodiles dancing in a circle and the concept of “to hold a tail” (because the o is for attaching words) – we also see Anguirus bite Godzilla’s tail lol. That’s what you get, Godzilla!

Now time to do the diacritic marked versions of our favorite hirgana – which turns them into new letters. Remember that the dakuten is the two dash marks while the handakuten is the little circle. The video will make a big deal of the dakuten dots with a dots song that continues through a bunch of these character sets.

Ga Gi Gu Ge Go – The Dots Song begins and we get the words skeleton, rabbit, paint, geta (wooden shoes), and egg.

Za Ji Zu Ze Zo – The song continues as we get the words crayfish, automobile, mouse, wind, and elephant.

Da Ji Zu De Do – The song refuses to end and the words are daruma (a tumbling doll), nosebleed, crescent moon, telephone, and a wriggling loach (a type of fish). I’m struggling to think if Sesame Street ever covered loach fish, and I would guess No.

Ba Bi Bu Be Bo – the song nears its end as we learn bomb, bottle, grapes, Bento Box, and hat

Thankfully we get a different song for the handakuten added to Ha Hi Fu Ha Ho to make it Pa Pi Pu Pe Po – the words are trumpet, pencil, ticket, Hampen (pounded fish cake), and tail. This song is faster but features a lot of random screaming, which is good for us scream enthusiasts. Scream more, songs!

The songs are finished as we are all out of katakana characters (except a few obscure ones no one uses!), so time to play Shiritori – a japanese word chain game. Start a new word that begins with the end of the prior word. The chain of words (translated to English!) are:

ant-squirrel-watermelon-turtle-glasses-cat-top-full moon-swallow-fried egg-fox-mouse-mandarin orange (and the game is lost by Godzilla!)

On the note of Godzilla losing, we end this entry into the world of Godzilland. But never fear, for after the credits is a commercial for the Numbers video! Sorry for anyone expecting Nick Fury to invite Godzilla into joining the Avengers, but I hear he paid King Kong a visit…