Godziban Episode 20 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#11「メリゴジ ゴジラが聖夜にやってきた」(Review)
Godziban Episode 20 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#11「メリゴジ ゴジラが聖夜にやってきた」
aka ゴジばん
December 24, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Have a Merry Godziban Christmas!! (We got to this weeks late, but who cares!) March of Godzilla 2019 in 2020 continues with the special Christmas episode of Godziban, which like all Godziban episodes are strange and awesome!
We got Christmas graphics! We got Kaiju Christmas! We got kaiju in antlers and red noses, we got kaiju in Santa clothes, we got trees, we got presents, we got joy, we got Megalon upset at all this joy. These are done by the artist who does the Jet Jaguar shorts, who I believe is Onigiri though there are some other artists credited on the show (and the graphics we see at the end of the episode are obviously in a different artist’s style!)
Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
The three Godzilla Brothers read about Santa Claus. They discuss it a bit and then realize that someone is leaving presents for kid fans of kaiju, ShoGoji must know something. So they go spy and find ShoGoji loading presents into a sleigh!
ShoGoji admits it and invites the brothers to help pack presents and prepare for the journey to give gifts to children. Baragon and Anguirus are also there, dressed up as reindeer with fake felt antlers and big red noses. The Godzillas all dress up in Santa suits with hats and coats.
This is all canon, people. 100% canon. Godzilla is Santa. It is real! How can it be real? May I remind you of The Santa Clause? When Santa dies, the killer becomes the new Santa. Thus, ShoGoji killed Santa, and became the new Santa! Complete with his magic cane!
ShoGoji then starts to tell a story, it’s about the girl way back in the original GEMSTONE contest pilot! The young girl who wanted a pet and found the Kamatte Godzilla left alone in a box, which she then picked up and loved. It turns out her parents didn’t love it as much as her and banned it from the house, so the girl had to keep the poor pet in an abandoned building nearby with a lot of straw and a dog house. She named it Kamachi and would bring it food, but one day it was very cold, and Kamachi DIED!
Yes, Kamachi is dead! They killed Kamachi! They killed a child’s pet! Losing a pet you love is traumatic, and here it is, in Godziban form. How many shows do you know that feature a beloved child’s pet die? The kid is obviously upset that her beloved pet is dead. There are shots of the girl crying and holding her dead pet as she walks despondantly through town, while children are at their homes having Christmas fun (and there is a big K on the Christmas tree because they are worshippers of Kaiju, not Christ!)
The dichotomy is amazing! Also amazing is there is this entire kaiju-worshipping background religion happening that is just flavor to the story and not the actual story! This is great world-building, of course children growing up in a world with real monsters would love monsters more than usual. Monster rule!
The sleigh rushes to Earth as the child collapses crying in the middle of some sort of walkway late at night. The images of Godzilla-kun, Minya, Little, and ShoGoji dressed in Santa costumes appear before her. They all bow and she thinks she’s freaking out and seeing things. Godzilla-kun introduces everyone, and then ShoGoji uses his magic cane to zap Kamachi’s body. It is brought over to the kaiju and revived and grown bigger!
Kamachi is back alive! The kid can hug Kamachi again! At least for now, Kamachi has to go live with the kaiju. The Godzilla give the kid a gift before they depart.
Next we get a montage of the kaiju appearing in random bedrooms of kids who are kaiju fans and gifting them presents. Even Hedoji and Hedochi get in on the gift giving action! And are dressed as Santa! This is canon, btw. The Smog Monster gives gifts to children. After the monsters have handed out all of their gifts, they wish everyone a Merry Christmas! So you better have had a Merry Kaiju Christmas in 2019! Or whatever holiday you celebrate.
At the end we see the kid and her gift, a Kamachi keychain! Kamachi will be with her always.
The final content is a different graphic toon with the Mothra twin fairies and the Mothra larvae also dressed as Santa, and the evil triplet fairy and Battra wearing purple Santa outfits. Grown up Mothra is in the picture as well despite not making an in-puppet appearance yet, but it counts enough to be added to our character list one I get around to making it!
The credits are new as well for the second week in a row, it is the kids from the Christmas story we saw earlier dressed in Christmas costumes all doing the Godzilla-kun dance! Including the young actress who played Kamachi’s owner and was the original doer of the dance for the closing credits. This show is pretty darn fun, and fully embracing the weirdness makes it amazingly memorable.
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, Battra, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, Jet Jaguar, March of Godzilla 2019, Megalon, Minya, Mothra, Rodan
Godziban Episode 19 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#10「GvsG/僕はゴジラくんだ!」【ゴジばん】(Review)
Godziban Episode 19 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#10「GvsG/僕はゴジラくんだ!」【ゴジばん】
aka ゴジばん
December 13, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Part of the title of this Go! Go! Godzilla-kun is called GvsG, so you know what that means! Gorath will fight Gamera!
Wait, I’ve just received word from the Judges that this is not the case. Gamera will not fight Gorath. Refunds will be given to all those who prepurchased tickets minus the unrefundable service fee. The service fee exceeds the cost of the tickets, so you will be charged $33.00 for each refund. Thank you for your patronage!
Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
Little is just strolling along with Gigan appears! Gigan does his usual shtick about wanting to be the best monster of them all. Little is so enamored he grabs onto Gigan’s claw! He asks Gigan an question and flashes his huge sparkly eyes at Gigan, who has to really struggle to strike Little. But he does! Noooo!
Little is not detoured by some physical abuse and quickly returns to grabbing Gigan’s claw. Gigan smacks him again! Noooo!
A beaten up Anguirus and Baragon crawl to where Godzilla-kun and Minya are sleeping. They explain what is going on before they pass out. We see Godzilla-kun’s eyes snap open. Pretty cool shot that also mirrors classic Godzilla shots.
Gigan smacks Little again! I’m no big fan of Little Godzilla, but this is complete overkill. Time for Gigan to Giget smacked! Godzilla-kun arrives! Gigan mispronounces his name, and it looks like Godzilla-kun has promised not to fight.
Gigan smacks Godzilla-kun!
Then Gigan smacks Godzilla-kun again!
Gigan smacks Godzilla-kun a third time!
Gigan declares him pathetic and begins to leave, but Godzilla-kun just has his anger boil over, his plates glow and he blasts fire in the air! This gets Gigan’s attention, just in time for Godzilla-kun to do a spin and tail attack, knocking Gigan across the field and into a mountain (leaving a Gigan-shaped hole in the rock!)
Gigan gets up and charges at Godzilla-kun! But Gigan runs over a hole and falls into the Earth, and a rolling Anguirus rolls over the hole and covers it up! Gigan is now trapped beneath the earth by the two characters he beat up last episode! Revenge is sweet and using your special powers to defeat a bully is even sweeter!
Everyone laughs at Gigan, who rants underground! One day he might pop up again, but for now it’s the power of teamwork!
While it was fun seeing Gigan as a jerk, this was obviously a single story that was stretched out to two episodes. Still, the filler was all perfect Godziban material, so it all turned out fine in the end.
Hedoji
Hedoji and Hedochi are walking by what look like gigantic mossy trees (did they go to Kashyyyk? Endor? Middle Earth?) Hedochi asks a question which causes a bunch of internal strife in Hedoji before he can answer. Hedochi even says more before Hedoji finally answers. Eventually Hedoji reasons out an acceptable answer, but Hedochi easily counters it! Hedoji freaks out so much the visual turns into photo negative!
New closing credits???? New dancers to the Godzilla-kun song! Two actresses in mod style clothing having fun doing the dance! They’ve been on the show before, one was the office woman who had Kamatte Godzilla as a pet (Rino Shimomura), the other was one of the warrior girls who fought over Kamatte Godzilla (Marie Katsura)!
Godziban still having fun, and next episode is a doozy! Until then, March of Godzilla 2019 in 2020 continues!
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, Gigan, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Minya
Godziban Episode 18 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#9「宇宙から来たあいつ」(Review)
Godziban Episode 18 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#9「宇宙から来たあいつ」
aka ゴジばん
December 8, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Don’t you hate it when you are just having a normal day eating baked sweet potatoes and then some jerk comes along and declares he is going to challenge you to a fight? Gigan is that jerk, and he arrives in Godziban land with a mission to prove he is the best around. Unfortunately for everyone, what Gigan wants to be the best at is beating everyone else up!
This episode also has the beginnings of the Christmas graphics that will continue through Episode 20, which is the full Christmas episode that is 100% in style with Godziban in tone while also bringing the Christmas cheer. Until then, just think of Gigan as a precursor to Christmas, like he’s an Elf on the Shelf or something but instead of reporting back you child’s misdeeds to Santa and normalizing a life of surveillance, he’s just a jerk. Just like the Elf on the Shelf!
Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
The Godzilla brothers are practicing roaring, but after some discussion about goals in life, they decide to take a break and roast some sweet potatoes with Godzilla-kun’s atomic breath so they can all enjoy the tasty treat. That’s what’s good in life, roasting food with your own innate super powers and sharing them with your family.
This is all canon, by the way, Godzilla-kun and his brothers eat roasted sweet potatoes that they cook themselves. 100% canon, no takebacks! While they are chowing down a meteor appears in the sky crashing down on Earth/whatever planet this is! But that’s no meteor, it’s a Gigan!
Gigan bangs his claws together to show how tough he is…
Baragon is having fun digging in the dirt (and now speaks with a fancy new voice!) Gigan shows up and introduces himself. Baragon is happy to meet a new kaiju and talks about his digging skills and asks about Gigan’s skills. But Gigan is just interesting in fighting people and claws Baragon! Noooo! Poor Baragon!
Anguirus is busy practicing rolling into a ball back and forth, but now Gigan arrives here with the same set up, introducing himself and preparing to attack. Anguirus introduces himself as well, unaware of the danger, but soon Gigan stabs him where Anguirus doesn’t have armor and lifts him up! Noooo! Poor Anguirus!
The Godzilla brothers have finished their food and Godzilla-kun and Minya promptly fall asleep, leaving only Little awake. Gigan sees Baby Mothra, but talks to himself and thinks Mothra is far too pathetic of a kaiju to even bother fighting. That’s probably a good decision for Gigan, as we’ve seen time and time again in this series, Baby Mothra would have cleaned his clock! Gigan goes to continue looking for a challenge.
To Be Continued…
Gee, who could the challenge be? And how quickly can Godzilla-kun beat this guy up? Luckily there is only two parts to this story, so you just have to wait until the next episode to see all the action! Until then, we got smog monsters roaming the planes and dispensing wise sayings….
Hedoji
Hedoji and Hedochi are just standing around in a foggy wasteland with Hedoji sharing wisdom about Gigan without any prompting from Hedochi. Hedochi still gives a zinger at the end! Hedochi is too smart to not have the last laugh when the format changes.
Another Godziban comes to a close until next time, and March of Godzilla continues to march on through 2020 until we’ve caught up with Godziban!
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, Gigan, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Minya, Mothra
Godziban Episode 17 – 「ミニラの息子」Go!Go!ゴジラくん#8 【ゴジばん】(Review)
Godziban Episode 17 – 「ミニラの息子」Go!Go!ゴジラくん#8 【ゴジばん】
aka ゴジばん
November 29, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
It’s time! The two parter comes to the conclusion after a month of waiting! What will happen to the egg, Minya, the danger, the cliffhanger? It’s a Godziban miracle that I didn’t go insane waiting for the dramatic conclusion to this episode!
Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
It’s Egg part 2: The Eggening! At night…lightning strikes and the three Dorats appear! Yes, the Dorats who become King Ghidorah in the Heisei series have arrived, and they want the egg! As of now the egg is in Minya’s arms as they sleep through the night. The Dorats fly to Minya and use their Dorat magic to make it start floating away! Minya gives chase and manages to grab it, but the Dorats decide they can just float away the egg while Minya is holding it and he will eventually fall off. There is a lot of floating and MInya holding on for dear life (and dear life of the egg), but Minya is a tough son of a gun and holds on to the egg despite their best efforts to shake him off!
Minya refuses to give up, so the Dorats start blasting him with lightning! Poor Minya! He collapses and the Dorats move toward the egg, but the egg is too small for them to all eat so they instead just decide to leave! They fly back to the top of the cliff they appeared on and disappear!
The next morning Minya wakes up, covered in scorch marks, but the egg is still there! He takes it back to the nest, then the egg starts making noise and begins to crack for hatching. It’s baby Rodan! Rodan and Minya watch the sun rise. Godzilla-kun and Little return to check on Minya, and now they can meet the Rodan baby as well!
Hedoji
No more stargazing, back to wandering. This time the wasteland looks more grey than usual, but it might just be a trick of the darker palate they were using. The joke format is the same format as usual. Until…
Suddenly more talking is heard but with a slightly different voice for Hedoji, and Hedochi says “Wow Wow Wow!”
The cast is bigger, the Godzibanning is better, we got ourselves a real show! Plus it proved once again that Minya is the best, Minya will go through hell for his friends and just wants to love despite being the spawn of a giant anger monster. If you don’t like Minya, you are just wrong. Sorry, but it is true!
Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: dorats, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Minya, Rodan
Godziban Episode 15 – 「赤い風船」ジェットジャガーに訊け！#4【ゴジばん】(Review)
Godziban Episode 15 – 「赤い風船」ジェットジャガーに訊け！#4【ゴジばん】
aka ゴジばん
November 15, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban brings us another entry in the canon of Godziban mania. That’s what shows do, bring new episodes week after week! This time we got a brand new fight combination between kaiju that has never been seen before, something Godziban will continue to do as the series adds more characters. Breaking new ground, something Godzilla Island also was able to do thanks to the power of being lower budget thus able to toss in more kaiju!
This week’s episode is in English, but the Three Godzilla Brothers can’t speak English! Thanks to the magic of subtitles we can still understand them, and their declaration that they will now study English in a hurry. Their ABC book has a prominent “G” on the back cover lol They recite the alphabet and get extra excited when they hit G and there is a big graphic and fireworks.
Go! Jet Jaguar – Red Balloon
A red balloon is stuck in a tree, causing a young girl to cry. Until Jet Jaguar arrives!! He grows big and gets her the balloon then flies away. Little and Minya witness the action (this is the two brothers in cartoon drawing form, so they make their cartoon drawing debuts despite being main characters on the show) and want to be cool like Jet Jaguar is.
Before they figure out how to be as cool, Megalon attacks! Yes, Megalon is fighting Little and Minya, this is the first time Minya has ever fought him in any official media that I know of, and Little did have a brief run-in with Megalon back on Godzilla Island, though it was largely getting grabbed by a net.
Little and Minya call for help, and Jet Jaguar arrives! But thanks to him deflating as he flies, he’s tiny again! Jet Jaguar pulls out a bicycle pump, and Little pumps him up big! Super big, so huge Megalon runs for it! Little and Minya ride Jet Jaguar away. We got new team ups in addition to new monster fighting combinations! They continue to fly, but as Jet Jaguar is deflating again as he flies he soon shrinks and they land back to earth. But it’s all good as they congratulate each other. Jet Jaguar refuses to reveal how he grows big because it’s a secret. So keep the fact he is a balloon a secret, despite the fact it was obvious here and was a punchline in the last Jet Jaguar story.
Hedoji
Hedochi asks why there is a clumsy part in people’s minds. Hedoji says people who know themselves know they are clumsy, the ones who don’t are betrayed by their own heart, both are clumsy. Hedochi says “Okie Hedokie!” Take that, Clumsy Smurf!
Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, Jet Jaguar, March of Godzilla 2019, Megalon, Minya
Godziban Episode 14 – 『ゴジラ・フェス2019』ゴジばん生上演ダイジェストムービー【ゴジばん】(Review)
Godziban Episode 14 – 『ゴジラ・フェス2019』ゴジばん生上演ダイジェストムービー【ゴジばん】
aka ゴジばん
November 8, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
There was a Godzilla Fest for the 65th birthday of Godzilla on November 3, 2019 and as part of the celebration there was a Godziban production play. This show is behind the scenes clips and portions of the final production. I can’t tell if it was a new play or if it was using the prior play architecture from the previous puppet shows they did 15-ish years ago.
The play answers one big question…THERE IS An OLD MAN GODZILLA! With a CANE!!!! A cane with a snowglobe or crystal ball on the top of it!!! This is insane and awesome! The old Godzilla is ShoGoji, the first generation Godzilla from the Showa-era 1954 original movie (hence the ShoGoji nickname you may have heard of!)
There is some subplot involving a medal coin/medallion/similar object, I am not exactly sure what was going on with it but it seemed meaningful even though it wasn’t directly involved in the egg drama. The main plot has been partially adapted already for the youtube show (though already modified to where they are different adventures!) but does involve the Big Egg on the side of a sheer cliff that we just saw in the show. This time the egg is clearly a Mothra egg, copying the coloros from the Mothra movies exactly.
The three Godzilla brothers attempt to climb the cliff as we’ve seen, except this time they fail and fall down the cliff in exaggerated play format. Eventually Godzilla-kun gets the idea to just slam his tail into the side of the cliff, which is enough to dislodge the egg so Minya an Little catch it. At this point this seems more disruptive than the skit in the series where they just go to investigate the egg and it falls out of the next via earthquake. I’m glad to that change at least.
The triplet Dorat monsters (that made King Ghidorah in the Heisei-era films!) fly by to be rude and demand the egg for themselves. Godzilla-kun fights them as Little and Minya take the egg to safety. The three Dorats are more than a match for Godzilla-kun, but then ShoGoji appears and drives them away. Not for long, as they then transform into King Ghidorah and return. The King Ghidorah puppet is truly monstrous, huge and dangerous looking. It smashes poor ShoGoji as Little and Minya scream in horror! But all is not lost, for ShoGoji then transforms himself into a gigantic Showa-era Godzilla (and is himself another massive puppet) and gives King Ghidorah a thorough thrashing.
King Ghidorah is beaten, ShoGoji transforms back to normal size and the Godzilla Brothers thank him. The egg hatches and it is the Baby Mothra we all know and love, who proceeds to say “Moshi Mosu!” again and again.
It’s bye-bye time!!!
There is also a tiny clip of Hedoji and Hedochi puppets at the end!
The play was fun as it is cool to see the origins of the show and what potential future puppets could show up. A grandpa level ShoGoji complete with fancy cane who wanders around defeating giant threats while serving as an inspiration to our heroes is a great concept. Thumbnail previews already show the Dorats will be appearing very soon on Godziban and the celebration had displays with other kaiju that should potentially appear later. Basically I need to get around to setting up the cast page, lol!
There is full version of the play someone recorded and put online. It is not a full episode of Godziban but it is related enough that you might find it interesting! It is basically the same except with all the scene transitions and the Hedoji/Hedochi jokes in the beginning of the show. It is a good way to see how the real play was set up (even if the backgrounds are just sheets instead of the more lush backgrounds the plays seemed to have from photos of the time).
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Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: dorats, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, King Ghidorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Minya
