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).
Read more…
Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: dorats, Godziban, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Hedorah, King Ghidorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Minya