Godzilla Island – Story Arc 10

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 10


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Dude, this story arc has Fireman Jet Jaguar! Anytime new Jet Jaguars show up, it is a good time! Jet Jaguar rules, and so does Godzilla Island, as the multiple Jet Jaguars prove. This is the tenth story arc, encompassing Episodes 84-93. For those of you hopping on in the middle, the link to Story Arc 1 is here. For those of you who are continuing readers or don’t care about being in order, please read on! This arc has fake suns, scenes similar to Star Wars, and angry flaming heads. Something for everyone. So sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of some monster guys, who live on a tropic isle, and like to eat French fries. Okay, that’s why I’m not on American Idol, but you should still check out this, Story Arc 10, as March of Godzilla Island continues on TarsTarkas.NET!

G-Guard Commander (Jiro Dan) – G-Guard Commander runs the Godzilla Guard unit on Godzilla Island. He’s all alone except for sassy robot Lucas, so of course he’s bored out of his skull normally. He seems to have been stationed there because it’s a low-priority assignment they could dump someone who can’t work under pressure, because that’s exactly what he is. Luckily Torema shows up to save his pants. I do not know if he has a name but it may be Oji.
Torema (Maimi Okuwa) – A mysterious young girl who shows up one day on Godzilla Island right when the dastardly Xiliens begin to attack. She repels the attack, joins the G-Guard, and begins her fight against Zaguresu the Xilien because Xiliens destroyed her home planet (I think that’s what happened – she may have been from future Earth.) Has psychic powers and her own spaceship called the Panatolute.
Zaguresu (Naoko Aizawa) – Evil Xilien woman who invades Earth using giant monsters and her giant Independence Day/V rip-off spaceship. Enjoys laughing evilly while contemplating the latest diabolical schemes. Follows the Xilien leader Giant Emperor’s orders, because that’s what they do on Planet X. Sheep! Her spaceship is named the Vabaruda.
Lucas (Kenichiro Shimamura) – Annoying robot, Godzilla Island-style! Makes sarcastic remarks, and seems to be even mean at times. An annoying Kenny kid in floating metal sphere form. He must be destroyed! Translates from monster language to Japanese.
Narrator – (Yutaka Aoyama) – He’s not a character but the guy who recaps the previous episode in the beginning of the episode. That means thirty seconds of each three minute episode is Narrator recounting events, padding running time beyond levels I want to think about. He’s a typical Japanese male announcer, amazingly excited and epic about even the most mundane things.
Giant Dark Emperor (???) – Giant flaming head who commands the Xiliens and Planet X. Do not look behind the curtain. The great and powerful Giant Emperor commands you, and can hear your sarcastic backtalk! Still, being a flaming head in space has got to be pretty boring.

Different monster feature in each episode, so we’ll keep track of them in each story arc. The complete Godzilla Island Daikaiju List is located here. We’ll also list any new monster match-ups that weren’t in any film but now exist thanks to this series, such as Kamacuras fighting Megalon or something. The R2 Japanese DVD release is unsubtitled, so most of what is going on will be educated guesses thanks to our limited Japanese speaking ability. But here at TarsTarkas.NET we don’t need no stinking subtitles!
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Godzilla Island – Story Arc 9

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 9


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla Island is underfunded. Despite the fact they have a vast amount of monsters and technology stored there, only one guy and a robot are stationed there. And they are less than effective, which is why Torema can show up out of nowhere and outdo them at every turn. Plus, in this story arc they have to deal with space jellyfish and ghosts! Where is Bill Murray when you need him? If you are just joining the Godzilla Island party, hop on over to the first story arc to get introduced. For those of you who are in this for the long haul, just proceed as normal. And pretend you know who Dogora is, because he gets angry and starts throwing business cards! March of Godzilla Island continues!

G-Guard Commander (Jiro Dan) – G-Guard Commander runs the Godzilla Guard unit on Godzilla Island. He’s all alone except for sassy robot Lucas, so of course he’s bored out of his skull normally. He seems to have been stationed there because it’s a low-priority assignment they could dump someone who can’t work under pressure, because that’s exactly what he is. Luckily Torema shows up to save his pants. I do not know if he has a name but it may be Oji.
Torema (Maimi Okuwa) – A mysterious young girl who shows up one day on Godzilla Island right when the dastardly Xiliens begin to attack. She repels the attack, joins the G-Guard, and begins her fight against Zaguresu the Xilien because Xiliens destroyed her home planet (I think that’s what happened – she may have been from future Earth.) Has psychic powers and her own spaceship called the Panatolute.
Zaguresu (Naoko Aizawa) – Evil Xilien woman who invades Earth using giant monsters and her giant Independence Day/V rip-off spaceship. Enjoys laughing evilly while contemplating the latest diabolical schemes. Follows the Xilien leader Giant Emperor’s orders, because that’s what they do on Planet X. Sheep! Her spaceship is named the Vabaruda.
Lucas (Kenichiro Shimamura) – Annoying robot, Godzilla Island-style! Makes sarcastic remarks, and seems to be even mean at times. An annoying Kenny kid in floating metal sphere form. He must be destroyed! Translates from monster language to Japanese.
Narrator – (Yutaka Aoyama) – He’s not a character but the guy who recaps the previous episode in the beginning of the episode. That means thirty seconds of each three minute episode is Narrator recounting events, padding running time beyond levels I want to think about. He’s a typical Japanese male announcer, amazingly excited and epic about even the most mundane things.
Giant Emperor (???) – Giant flaming head who commands the Xiliens and Planet X. Do not look behind the curtain. The great and powerful Giant Emperor commands you, and can hear your sarcastic backtalk! Still, being a flaming head in space has got to be pretty boring.


Different monster feature in each episode, so we’ll keep track of them in each story arc. The complete Godzilla Island Daikaiju List is located here. We’ll also list any new monster match-ups that weren’t in any film but now exist thanks to this series, such as Baragon fighting Manda or something. The R2 Japanese DVD release is unsubtitled, so most of what is going on will be educated guesses thanks to our limited Japanese speaking ability. But here at TarsTarkas.NET we don’t need no stinking subtitles!
Continue reading

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 7

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 7


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Okay, by now we can ditch the identical openings, because any regular readers are by now familiar with the origins of the show, and any new readers need to get their butts over to March of Godzilla Story Arc 1 to get caught up on why we’re featuring a show that has monster toys waved around in front of the camera. We are a long way from being done, but are making rapid progress. We’re covering episodes 51-63 of the 256 total Godzilla Island episodes, which makes us a little under 25% completed (24.6% for you math geeks.) The plots are getting more involved, newer, badder monsters are arriving each week, and giant flaming head enters the equation! So let’s get to the cast and then get to the show. March of Godzilla Island continues…now!

G-Guard Commander (Jiro Dan) – G-Guard Commander runs the Godzilla Guard unit on Godzilla Island. He’s all alone except for sassy robot Lucas, so of course he’s bored out of his skull normally. He seems to have been stationed there because it’s a low-priority assignment they could dump someone who can’t work under pressure, because that’s exactly what he is. Luckily Torema shows up to save his pants. I do not know if he has a name but it may be Oji.
Torema (Maimi Okuwa) – A mysterious young girl who shows up one day on Godzilla Island right when the dastardly Xiliens begin to attack. She repels the attack, joins the G-Guard, and begins her fight against Zaguresu the Xilien because Xiliens destroyed her home planet (I think that’s what happened – she may have been from future Earth.) Has psychic powers and her own spaceship called the Panatolute.
Zaguresu (Naoko Aizawa) – Evil Xilien woman who invades Earth using giant monsters and her giant Independence Day/V rip-off spaceship. Enjoys laughing evilly while contemplating the latest diabolical schemes. Follows the Xilien leader Giant Emperor’s orders, because that’s what they do on Planet X. Sheep! Her spaceship is named the Vabaruda.
Lucas (Kenichiro Shimamura) – Annoying robot, Godzilla Island-style! Makes sarcastic remarks, and seems to be even mean at times. An annoying Kenny kid in floating metal sphere form. He must be destroyed! Translates from monster language to Japanese.
Narrator – (Yutaka Aoyama) – He’s not a character but the guy who recaps the previous episode in the beginning of the episode. That means thirty seconds of each three minute episode is Narrator recounting events, padding running time beyond levels I want to think about. He’s a typical Japanese male announcer, amazingly excited and epic about even the most mundane things.
Giant Emperor (???) – Giant flaming head who commands the Xiliens and Planet X. Do not look behind the curtain. The great and powerful Giant Emperor commands you, and can hear your sarcastic backtalk! Still, being a flaming head in space has got to be pretty boring.



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Godzilla Island – Story Arc 5

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 5


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

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Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2


1997

Directed by Shun Mizutani

Godzilla has several TV shows throughout his history. In this year’s March of Godzilla, we will be cataloging one such show, Godzilla Island. Godzilla Island was a series of three minute episodes that ran from October 6, 1997, until September 30, 1998. 256 episodes were created, using a combination of toys and stock footage to bring the characters to life. Throw in some characters acting in front of a blue screen and a basketball-shaped annoying robot, and you got Godzilla Island in a nutshell. One advantage to the toymation approach of monster effects is it allows the appearance of all sorts of kaiju from all over G-history. Multiple Jet Jaguars! All sorts of one-shot characters pop up over the course of the series. But as this was created around 1997, no one from the Millennium series of films is present.

Set in the year 2097, where most kaiju live on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Godzilla Island. I guess, I’m not sure if they give it an actual name, since they speak this Japanese language all the time. Anyway, Godzilla Island soon becomes a center of activity for alien invasions left and right. Aliens being the evil Xilien aliens, as seen in Godzilla vs. Monster Zero. The one individual seen even dresses like them, although she doesn’t follow the contention that all females of the species look identical to Kumi Mizuno. Godzilla Island is governed by the Godzilla-Guard, aka G-Guard, which is staffed by one guy and a robot. The G-Guard Commander is less than capable in dealing with invading monsters and aliens, but luckily he is joined by mysterious young girl Torema, who has a powerful space ship and psychic powers.

According to the credits, the series was directed by Shun Mizutani and written by Takahiko Masuda. With music by The Edge. I guess U2’s The Edge, unless there is another The Edge running around, in which case I must bang my head on the desk. We’ll run through the episodes in order broken up by story arcs. Some stories are only a few episodes long, and some last close to twenty. Each episode ends with “tsuzuku” which basically means “to be continued.” So tsuzuku will be our catchphrase of the series. If you missed this paragraph you’ll probably be very confused, as we will probably type tsuzuku more than Godzilla in these articles.

The action is brought to life with toys. It is toymation at it’s finest, almost a decade before Robot Chicken. This allows for lots of monsters to be in lots of shows, lots of monster fights that we would never see otherwise, and lots of new versions of monsters. Plus the fact they had a deal with Bandai Toys to produce lots of exclusive toys for the show didn’t hurt. Come to think of it this is more of a blatant commercial for toys than the He-Man cartoon! But first let’s meet the human actors who will be appearing in most of the episodes:

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