Recommended! Godzilland – Learning Hiragana (Review)
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.
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
July 31, 2019 at 11:21 am
Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, Godzilla, King Ghidorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Mothra, Rodan
Godzilland Educational Videos Information and Cast Splash Page
For March of Godzilla 2019, we have scoured the depths of the universe to bring weird Godzilla media to light, thus you must now prepare to learn the basics of Hiragana, counting, and mathematics with a series of four educational videos from Gakken featuring cartoon Godzilla and pals that are part of the Godzilland franchise!
Back in the long time ago, TarsTarkas.NET covered an obscure children’s morning show called Godzilland, which featured a bunch of skits promoting Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2. Outside of that single episode, little was known about the show, even how many episodes there were. Now that it is the far far future, we know a little bit more, even though that is still the only episode of that version of Godzilland available online! Thanks to the power of Godzilland Museum, we now know this was an episode of the SECOND Godzilland series, called 冒険!ゴジランド2 (Adventure! Godzilland 2), and that was probably the first episode of said series. Each show was 15 minutes long and it ran from October 7 to December 30, 1993. The prior Godzilland series was called 冒険!ゴジランド (Adventure! Godzilland), it was made to promote 1992’s Godzilla vs. Mothra, and was another 15 minute long weekly series that ran from October 1 until December 24, 1992. The cast included Sayaka Osawa and Keiko Imamura, who played the twin fairies. There are no known episodes online and the only evidence of the show’s design is an album. While Godzilland Museum believes that Adventure! Godzilland was the origin of many of the chibi kaiju designs that are used in the series we will discuss, the Godzilland concept dates back much earlier, as Godzilland Museum explains:
While the name is better known for the mysterious anime from the middle ‘90s (actually four OVAs), in reality it all started back in the middle ‘80s…
Specifically, the year 1984, when a new Godzilla movie called “The Return of Godzilla” was being released after nine years of hiatus, celebrating the character’s 30th anniversary, and (as it would later turn out) beginning the “Heisei” series of movies.
Naturally there was a lot of merchandise for the occasion, and a fraction of it (but still a lot) went under the name “Comic Saurs Story ゴジランド There Is The Monsters’ Paradise” and featured several classic monsters from previous movies (latter known as the “Showa” series) looking all cartoony and cute while at it.
ゴジランド meaning Godzilland, it’s meant to be the name of the island where these versions of the monsters live in.
Recurring themes were Godzilla eating riceballs; Godzilla playing with his son Minya and three Mothras (one adult and two larvae); and Mechagodzilla, King Ghidorah and Gigan being troublemakers. Surprisingly, Hedorah seems to be female and non-antagonistic. Other monsters include Rodan, Anguirus, Baragon, Ebirah and Moguera.
As we will see in these reviews, many of these concepts are carried over into the four Gakken videos, which makes this pretty much a direct continuation of the Comic Saurs line. Two videos were released in 1994, and two more in 1996. The latter videos feature more monsters and have short live-action wrap-arounds, but the general concepts and themes are the same. Many of the designs are borrowed from the earlier media line, but a few are redone for consistency.
The 1994 episodes are:
Recommended! Godzilland – Learning Hiragana (すすめ!ゴジランド~ひらがな)
Recommended! Godzilland – Learning How To Count (すすめ!ゴジランド~かず1・2・3).
The 1996 episodes are:
Recommended! Godzilland – Learning Addition (すすめ!ゴジランド-ゴジラとあそぼう たしざん)
Recommended! Godzilland – Learning Subtraction (すすめ!ゴジランド ゴジラとあそぼう ひきざん)
The whole Godzilland franchise was seemingly discarded by 1997’s Godzilla Island. There was also a similar line known by several names including Litgodzi Kaizyu Series from Concorde Corp Ltd., which featured “Little Godzilla” and fellow kaiju, which were slightly older and of different designs than Godzilland. These were also mostly 90s films concepts, as Battra, Spacegodzilla, Biollante, and even Desotroyah were present in the merchandise. I do not know of any existing video of this line.
Chibi Godzilla concepts continue to this day, the latest is a series of books, but there are even short videos released from time to time, though the new designs do not match the historic Godzilland concepts.
Enter the Gakken! Gakken is a company that makes educational media for children, and children love giant monsters, so this is a marriage made in heaven. Thus now we got cute Godzilla and pals running around learning basic reading skills or counting while songs and silly graphics play. It’s educational, it’s cheap, it’s weird, it’s Godzilland!
I was planning to cover these anyway this year even before Wakalan Translations translated all of the remaining episodes that didn’t have subtitles right before I started rewatching them to take notes. Check them out as thanks for helping bring content to you, the content consumers!
Monster Roll Call!
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Characters not in the series but with Godzilland-style character models that were used on merchandise, usually in the Cosmic Saurs line:
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Special Bonus: Unofficial Other Godzilland Kaiju! Yes, the artist who designed the kaiju (or at least drew them for a lot of the production art) also drew several other kaiju in the same style, including some monsters from the Gamera franchise! This is some amazing stuff, and we got to thank Monster Island Buddies for finding the magazine Godzilla-Gamera Kaiju (1984) where this appeared! This is probably 100% not official, but is included because it is 【COOL AS HECK 円ン壱】
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Is your favorite monster not here? Don’t worry, the Godzilland Museum has plenty of fan art of other kaiju done in the same style, if you ever want to know what Godzilland King Caesar would look like (done by automaticmollusk) or even a Godzilland version of Rugrat’s Reptar(done by aboringguy64x), the internet has you covered! Or you can just roll your own!
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
July 29, 2019 at 7:42 pm
Categories: Cinema Articles Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, Barugon, Destoroyah, Dogora, Ebirah, Gigan, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Godzilly, Guiron, Gyaos, Hedorah, King Ghidorah, March of Godzilla 2019, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Megalon, Minya, Moguera, Mothra, Rodan
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Review)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
2019
Story by Max Borenstein, Michael Dougherty, & Zach Shields
Screenplay by Michael Dougherty & Zach Shields
Directed by Michael Dougherty
Roaring into theaters is Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the follow up to 2014’s American Godzilla that stays in the same universe but ditches most of the cast. It’s now a few years later, the world knows about monsters, and the Monarch group is besieged by people who want to kill the monsters and people who want to set them all free.
This film is in theaters as I publish this, but it’s the kind of movie that is easy to classify. If you loved the first one, you will love this. If you love giant monsters fighting each other but were disappointed by the lack of monsters in the first one, you’ll probably love this one, as there is lots of monster action. If you want a movie with a good story and don’t care about giant monsters, go see Booksmart or something. Godzilla and other monsters smash stuff up! The humans do questionable things in between being boring! It’s a couple of allegories, some more intentional than others. No reason to get all worked up at the RottenTomatoes score like some people were, this isn’t a movie for everyone, it’s a movie for people who like giant monsters smashing things!
And everything after this paragraph is…..
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!!!!!
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
June 2, 2019 at 8:44 pm
Categories: Movie Reviews Tags: Aisha Hinds, Bradley Whitford, CCH Pounder, Charles Dance, David Strathairn, Godzilla, kaiju, Ken Watanabe, King Ghidorah, Kyle Chandler, Michael Dougherty, Millie Bobby Brown, Mothra, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Rodan, Sally Hawkins, Vera Farmiga, Zhang Ziyi
Terror of Mechagodzilla (Review)
Terror of Mechagodzilla
aka Mekagojira no gyakushu aka メカゴジラの逆襲
1975
Written by Yukiko Takayama
Directed by Ishiro Honda
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Titanosaurus, DirectTV pioneer
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Terror of Mechagodzilla is a direct followup to the previous film, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. It’s also the final film of the Showa era, one of the few films to show direct continuity that would be used more in the Heisei films, and the final Godzilla work of some G-legends, Ishiro Honda and Akihiko Hirata. It also bombed horribly, helping lead to a decade-long absence of Godzilla in film form. Overall, Terror of Mechagodzilla is a mixed bag. The action sequences are some of the most violent and explosive of the older films, but they’re obviously trying to compensate from the lower budget (many scenes suddenly end up in the countryside) and the hectic explosions loose their danger after the 1 millionth giant boom.
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Being a little mermaid sure is boring…
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Ishiro Honda doesn’t sleep on the job, making up for the lower filming budget with some neat visual stylizing. A flashback to Professor Mafune’s descent into madness is shown via sepia-toned photographs while narration explains. Katsura’s lament that Titanosaurus is to be used as a murderous weapon is juxtaposed with other alien-controlled kaiju from prior films played on a quad-screen shot. Godzilla’s first appearance is one of the better introduction scenes in his history.
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The alien command center is in some Trekker guy’s basement?
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While Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla showed a trend towards more serious, Terror of Mechagodzilla straddled the edge of serious and silly. The action sequences were more destructive, but the alien villains were more comic book. The cyborg daughter is played for tragedy, but it is obvious from the beginning that it will end in a downer and we’re just running through the steps until the final act. I am willing to accept that some of the sillier aspects are unintentional, such as the alien helmets or the complete lack of concern for hunting down the aliens by Interpol even after they’ve been spotted multiple times in the same area. But I can’t deny that I feel it is there, and it clouds Terror of Mechagodzilla in a way that the prior film did not have.
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Titanosaurus was tragically hit by a meteor during the filming of this scene…
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メカゴジラの逆襲 (translation: Counterattack of Mechagodzilla) was first released in the US in theaters in 1978 under the title The Terror of Godzilla. The US rights were held by Henry Saperstein, who sold Bob Conn Enterprises the film rights, but also released the movie itself on TV in 1978 as Terror of Mechagodzilla. This cut is credited to UPA Productions of America, and features an additional six minutes of scenes taken from other Godzilla films and narrated to serve as an introduction to Godzilla (this sequence is detailed below), the only think cut was a brief shot of Katsura’s fake breasts during a surgery scene. By the mid-1980s, there was a new cut on tv that featured many of the violent scenes cut down, as well as not having the opening narration. There are some that say this was the theatrical cut, though I don’t know why the theater cut would have removed the violence when that seems more of a tv cut thing to do. That cut was the most widely available for decades, including the original version I saw before I got a tape of the original cut. I have still not seen the restored DVD, hence the screenshots are either from the old VHS tape or the earlier DVD.
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For some reason, the humans won’t take us serious!
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And as March of Godzilla 2012 continues, let’s get us to the Roll Call!
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G is for Godzooky, that’s good enough for me!
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
April 11, 2012 at 2:10 pm
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Akihiko Hirata, Annoying Kenny kid, Godzilla, Goro Mutsumi, Henry G. Saperstein, Ise Mori, Ishiro Honda, Japan, kaiju, Katsuhiko Sasaki, Katsumasa Uchida, Katsumi Nimiamoto, King Ghidorah, Manda, March of Godzilla 2012, Masaaki Daimon, Mechagodzilla, Rodan, Titanosaurus, Tomoe Mari, Tomoko Ai, Toru Ibuki, Toru Kawai, Yukiko Takayama
Destroy All Monsters (Review)
Destroy All Monsters
aka Attack of the Marching Monsters aka Kaiju soshingeki
1968
Directed by Ishiro Honda
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Godzilla before that first morning coffee.
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When I was but a wee lad first learning about the Godzilla experience, catching Super Scary Saturday showings of G-flicks, buying Godzilla films on VHS that weren’t showing up on tv, recording films airing on the local UHF station, I was also reading up on every monster movie related book I could read. My favorites were by a guy named Daniel Cohen*, who wrote such books as Super-Monsters and Science Fiction’s Greatest Monsters, well-read copies of which still lie somewhere in my mom’s attic. There was also another set of books at the library that were neon orange with a book each for Dracula, the Mummy, King Kong, Godzilla, and a few other monsters. The thing was, every library in the area did NOT have the Godzilla book! I was so angry! Imagine 8 year old Tars so mad he purposefully murdered his entire Oregon Trail travel party. Some say I went too far, but they say so only via their gravestone markers…
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Manda and Godzilla set up their slot car racers!
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But is there a point to that rambling first paragraph? Yes! You see, of the Godzilla flicks and lore of Godzilla flicks, knowledge of a movie containing all sorts of Toho monsters was spread. This mythical, magical movie, had like all sorts of monsters, including monsters I had never heard of, beat the tar out of each other and aliens attack. It was Destroy All Monsters. And it never aired on TV anywhere near me. So sad! It also wasn’t at any video store. Destroy All Monsters became a mocking ghost, forever out of reach. Until one day in college suddenly it was on VHS tape. I was like “HELL YEAH!” and bought me some Destroy All Monsters, watched it, loved it, and now don’t know where the tape is because a DVD version was released shortly thereafter. So yeah. And now I have this cool version, which has the AIP dub merged with a widescreen format custom made by some guy on the internet. Because I’m awesome like that.
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Check out this curve, ladies!
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Was Destroy All Monsters worth the 14 years of questing to find? Damn straight it was! Though it isn’t perfect, it is entertaining. It’s got alien invasions, an awesome monster fight finale, Akira Kubo, alien chicks in silver hoodies and capes, 1960s astromen costumes in bright primary colors, attempts to make rocket propulsion scientifically accurate, lasers, and Minya! The only thing missing from this film is Don Frye, but he pops up in another flick years later to make it all right.
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Gah this water’s too cold! Back to the blanket for me!
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I save the whales….for dessert!
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Monster Roll Call!
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Moonbase Mission Control stole it’s color scheme from TarsTarkas.NET!
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
March 18, 2011 at 2:12 am
Categories: Bad, Movie Reviews Tags: Akira Kubo, Anguirus, Baragon, Godzilla, Gorosaurus, Japan, Jun Tazaki, kaiju, Kenichiro Maruyama, King Ghidorah, Kumonga, Kyoko Ai, Manda, Minya, Mothra, Rodan, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Yukiko Kobayashi
Godzilland (Review)
Godzilland
Say kids, what time is it? It’s Godzilland time! YAAAAYYY!!
Wait, what the frak is Godzilland? Godzilland was a morning show for the kiddies that aired in Japan around the time Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 2 came out. Besides that, I know nothing about the show except for this sample episode that will get documented here. There is little to no information about this show anywhere (at least in English) so join TarsTarkas.NET as we sail into uncharted territory! March of Godzilla 4 had to have some crazy surprise, now didn’t it?
The best part of Godzilland is the stylized cartoon kaiju
They are all over the opening sequence, we have larva Mothra, that human who we will see is the host, Mechagodzilla, Anguirus, Rodan, Baragon, Gigan, Godzilla, Moguera, Mechagodzilla, Mothra egg, and more Mechagodzilla
All of those Mechagodzillas probably mean that film either is about to or just came out. The inclusion of Moguera might indicate they already are working on SpaceGodzilla, but might not as SpaceGodzilla is MIA in the opening credits.
King Ghidorah, Mothra as a Moth, and Mecha-King Ghidorah show up in this frame
The top Kanji translate to “bouhan” which means “an exciting adventure” And Godzilland sure is!
Here is our host, I think his first name is supposed to be Russell but I might be wrong.
Russell hangs out with four Japanese chicks who are big Godzilla boosters
They are the Godzilla Chicks (a name I made up for them) and in the beginning Russell asks them questions from a pile of cards.
Interspacing animation time!
Holy Godzilla vs. Bambi, Batman!
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Posted by Tars Tarkas -
March 30, 2009 at 12:07 am
Categories: Movie Reviews, Ugly Tags: Anguirus, Baragon, commercials, Gigan, Godzilla, Godzilla Junior, Japan, King Ghidorah, March of Godzilla 4, Mechagodzilla, Mechani-Kong, Moguera, Mothra, Rodan