Do you want Search?
Random Post
Random Post
Search
  • Home
  • Tag Archives:  Baragon
Search
Godziban
InMovie Reviews

Godziban Episode 21 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#12「飛べ!未来へ向かって」(Review)

January 19, 2020By

March of Godzilla 2019

Godziban Episode 21 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#12「飛べ!未来へ向かって」

aka ゴジばん
Godziban title English
December 31, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban
King Ghidorah makes his grand entry into the Godziban story line proper and causes a whole heap of trouble! Keep in mind King Ghidorah’s puppet has been seen in the stage play that was put on in the special event episode, but that is not entirely canon to the current story line even though it could easily fit in before the actual show as where Mothra came from. So maybe it is canon. It’s canon! If Santa Kaiju can be canon, this is canon. Canon!

Not only do we got King Ghidorah, but there are some other new faces in this episode, which turned out to be the final Godziban episode. Of the season? Of all time? We will wait to see. Until then, it looks like March of Godzilla 2019 in 2020 has come to an end. But don’t fret, because March of Godzilla 2020 will be starting up soon enough! Godzilla marching will never die as long as they keep producing more and more Godzilla stuff to keep marching on!

Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
Minya is still taking care of Baby Rodan, giving him food and trying to get him strong. He’s basically doing for Rodan what Godzilla-kun was doing for him in earlier episodes. Godzilla-kun and Little stop by (Little tossing a folded leaf around like a paper airplane) to check on the pair. Little asks about flying, and Godzilla-kun thinks about flying using his atomic breath to power it (like in Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster) and then laughs as he dismisses the concept!

But the message is clear…Minya must teach Rodan how to fly. Even though Minya can’t fly! So expect a lot of puppets falling to Earth!

Next we see Minya and Rodan at the top of a big cliff. Minya demonstrates flying by launching the paper/leaf airplane off the cliff into the sky. Rodan tries to fly…and hovers for about a second before dropping like a rock. Minya runs down to go get him and carries Rodan all the way back up the mountain. Minya is a pretty good dad, but he should be, as he had a pretty good dad himself. That’s been consistently one of Godzilla’s best traits.

Rodan tries again, fails again, and Minya hauls him back up the cliff again. Rodan is apprehensive about trying again. Minya is trying to encourage him when suddenly they hear the cries of “Dorat dorat dorat dorat dorat!” Yes, the Dorats are back, who you may remember tried to eat Baby Rodan’s egg last time we saw them.
Godziban
The Dorats are still jerks, and are back to eat Rodan now that h’es big enough to make a full meal for the trio. They try to float the Baby Rodan away, but Minya grabs him. So they start blasting Minya with electricity! Again and again until eventually Minya is scorched and collapses. Rodan begins to panic and desperately tries to wake him. The drama going on here!

Then the fear becomes blinding white hot rage as Rodan takes flight and smashes through the villains, knocking them around as he swoops and soars among their ranks, causing them to all crash into the ground. Minya is back awake with Rodan returns, and they are both happy at the victory and Rodan’s new flying ability.

The Dorats aren’t going to go away that easily. They get mad and decide to get even, thus they merge into King Ghidorah! It’s a truly massive King Ghidorah, larger than all the other puppets on the show combined! King Ghidorah floats in the sky as Minya and Rodan shake in fear, then King Ghidorah blasts them with the electric breath rays. Good ol’ Minya still protects Rodan despite now being blasted with even more powerful blasts than before. The two are helpless…until Godzilla-kun is there!
Godziban
Godzilla-kun charges…despite King Ghidorah being 20 times his size! He is not detoured by being blasted, Godzilla-kun jumps and grabs onto the neck of King Ghidorah’s central head! He tries chocking and scratching it, but the other two heads clamp on to Godzilla-kun’s head and tail and tosses him into a cliffside.

Godzilla-kun gets up, still determined to fight even though it is fruitless and he’s going to die. But behind him…Minya and Rodan got every other kaiju in town with them! Little, Baby Mothra, Anguirus, Baragon, even Gorosaurus, Manda, Kumonga, and Varan who we’ve not even seen before on this program. Somehow Minya and Rodan got new characters to join the show in order to help their friend. That’s some pretty effecient help! This is amazing!!! It’s Godziban: Endgame! Or Destroy All Monsters, yes yes, but that means I can’t make my jokes!

They all charge at King Ghidorah….and then it ends.

Godzilla-kun talks directly to the camera to thank everyone for watching the show. We are either taking a series break or this is the end of the line, but we go out on something amazing and this show rules so hard I hope it continues. Either way it is an amazing journey.
Godziban
We end with the full version of the theme song playing to some of the highlights of the season while drawings by Onigiri and シウ*単行本発売中 flank the action.

Here’s hoping there is more Godziban in our future, whenever that may be! Until then, March of Godzilla 2019 in 2020 concludes, but keep on marching, people! Okay, I lied, there will be one more March of Godzilla 2019 in 2020 article, because I’m going to make a character guide for the show, but as that is a guide and not an article we gotta say goodbye here! (and there might be a few movie reviews in between depending on how lazy I am in posting the backlog of completed reviews!)

Godziban
InMovie Reviews

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)

January 10, 2020By

March of Godzilla 2019

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
Godziban title English
December 24, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban
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.
Godziban
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!
Godziban
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.
Godziban
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.

Godziban
InMovie Reviews

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)

January 8, 2020By

March of Godzilla 2019

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
Godziban title English
December 13, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban
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!
Godziban
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!
Godziban
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!
Godziban
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!

Godziban yams
InMovie Reviews

Godziban Episode 18 – Go!Go!ゴジラくん#9「宇宙から来たあいつ」(Review)

January 6, 2020By

March of Godzilla 2019

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
Godziban title English
December 8, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban yams
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!
Godziban
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….
Godziban
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!

Godziban ゴジばん
InMovie Reviews

Godziban Episode 07 – “Run! Three Brothers’ Chapter” Go! Go! Godzilla-kun # 5 (Review)

December 11, 2019By

March of Godzilla 2019

Godziban Episode 07 – “Run! Three Brothers’ Chapter” Go! Go! Godzilla-kun # 5

aka ゴジばん
Godziban ゴジばん
September 20, 2019
Written and directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Godziban ゴジばん
With the seventh episode of Godziban we are forced to ask the big question. Where is Gabara? Certainly he has to show up soon to bully Minya so the Godzilla brothers can train him to beat him up, right? I know the puppet exists, there are photos of him from the original stage show! Maybe after the monster training storyline concludes. (Future Tars here: Nope, we have a different story yet and several new characters, but no Gabara yet!) Until then, we got more Go! Go! Godzilla-kun! There is a new kaiju who shows up this week, so maybe the cast will continue to expand like a star reaching the end of its life cycle! Wait, maybe I should find a better analogy than that. No time, gotta hit post!

Go! Go! Godzilla-kun
Godzilla-kun is training the boys how to run like real monsters. Suddenly Anguirus and Baragon pop up and want to join in on the running fun. Yes, Baragon is here now! Hooray for Baragon, everyone loves him!
In puppet form! Also even Baby Mothra comes by, it’s a regular Monster Island reunion going on here!
Godziban ゴジばん
Godzilla and Anguirus race first. Baragon and Little also race, Baragon is much faster and jumps ahead. Minya and Baby Mothra then get ready to race, and just like last time in the GEMSTONE pilot, Baby Mothra makes Minya eat her dust by blasting away so fast. Godzilla-kun and Anguirus converse via speech bubbles agian, this time animated instead of on signs. Baby Mothra passes by Little and Baragon (Little has regained much of the lost distance) and then Godzilla-kun and Anguirus, each time making everyone she passes spin around out of control by how fast she is passing them. Baby Mothra then turns and heads back to the start, passing everyone again. The others make it back to the starting line, Little hitching a ride on Baragon’s back. Everyone then faints as Minya says a joke

Now it is time for the big race between all monsters, everyone will race at the same time, reach a far away flag, and then return. Per usual, Baby Mothra shoots off super fast and returns before anyone knows what is going on. I also enjoy thejoke that Minya keeps getting knocked down by her speed and just lies there at the starting line until Mothra returns. Mothra has Minya ride on her back as she races out again, passing by the other 4 and making them eat her dust. Minya and Mothra win, Minya having learned the valuable lesson to have fast friends. Community and solidarity is the key to be a good monster.

Hedoji
We are again on the wasteland, but this time the clouds give the setting sun (or moon??? who knows!) an otherworldly look. Perhaps they have wandered so far on Earth they ended up on another desolate planet. Perhaps they are on the Planet of the Apes and may pass by a Statue of Liberty buried in the sand. Or maybe they are in the near future and Mad Max and his friends will soon drive by in cars. We may never know, but we do know that this stinger keeps the same format as the usual Hedoji episodes.
Godziban ゴジばん

Godziban GEMSTONE ゴジばん
InMovie Reviews

Godziban – ゴジばん【GEMSTONE ゴジラ 応募作品】 (Review)

November 25, 2019By

March of Godzilla 2019

Godziban

aka ゴジばん aka Gojiban aka ゴジばん【GEMSTONE ゴジラ 応募作品】
Godziban GEMSTONE ゴジばん
March 20, 2019
Written by Hideyuki Kobayashi
Directed by Hideyuki Kobayashi and Jun Shimazaki
Godziban GEMSTONE ゴジばん
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, 2004 in Tokyo to be precise, there was a Godzilla puppet show called Gekigoji. It was officially licensed by Toho and performed by the Koganemushi Theatrical Company. Koganemushi has produced a bunch of puppet shows featuring a variety of cute monsters and also some Ultraman shows such as this one. The Godzilla show was around 30 minutes long (according to fan lore online) and featured a variety of puppets including Godzilla, Minya, Little Godzilla, a huge King Ghidorah puppet, Gorosaurus, Mothra, Anguirus, Baragon, and Gabara. There does not appear to be an official recording of the play but pictures from the event have shows up online (largely from Koganemushi’s own website, and helped spread to the English speaking side by Monster Island Buddies)
Godziban GEMSTONE ゴジばん
That seemed to be the end of it until 2019 called. One of the Koganemushi people who goes on twitter as g_zanika announced he is bringing the puppets out of retirement to make a 10 minute long film for a contest. The GEMSTONE contest picked the short as the winner, and before you can say “Godzilla” they had announced there would be a new biweekly series featuring the puppets called Godziban (that’s the official English name, before that we called it Gojiban) appearing exclusively online. The series is a bunch of skits, the main one involves Godzilla-kun teaching his two brothers Little and Minya how to be great monsters. There is also a Kamatte Godzilla, where the Kamatte Godzilla from Shin Godzilla appears to women in need. A long-running short gag sequence is Hedojii, which has old man Hedoji (Hedorah as a wizened scribe) and his grandson Hedochi wandering through barren wastelands. Hedochi will ask a question which causes Hedoji to give a long answer explaining the way of things. Then it all ends on Hedochi making a joke. Go! Jet Jaguar is an animated segment where Jet Jaguar answers questions and has adventures. Moshi Mosu features two baby Mothra as they speak to each other through two cups connected by a string. These segments all have precursors in the original 10 minute video, but I am unaware if any of the material comes from the prior stage show. Gojiban has started providing English versions with their latest videos and often incorporates fan comments into the segments. there is even a comic strip version now called Godziman (Gojiman)! It is great having a new, ongoing Godzilla media project that will eventually bring all sorts of new, weird, and wonderful monster canon into the world of Godzilla.
Godziban GEMSTONE ゴジばん Kamatte Gojira
So let’s get started, first up is the original GEMSTONE contest video!

Older 
12345