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InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 7

April 24, 2008By

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.


Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 5
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 5

April 19, 2008By

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 4
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 4

April 15, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 4


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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Island Story Arc 2
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 2

April 7, 2008By

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:

Godzilla island story arc 1
InBad, Movie Reviews

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1

April 5, 2008By

Godzilla Island – Story Arc 1


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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Godzilla Mothra King Ghidorah
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (Review)

March 26, 2007By

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

aka Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaiju sokogeki

2001

Starring
Chiharu Niyama as Yuri Tachibana
Ryudo Uzaki as Admiral Taizo Tachibana
Masahiro Kobayashi as Teruaki Takeda
Shiro Sano as Haruki Kadokura
Eisei Amamoto (Hideyo Amamoto) as Professor Hirotoshi Isayama the Prophet
Mizuho Yoshida as Godzilla/Gojira
Akira Ohashi as King Ghidorah
Rie Ota as Baragon
Directed by Shusuke Kaneko

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack aka GMK aka Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Gidora: Daikaiju sokogeki aka Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: The Giant Monsters’ General Offensive (the literal title) has a reputation of being one of the better entries in the series. This couldn’t be further from the truth. GMK is one of the worst entries, in my opinion THE worst film of the whole series. Biollante? Megalon? The Smog Monster? They are three Citizen Kanes compared to GMK. Director Shusuke Kaneko became famous for making the highly regarded modern Gamera films, and was given a chance to make a Godzilla film. His original concept would have been far superior, but Toho screwed around with his monster choices, and that combined with stylistic touches I don’t really care for ended up melting into a nasty soup of disflavor. We shall go over some of the origins of the film before we get to the story, and deal with the problems in their appropriate areas.

Godzilla X Varan, Baragon and Anguilus: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack would have been a neat film. It would have eliminated one of my major criticisms of this film, the complete role reversals of several established monsters. It also would have provided a reappearance of Varan after many years (last seen briefly as a ratty costume in Destroy All Monsters), Anguirus returning (who hadn’t been seen since Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla), and Baragon (who made it into the final film.) Varan was actually director Shusuke Kaneko’s favorite monster, but he ended up keeping Baragon in the final product, and changing Ghidorah’s face to resemble the old Varan costume. Also, rumor is the Gotengo from Atragon would have also appeared (it ended up reappearing in Godzilla: Final Wars, alongside Anguirus) and lots of maser tanks (the tanks with the satellite dishes that shoot lasers.) But as Varan and Baragon were not box office bankable, something Toho was more worried about after the failures of Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus; and after Kaneko’s own friends had no idea who Anguirus and Varan were (I don’t know if they knew who Baragon was) he decided to drop them in favor of the pushed by the studio King Ghidrah and Mothra. This provided a small wrinkle storywise. Okay, a huge wrinkle. The plot of the film is about Godzilla attacking, being the souls of the dead from World War 2 out for revenge. Japan would then be defended by three guardian creatures, which were weaker than Godzilla but teamed up their power. Since Mothra and King Ghidrah can both hold their own against Big G, they had to modify them a bit to make them smaller and weaker looking. Also, that meant Ghidrah was a hero for the first time ever, something I do NOT agree with. The monsters end up not being much of team players, with only Mothra doing things to help anyone else.

So now Godzilla, instead of being treated like a force of nature, is now a malevolent force of destruction. He doesn’t even have pupils anymore, to give him a more sinister look. I kind of find that annoying, but it fits in with the intended storyline, so I let it go. He also has a hunched back and pot belly, which is a tad harder to let go. Hit the gym, Big G! As a film in the Millennium series, it is free to rewrite continuity however it sees fit. Still, some things shouldn’t change, like character allegiances. The success of the film prompted Toho to continue making a few more G films, so some good came out of it. Just because I like it the least doesn’t mean I won’t watch it, but when given a choice between chocolate and chocolate with peanut butter, you take the C&PB every time. Plus, I lied earlier, this cannot be the worst Godzilla film, as thanks to this and Godzilla Final Wars, the American Godzilla is now part of the canon, making it the worst film. Hopefully some enterprising young student makes their own fan film of Godzilla X Varan, Baragon and Anguilus: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, with which we can live on vicariously until Toho decides to start pumping out more Big G films again.

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