Toho Kingdom

Manda is the best integrated in its film of all the "only in the movie because Tanaka wanted to cash in on Godzilla" kaiju. Manda then Mogera then Maguma lagging far behind.

It's been years since I've seen this one. Loaned it to a friend and haven't got it back. One of my personal favorites tho. As @Terasawa said Manda is the best instance of a "Tanaka Kaiju" though I wish he'd had a little more to do. The soundtrack is excellent, my buddy actually turned one of the themes into a beat for me to freestyle to years ago! If you bear in mind the immensely rushed production scheduale the film is very impressive, though I can understand if some parts of the climax are a bit underwhelming for some. The Media Blasters dub is a fucking riot too. "Imma Gohst?!?!"

Just watched it.

Its bad.

Gothicserpent wrote:Just watched it.

Its bad.

You wanna elaborate on that, or is it just because Manda was hardly in it?

It's a bit slow at times but there are some really great scenes that elevate the production.

Wait I mean WTF is this globalist libcuck propaganda??!

MaxRebo320 wrote:

Gothicserpent wrote:Just watched it.

Its bad.

You wanna elaborate on that, or is it just because Manda was hardly in it?

Its slow, there's hardly any focus on Mu, the Atragon itself really doesn't do much, Manda feels like an afterthought, aside from the captain the characters are all forgettable, the climax is weak.

I will say that some of the effects work is great and I like how big the film feels, but that's really it.

Considering the entire movie was made in approximately three months this is one of the best Honda/Tsuburaya/Ifukube films.

Terasawa wrote:Considering the entire movie was made in approximately three months this is one of the best Honda/Tsuburaya/Ifukube films.

Just because it was made quickly and looks very good doesn't mean that it is.

I will give you this, I do feel the movie is bloated with a few too many characters that wind up serving little to no purpose once they arrive on the island. I feel with minor adjustments, you could remove Yu Fujiki (As much as I love his chemistry with Takashima) and Hiroshi Koizumi (Likewise, that's how I feel about his character in Dogora) and have pretty much the same movie.

What's the deal with the 1968 "revised" version of this film? Is it a short version a la the Champion Festival cuts?

Joseph Goodman wrote:What's the deal with the 1968 "revised" version of this film? Is it a short version a la the Champion Festival cuts?

I'm pretty sure it was re-released alongside DAM. VLC on my computer hates Toho Blu-ray discs so I can't confirm the runtime right this second but if I recall it's about 75 minutes, longer than most of the later Matsuri re-edits. It's a bonus feature on the 2009 Toho BD but only as an "HD blowup," which I think just means it's upconverted from a mid-2000s fuzzy SD transfer.

I think Toho edited the original negative for this re-release; every home video release of the film that I'm aware of uses the 1965 Toho logo instead of the early '60s TohoScope logo that was probably attached on its initial release. Also, Japanese Wikipedia mentions something about the original optical subtitles for the Red Satan scene having gone missing, although I think Toho has since found those and re-composited those elements for a more recent HD scan.

Terasawa wrote:I think Toho edited the original negative for this re-release; every home video release of the film that I'm aware of uses the 1965 Toho logo instead of the early '60s TohoScope logo that was probably attached on its initial release. Also, Japanese Wikipedia mentions something about the original optical subtitles for the Red Satan scene having gone missing, although I think Toho has since found those and re-composited those elements for a more recent HD scan.

Thanks for the info; I've seen speculation on Japanese Twitter that this was the case (the negative being cute), but nothing definite, and issues with this film haven't been mentioned in some of the interviews I've read discussing similar issues with other Toho films. What I've seen of the Toho Blu-ray does look kinda dupey in the same way MvsG and Monster Zero look, so that might be why.

This is one of those weird cases where I wanted to see the movie for one reason (Manda's debut film) and ended up enjoying it for completely different reasons. Manda is pretty ineffective in the film and barely registers much of a thought after the sub disposes of him, but man, the movie is actually pretty cool.

The tone and pacing of it feel like an old American style war movie of sorts, but its done with fantasy elements like a sunken city, mythology, and weird Sci-fi tech. It is very unique, and I quite like the idea of an old military man being too wrapped up and obsessed with his work to walk away from the fighting.

Atragon's design has to be one of my most favorite things of all time, just wished it had more screentime in the movie.

I don't watch these things JUST for the kaiju scenes so Manda's role didn't bother me that much although I do kinda wish we saw it come up on land and attack a city, would have made Mu seem all the more aggressive.

The ending with the princess's suicide seemed pretty standard for Toho's old-school sci-fi classics so there's not much I can say about that.

All in all, it's an ok film, check it out if you're a completionist, but it's certainly no Latitude Zero, Dogora, or The Human Vapor, that's for sure.

I’m trying to remember one music piece from the film, but I don’t know what it is. It’s in the opening of the Manda Kaiju Profile by Wikizilla, when the stat card has popped up. Ya’ll have any clue?

Voyager wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:49 pm I’m trying to remember one music piece from the film, but I don’t know what it is. It’s in the opening of the Manda Kaiju Profile by Wikizilla, when the stat card has popped up. Ya’ll have any clue?

Terasawa wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:58 pm

Voyager wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:49 pm I’m trying to remember one music piece from the film, but I don’t know what it is. It’s in the opening of the Manda Kaiju Profile by Wikizilla, when the stat card has popped up. Ya’ll have any clue?

Thanks, I really wanted this nice music.

I would love for them to release this movie on bluray in the US even though I have never seen it!

This movie’s pretty good. The Mu Empire make for some intimidating and entertaining villains (even if their god doesn’t), I quite liked the characters, and the Gotengo itself was pretty dang cool.

I am curious why the movie is called Atragon when the ship is called Gotengo, I know the ship’s sometimes called Atragon like in G:U, but that only confuses me more.

GodzillavsRayquaza wrote: ↑Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:48 pm This movie’s pretty good. The Mu Empire make for some intimidating and entertaining villains (even if their god doesn’t), I quite liked the characters, and the Gotengo itself was pretty dang cool.

I am curious why the movie is called Atragon when the ship is called Gotengo, I know the ship’s sometimes called Atragon like in G:U, but that only confuses me more.

They re-named the Gotengo into Atragon for the US release.