Best Effects of Koichi Kawakita Career

[rytheman]

I know we give a lot of guy flak for his sparks, and the beam wars, but the guy has been able to pull off some pretty impressive scenes. The one that sticks out for is the destruction of the damn in Rebirth of Mothra.

[HoboBob]

His stuff from Godzilla vs Biollante was great.

[RogueShuffler]

His stuff from Godzilla vs Biollante was great.

I second that

[Irys X]

Personally thought the effects from Godzilla vs Destroyah were amazing too. Especially considering the quantity of them.

[Gojira-Fan]

Godzilla vs. Biollante has some of the best effects in the Godzilla series.

So Godzilla vs. Biollante. Haven't really watched any other Heisei Godzilla film other than Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, and that wasn't really impressive.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

Definitely Biollante . The only other one of his movie that comes close for me is MechaGodzilla '93.

[shinmattiathekaiju]

Inb4 Arrow,Legion1979,NSZ and Ethan comes to savage this topic:

Biollante,MechaGodzilla 93 and Destroyah.

[Legion1979]

Inb4 Arrow,Legion1979 comes to savage this topic:

Shut up.

I'm going to say Biollante, because there aren't any outright poor effects that leave you wondering wtf they were thinking by leaving them in. I can't praise Destroyah too much, since it has some of the absolute worst effects in the Heisei series. Really, there's a shitty effect for every really good one.

[Goji]

SAYONARA JUPITER and GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE. Hands down.

[Ethan]

Kawakita's best effects outside Godzilla vs. Biollante are:

• The head prop from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
• The underwater battle from Godzilla vs. Mothra
• Godzilla's Mt. Fuji entrance from that same film.
• Godzilla's revival from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
• Godzilla's death scene in Godzilla vs. Destroyer

Also keep in mind I have yet to see his non-kaiju work.

[Tyler]

Sayonara Jupiter, Gunhed and Godzilla vs. Biollante definitely has his best stuff. After that he got kind of... lazy.

[TokyoVigilante]

Godzilla vs. Biollante not only has incredible special effects, it also the fantastic compositions, cinematography and attention to detail that still makes Tsuburaya's work so strong today. It's this aspect that would gradually degrade throughout the Heisei series and make his well detailed props look less and less impressive. Not necessarily the actual quality of the effect.

I'm going to give props to Death Ghidorah as well for being an incredible looking creation that's just as good as Biollante, IMO.

[Godzilla 1995]

Kawakita definitely started out creating some magnificient special effects. But afterwards he became lazy. The Asteriod scene in Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla for one example, and the Bandai toys in Godzilla vs Destroyah as another. Overall, he could do well when he tried. But sometimes he just plain sucked.

[TokyoVigilante]

^
As I've come to understand it, Yamato Takeru took priority over Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla so it got the short end of the stick in regards to budget, time, and personnel. Which kinda' makes it a little bit less shameful as long as you don't think about Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.

[Dr. Nishiyama]

Sayonara Jupiter, Gunhed, Godzilla VS Biollante and Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla 2, IMO, are his best work. I haven't seen any of the war films he did the FX for in the late 70s\early 80s, but I imagine they're quite good. I still wish he got canned after Gunhed and Biollante underperformed. While I enjoy Godzilla VS King Ghidorah, I consider it to have the worst effects in the entire series. A lot of his work is clunky, lacking heart, personality, creativity. If he kept trying new things the way Tsuburaya did, the 90s films would be more visually interesting. I also think the flack for the subpar work on Yamato Takeru while working on Spacegodzilla the same year is totally valid. Tsubuaraya made four FX films in 1964 (MvsG, Ghidorah, Whirlwind and Dogora) and they all looked amazing.

[Giga Kaiju]

Godzilla Vs Biollante : Every Effect Of This Movie Amazes me.

Godzilla Vs Destoroyah : Burning Godzilla...Wow.

Sayonara Jupiter : I Havent seen it but from the Stills and Pictures i can say that they look impressive.

[Ethan]

Inb4 Arrow,Legion1979,NSZ and Ethan comes to savage this topic:

Biollante,MechaGodzilla 93 and Destroyah.

Godzilla's Revenge has better special effects than anything by Kawakita.

[Legion1979]

Inb4 Arrow,Legion1979,NSZ and Ethan comes to savage this topic:

Biollante,MechaGodzilla 93 and Destroyah.

Godzilla's Revenge has better special effects than anything by Kawakita.

Oh now you've started something.

[Ethan]

What I found appaling was how he added me to a list of people that "comes to savage this topic" when I was able to list Kawakita effects I found genuinely impressive.

[Svitska Donkun]

Either Destoroyah or Biollante.

The Space scenes in SG were pretty bad, but I think the worst effects go to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 2, honestly.
I completely FAIL to understand why EVERYTHING explodes DIRECTLY underneath Rodan WHEREVER he flies. Even water! What's combustible in water? What is igniting? Something MUST be as you can SEE the explosions occur underneath the water.

Its not even that the effects look bad its just that they don;t make any kind of sense, even within the context of the film's universe! Didn't that raise ANY of production crews' eyebrows?

Kawakita also doesn't understand that organic matter does not conduct massive amounts of sparks.