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Book Title
The Large Complete Works of Godzilla
Author(s)
Seiji Yamada
Language
Genre
Japanese
Non-Fiction
Year of Release
Pages
1995
160
Photos
Color
339
Color (339 photos)
Publisher
ISBN
Data House
488718364X
Comments
Seiji Yamada's extensive book covering the numerous posters of Toho's Sci-fi films is an extraordinary resource. Released to commemorate the death of Godzilla, and the closure of the Heisei Godzilla series, the book covers Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) in the beginning with 3 pages dedicated to it, containing 27 color photos, before the book dives into the meat of its contents: the posters.

The Godzilla Large Complete Works has quite a few of the posters to Toho's Sci-fi films, from Godzilla (1954) up to the, then recent, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). Containing mostly Japanese posters, and including the numerous posters dedicated to the re-releasing of the films, the book also has some of the English, International and other foreign posters of these films. The book only covers Toho produced Sci-fi films, with the sole exception of the Daigoro vs. Goliath (1972) poster featured inside. In terms of picture quality, the brightness and contrast on a lot of them is turned down, but the pictures appear sharp and very appealing none the same. Below each poster is a short blurb on the film, in Japanese, along with the date of release, for the Japanese posters, of that particular version. For example, a re-release poster of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) will list 1970 as the date.

What makes the book note worthy compared to other books dedicated to Japanese posters, though, is the sheer size of it. Measuring in at an impressive 11 1/2 inches tall and just under 8 1/2 inches wide, some posters, like the US Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster one, have never looked this good in publication before.

Although there are other books out there with more Japanese posters than the Godzilla Large Complete Works, none can really compare in terms of the size of its presentation. For that reason alone, some might be interested in picking this book up, or for some of the rare Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) pictures shown in the books introduction. On a final note, probably the most intriguing picture in the book is that of the poster for the Lost Project: Nessie.

-Anthony Romero