Another publication from Kodansha on Toho Tokusatsu, actually referred to that way in English. This book, or goofily named mook (magazine-like book), is billed as "volume 0" and acts as a precursor to a large volume of books that Kodansha plans to publish. I'll get to those plans at the end of the review, but first let's cover what this book is about.
Now as mentioned this is a precursor. What that means is that it works as a quick overview of Toho Tokusatsu in terms of the movies and TV shows. Don't expect much depth here. Each film, except the first Godzilla, is given a half page section. These sections include the title, a paragraph about the film and a big picture. Small pictures will flank this to highlight particular monsters or mechs, which will often have a paragraph of their own. This might not make it clear, but the book is very graphical which makes it import friendly. However, the pictures themselves, while often great, are way too small to fully enjoy for all the monsters.
As for the paragraphs, the movie related ones are generally pretty bland. I was sometimes surprised by the details they would highlight for the monsters, though. Like mentioning that Anguirus has multiple brains or bringing up that Mothra Leo absorbed 10,000 years worth of knowledge from the Earth while cocooning near the Yakusugi tree… although what the hell does that even mean?
While the book is often factual in its approach, it's not always objective. For example, it refers to Matango (1963) as a masterpiece while later also noting it's very popular amongst fans. It does a similar thing with House (1977), not calling it a masterpiece but noting how popular it is with fans. In addition, it also praises the Bloodthirsty films as being well regarded due to the acting, saying in particular due to Shin Kishida's performance. Now I'm not saying I disagree, but the uncredited author or authors are still injecting a bit of their opinion on these films.
Anyway, the strength of this book is how much it covers. In fact, what got me to buy it was that it actually includes Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974), which was so rarely mentioned in books from the mid-1990's until recently. Unfortunately, the pictures for it are all black and white, as they are for a lot of the non-monster films like ESPY (1974) and Magnitude 7.9 (1980). Speaking of obscure, the book also covers a wealth of TV shows, each of these given a full page spread. Zone Fighter (1973), Go! Godman (1972), The Gransazers (2003) and more are all here.
Although it doesn't go into much depth, it's exhaustive enough on the selections that it's almost worth talking about the exclusions more than the inclusions. A big one is the TV show Megaloman (1979), considering how many shows are covered. The other thing to note is that it totally ignores anything past 1980 that doesn't feature a giant monster. So you have some 1980's productions missing like Princess from the Moon (1987), Gunhed (1989) along with stuff like the Haunted School series in the 1990's.
Overall, I liked this book. It had some interesting, in-universe facts on the monsters that I wasn't expecting while I really enjoyed the obscure projects that got highlighted. I do wish the monster images weren't so small, though. While it's import friendly, it feels like a lot of books do a better job at presenting big images these days.
Okay review done. So finally, as mentioned, this publication is kicking off a large collection of books Kodansha plans to publish in the "Gojira & Toho Tokusatsu Official Mook" series. In fact, they even created a video to promote the series and a website. As kind of a shocker, Kodansha is very forthcoming on what they are planning. In total the series will be 40 books, or 41 if we count this "volume 0". Each subsequent book will dive more into a particular film or show, or sometimes a book will cover two to three. What's cool is that these were decided by allowing fans to vote, via a questionnaire at the end of this book that has to be mailed in. As of the time of this review, voting has already concluded and in fact the first chapter on Godzilla (1954) is out as of March 2023. Anyway, the 40 volumes will cover the following, and it's exciting as there are some obscure picks here:
- Godzilla (1954)
- Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)
- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)
- Love Warrior Rainbowman (1972)
- Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
- Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)
- Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
- The Gransazers (2003)
- Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) / Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995)
- Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) / Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
- Destroy All Monsters (1968)
- Computer Police Cybercop (1988)
- The War of the Gargantuas (1966)
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)
- Zone Fighter (1973)
- Rodan (1956) / Varan (1958)
- Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
- Gorath (1962) / Dogora (1964)
- Super Fleet Sazer-X (2005)
- Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) / Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)
- Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965)
- The Mysterians (1957) / Atragon (1963)
- Godzilla Raids Again (1955) / The Return of Godzilla (1984)
- Diamond Eye (1973) / Kure Kure Takora (1973)
- The War in Space (1977) / Battle in Outer Space (1959)
- Mothra (1961)
- Human Vapour (1960) / Matango (1963)
- The Justirisers (2004)
- Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965)
- Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999) / Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)
- Submersion of Japan (1973) / Submersion of Japan: Television Series (1974)
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) / Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
- Flying Saucer War: Bankid (1976) / Guyferd (1996)
- King Kong Escapes (1967)
- The H-Man (1958) / The Secret of the Telegian (1960)
- Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) / Son of Godzilla (1967)
- Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) / Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
- All Monsters Attack (1969) / Space Amoeba (1970)
- Go! Godman (1972) / Go! Greenman (1973) / Go! Kotaro Ushiwaka (1974)
While Kodansha notes plans can change, this selection is exciting. While boo on fans for not voting for Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974), as some high quality images from that would have been very welcome, it's amazing what obscure picks did make it. In particular, there seems to be a lot of interest in the TV shows from Toho, which are often a brief footnote in books focused on Toho as a whole. It's also interesting to see some picks that aren't from this precursor book or listed as voting options, such as Submersion of Japan: Television Series (1974) and Kure Kure Takora (1973). Also kudos to Kodansha for grouping some of the Godzilla films together, as the amount of photos and coverage on them in books is well established compared to some of the other choices here. |
