The 90's was a great time for Godzilla films, and for fans of giant monster films in general. The 90s gave us regular, in-continuity Godzilla films coming almost every year—and even when those films ended with Godzilla’s death, we still got an American Godzilla film and a Japanese reboot before 2000s started. And with all the films, we also got a lot of side projects—video games, animated OAVs, the animated American Godzilla series, and the Godzilla Island tv show—not to mention the Monster Planet of Godzilla amusement park ride/experience. As a lover of manga, I was especially pleased that so many Godzilla manga were released during this time—from the original stories in the Monster King Godzilla ongoing series, to the adaptations of the films (multiple for every film), and the truly weird The Godzilla Comic and The Godzilla Comic Strikes Back. For fans in the West, we are still learning about some of these releases, as many of them are poorly documented online—especially in English. Still, the titles of most major releases have been well-known among die-hard fans for many years. Imagine my surprise then when I discovered Godzilla World on Yahoo Auctions, a collection of yonkoma (four-panel) gag comics featuring the Godzilla cast and created by a host of manga creators, each with often wild and crazy visions of the monster king that would rival some of the weirdest stuff from anywhere else in the official Godzilla world! Currently there is virtually nothing about the manga in the English-speaking Internet.
Checking for the manga in Japanese, you can find the cover, some interior art, and even a blog from Masato Hazawa, who did one of the manga in the book. Hazawa, who blogs regularly about Godzilla collectibles on his G Memories blog, shares a few memories about the experience. He is too embarrassed to actually share any of the art or content, and apparently he had a VERY tight schedule when he drew the comic—after getting feedback from Toho, he writes that he only had one and a half day to finish before the deadline! (Given that he had fifteen four-panel comics to finish, that sounds like a nightmare.)
Godzilla World was part of a series of books called 4Koma Land, all published by Keibunsha. These books were predominantly (almost exclusively by the looks of it) about video games, with titles such as Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, Mario and Wario, and Samurai Spirits (Samurai Shodown in the West). According to one short blog post I found, most of the manga artists that contributed to Godzilla World did not work on much outside of that one publication—including Masato Hazawa. So far as I know, Godzilla World also never received a sequel.
However, for fans who are interested in reading more yonkoma manga featuring Godzilla or Toho characters, you can read other examples in official publications such as Outrageous Flying Godzilla, you can find a couple yonkoma strips in the Kodansha Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla IImanga adaptation tankobon, and “Godzilla-Kun” by Takahiro Yamada in The Godzilla Comic. One last example that I know of is from the Godzilla Manga Collection 1954-1958—the last page of the Shigeru Fujita adaptation of Godzilla Raids Again has a sort of yonkoma comic as well.
This is probably going to be my longest review yet, since I want to blow this one wide open and share what the comic is all about for all the Godzilla fans in the West, so let’s get started.
Note: comic panels that appear are translated by myself. They originally appeared in English in the manga. In addition, panels were modified from their top down format to left to right.
Godzilla and His Happy Friends by Gen Satou
Gen Satou was one of the relatively few firmly established manga artists who contributed to this collection. According to his Wikipedia page, Satou was a manga artist on a variety of properties—the most recognizable for western fans being his work on Mario/Nintendo manga. His animation work seems to be more prolific, and he worked on some pretty well-known cartoons such as The Legend of Arslan and Precure.
I was not a big fan of his work on Godzilla World, which is too bad since Satou contributes not one, not two, but three separate manga. On a second read-through I appreciated them more, but they are still often kind of unfunny. The simple stylized art, rather than looking cute, often looks kind of ugly and misshapen. Biollante especially looks unappealing, and Jet Jaguar is so far off-model that I wasn’t even sure it was him when he first shows up. King Ghidorah is very cute, though, and sometimes Godzilla has an adorable pose or angle as well. The worst part of “Godzilla and His Happy Friends,” though, is that the gags are really unfunny. Most of the jokes are frankly too stupid to be funny at all, though admittedly there were times when I didn’t really understand some references in the humor (such as when KG’s heads pop out of some kind of Chinese box.)
Let’s go over the individual jokes.
In the first comic, called “Godzilla Birthday,” we see Godzilla in a mustache and wearing a white shirt and tie. He is worriedly waiting to hear about his child’s birth. Biollante, as a nurse, appears and states that his child has arrived, and looks like an egg. Godzilla says that if his baby really does roll around like an egg, then he will be really cute. However, when he sees that his child really IS just an egg, he exclaims, “ISN’T THIS JUST AN EGG?” Biollante responds with, “that’s why I said it was cute like an egg…”
The second comic is about a Chinese magic trick, apparently. Jet Jaguar has a magic box with three holes in it. He summons a “yellow snake”, and Ghidorah’s heads pop out of the box. Godzilla hits one of the heads with a mallet, and Jet Jaguar chastises him that this is not whack-a-mole. I asked several tutors about this comic because I was confused about why summoning yellow snakes from a box would be considered a specifically Chinese magic trick. It rather reminded me of a snake charmer tweetling away on a flute and summoning a cobra from a basket. My tutors were not sure about the connection, though it’s interesting how Jet Jaguar uses Japanese with a stereotypical Chinese accent in the comic, using incorrect grammar in a way that Chinese are apparently known for. Specifically, Jet says “suru aru” twice—suru is a “do” verb, “aru” means something like “have” or “is,” and they don’t go together like this grammatically. Jet also says “aiyaa,” which can be a sort of stereotypical Chinese saying.
In “Tomorrow’s weather will be…”, Sanda and Gaira are the weathermen at a TV station, but instead of giving the weather, they fight each other.
Next up, Godzilla is hungry, and he notices what he thinks is a choco cornet and takes a bite, but it turns out to be the larva version of Mothra. (Larva Mothra’s similarity to a choco cornet also showed up in Outrageous Flying Mothra a few years later, for what it’s worth.)
In a continuation from a previous strip, Sanda and Gaira are back. This time Gaira starts predicting rain for tomorrow, but then Sanda jump kicks him, screaming that he hates rain, and they fight.
In “Famous Detective Godzilla” (no relation to the later comic by Hiromitsu Souma), Godzilla is contemplating that somewhere a villain is laughing while puffing on his cigarette. Then, when Godzilla goes to blow smoke, he ends up blasting his nuclear breath and taking out a nearby building.
Sanda and Gaira are back once more as weathermen, but this time Gaira is objecting to the show featuring Sanda’s name first. Sanda speculates that maybe it’s because he is more popular, prompting Gaira to yell that Sanda is a monster, and they fight again.
Famous detective Godzilla has returned in the next strip, with the naked corpse of Hedora floating down a river. When Godzilla shows up to investigate, however, the smell is so bad that he immediately gives up, and the narrator asks if this was therefore the perfect crime.
Detective Godzilla continues in the next strip, this time investigating an incident wherein Frankenstein was hit in the head. Frank tells Godzilla that he thinks it was someone who was envious of his face. Godzilla, then, immediately suspects Gaira and Sanda.
Next up, Gabara and Baragon are enjoying a hot spring. Rodan comes and asks to join, and they say anyone is welcome, which prompts Hedorah to show up and try to jump in, to which they loudly protest.
In “Organizers Have It Rough?!”, Jet Jaguar is an organizer for an event, and the monsters want to eat. Jet Jaguar has to admit that, due to a slip-up, the ingredients for the hot pot are not coming. The other monsters are upset, but they then start eyeing Gezora and Kanimes as possible ingredients for the soup…
In “Hay Fever is Scary,” Godzilla has noticed that Mechagodzilla isn’t feeling too well and he asks the robot what’s up. Mechagodzilla says its his pollen allergies, and when Godzilla asks if he is okay, Mechagodzilla sneezes, accidentally blasting the ground in front of Godzilla.
Continuing from a previous strip, Jet Jaguar is an organizer again, and has prepared food for the event. The first dish is a high quality soup, and Baragon and Mogera dig in… but Mogera accidentally sticks his drill nose through the back of the plate.
Next up, Gabara and Gaira are meeting up for a meal. Gabara asks if Gaira has been waiting, and Gaira says he is hungry so that’s more important. But then Gaira gets upset about a pillar/column that is in his way. It turns out the pillar is Manda sleeping.
In “Restaurant,” Hedorah starts a restaurant that has cheap eats, but nobody comes. That’s it.
Next up, Mechagodzilla catches Godzilla peeking through a hole in a fence. MG wants to check it out, and when he does, he finds out there are naked women on the other side soaking in a hot spring. MechaG is so excited his nose sprays blood, and the women are scared.
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| Innocent and Pure Mechagodzilla |
Returning to Hedorah’s lonely life, next we see Hedorah wondering why Godzilla and KG are popular despite their destructive tendencies, while everyone hates him. He wonders if it’s because of his smell, and so covers himself with anti-odor patches, but it doesn’t do any good.
In “Different Strokes for Different Folks,” we get statements about the unique attributes of each monster. Godzilla is strong, KG is also strong, and Sanda and Gaira are scary. What about Jet Jaguar? He’s funny (the robot asks, “Why? Why?”).
In our next comic, Gigan and Sanda (among others) face off in a game of karuta. Sanda soon finds it is dangerous to play against Gigan, though, because of the robot chicken’s hooked claws. (In karuta, a big part of the game is snatching cards displayed in front of you, but if you both slap for the same card, then Gigan’s hook is going to skewer your hand…)
Next up, Hedorah is really popular, with people asking for his autograph, he goes on a date with a famous idol, and his commercial on TV is popular. Then he wakes up from the dream.
Mogera, Gabara, and Biollante are hanging out when the electricity goes out. Mogera offers to light things up and uses his eye beams, but that just blows a hole in the ceiling which smashes down on them.
Next, KG decides to play shiritori by himself. Shiritori is a Japanese game using Japanese words, and each person has to say a Japanese word that starts with the final syllable of the previous word. But if your word ends with “N”, you lose. The first head says “Mosura,” and the second head says “Radon,” immediately losing, and prompting his two brother to blast him with their gravity beams. Godzilla looks on envious of their play.
In “Biollante’s Heart,” the monster version of Biollante is lamenting that she isn’t more beautiful. Godzilla protests, saying she is plenty beautiful already. Biollante is so thrilled she tries to kiss him and ends up practically swallowing him whole.
In “Whose is it anyway?”, KG is talking amongst himself, wondering why he only has two tails but three heads. The head on the right (Ghidorah’s right) says that the other two heads can split the tails and he will take the wings, which prompts the tri-headed terror to get into a fight with himself.
In “Gold is popular?”, Gorosaurus notices that KG is popular with the ladies and with the crowds, and he speculates it is because of his color. So Gorosaurus paints himself gold and is promptly caught by mad scientists who want to dissect him.
Next up, Jet Jaguar is cruising for hot chicks, but gets turned down. He feels frustrated, but then hears a girl say she wants a ride. JJ says “Get in!” And then Biollante, presumably on accident, flattens his car.
In “Troublesome Brothers,” Gaira comes running up to Sanda, crying and saying that Rodan was bullying him. When Sanda confronts Rodan, Rodan says that he (Rodan) had said that Sanda was a smart guy, and then Gaira had attacked, saying Sanda is a terrible person. Gaira feels embarrassed.
Next up, Mothra larva spots a burning house and goes to try to put out the fire with her silk webbing. Imago Mothra turns up to help and try to blow out the fire, but instead accidentally spreads the fire because of the wind.
In “Who is the Manga Artist?”, we get images from a girls’ manga wherein a pretty young woman declares her love for a handsome young man, and vice versa. The local girls love the manga, and they wonder what the artist is like—a fellow named Julian Ukyou. Turns out it’s Hedorah.
Next up, we see some youngsters in a CD store talking about how great the song by Jackknife is, which is playing on the sound system. A girl states that his ululating cry is especially tasteful. Turns out, it’s Kumonga.
Finally, the last comic features a young fellow telling Godzilla not to go. But Godzilla leaves, swimming off into the distance… until finally he resurfaces suddenly, asking for an oxygen tank.
“GoGo! Monster World” by Tetsugyo Yasuda
“GoGo! Monster World” by Tetsugyo Yasuda is better in my opinion, if mostly because of the art. (Ironically, I couldn’t find anything about the artist online.) The jokes still often fell flat for me, but the art is a bit more detailed, and I like the expressiveness that comes across—especially with Godzilla and his hooded eyes. The style of art actually reminds me of something that might show up on Sesame Street in one of their animated shorts. Unfortunately there are only five pages of this comic, as opposed to the almost twenty of “Godzilla and His Happy Friends.”
The jokes are basically as follows.
Gigan looks tough like a gang member and his friends pretend to run away from him. The end.
Ghidorah’s heads have a conversation about who is actually controlling the body, and wonder why they don’t cause themselves to stumble and fall. The end.
KG’s heads continue to chat, this time discussing giving themselves three names: Kin, Gugi, and Dora, from the parts of the name Kingu Gidora. They argue over who would get which name. They propose to solve the problem via rock-paper-scissors, but can’t figure out how to do it without hands… (For fans of Kevin, that particular head initially wants to take the name “Kin”.)
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| King Ghidorah 2 |
The next comic is “Godzilla Cooking,” in which he kills Gezora, Ebirah, and Kamoebas for Minilla’s dinner.
Then in the next comic, Godzilla feeds Minilla a piece of bread that turns out to be the Mothra larva. (Again, the choco cornet gag.)
In the next comic after that Godzilla tries to teach Minila to blow fire out of his mouth, but ends up giving him a special suit covered in springs that helps him learn to throw baseballs hard.
Next up Godzilla is blasting his atomic breath, but then Mothra strangely comes and lands on his back. Godzilla asks the bug what’s up, and Mothra confesses that when she sees something shining (in this case his back plates), she can’t help but land on it.
The next comic I didn’t really understand. Anguirus asks Godzilla why he always destroys large cities, and Godzilla says it’s because there are a lot of people to watch, and a lot to destroy. Then Anguirus thinks to himself, “I regret asking.” Huh? I asked one of my Japanese tutors about this gag, and she thought that Anguirus must’ve been expecting a more impressive answer, but we both agreed that the joke felt a bit obtuse.
The next comic features an alumni get together, where Godzilla meets Maguma, Titanosaurus, and Gorosaurus, but doesn’t remember who they are.
Then we have a comic about a place called Rodan Spring, and Godzilla wonders if instead of water, it’s a spring filled with Rodans. That is not the case, as a relaxing Rodan in the spring tells him.
The last comic features Godzilla and many of his monster friends teaming up together… but after agreeing to fight alongside one another, they realize there is no one to fight. The end.
Unfortunately, many of the jokes are still quite dumb, and there are relatively few that really tickled my funny bone.
“Detective King Godzilla” by Hiromitsu Souma
The next manga is one of the most original of the bunch, and a great deal of fun, at least for me as an unapologetic fan of stuff like the Detective Butt series of books. Detective King Godzilla by Hiromitsu Souma (who appears to be an illustrator and storyboard artist on movies like Hinokio and Zebraman among others) actually pieces together a story through the gag comics, this time about Godzilla as a detective on the case to find Mothra’s missing egg. The art is a little hit or miss sometimes—the depictions of Mechagodzilla are especially weak, but Godzilla has a lot of personality, and there is a general energy and sense of fun throughout that keeps the reader entertained. Also, the jokes seem a bit sharper and funnier than the previous two series, and I think the humor builds better because there is a sort of bare-bones story as well.
In the first comic, Mothra is consulting with Detective Godzilla, who is wearing a bow tie and smoking a pipe. Mothra is worried because one of her two eggs is missing and she thinks someone stole it. But as she is telling her sob story, Godzilla snatches her remaining egg and starts cooking it, licking his lips and mumbling how it’s best to boil eggs. Mothra ties him to a tree (or a pole of some kind) with her webbing, and Godzilla (with a deadpan expression) claims it was all just a joke.
In the next comic, Godzilla is chasing down Gigan and Mechagodzilla (wearing a big black cape), who are absconding with a Mothra egg. Godzilla chucks a rock that brains MG and causes him to completely fall apart, prompting Gigan to desperately attempt to reassemble the doppleganger robot, attaching limbs to all the wrong places. Apparently, though, Gigan and MG escape, for in the next comic Godzilla is issuing a warning that no one disturb the crime scene area. But before he can finish speaking, Rodan flies by, blasting the area with high winds, and Hedorah crawls through, sliming the place up and taking the crime scene sign with him. The last scene depicts Godzilla blasting the roof off of the crime scene with his atomic breath. (In this scene, the monsters seem to be human sized, or at least the monsters apparently have houses of their own.)
Next we see what appears to be a mother with her child eating at home when there is a knock at the door. When the door opens, it’s Godzilla’s huge eye on the other side. Godzilla is out interviewing locals about what they witnessed of the incident—and a huge crowd of bystanders runs screaming away from him!
Next, we are back to Mechagodzilla and Gigan, who are planning to cook up the egg so that they can make enough servings to feed 100 people. As they are discussing their plans, the egg cracks open and a fully formed imago version of Mothra emerges and flies off, much to their shock (and ours). A little extra note underneath states that, “oh, yeah, fully grown moths do not emerge from eggs… oh, well.”
Next Godzilla is out with his magnifying glass, examining a trail of footprints. He soon finds himself walking in circles, because the footprints are his own. Rodan flies above, calling out, “idiot!” This is a classic visual trope that you sometimes see in anime played by crows, which fly by and call out something like “baka, baka” (fool, fool) when someone does something stupid.
Godzilla then goes to a monster bar, where he interviews the bartender… or bartenders. It’s King Ghidorah, and all three heads deny knowing anything (the head on the right wearing a bowtie, the one in the middle wearing a bowtie and sporting a mustache, and the one on the left smoking a cigarette… and wearing lipstick and long eyelashes). Godzilla, somewhat disgusted, confirms with the three that they don’t know anything, and the female KG head asks another customer (Titanosaurus) if he wants another drink.
Next Baragon (with a Charlie Chaplin mustache and a tie) is unveiling a new robo-detective, created from the latest technology, next to whom Godzilla is no big deal… Jet Jaguar! As Baragon is bragging, Godzilla steals over and unplugs the robot so that he slumps forward. But then Godzilla runs away as Jet Jaguar, fully activated, shoots both fists after him.
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| The Robot Detective Appears |
The next comic features Godzilla peering at what appear to be suspicious blokes lurking in the shadows… a humanoid figure with a knife, a silhouette of Mechagodzilla. But then it turns out the shadowy figures are just images used in some kind of show (maybe kamishibai) performed by Ebirah, who warns Godzilla to not get too close.
In the next comic, Detective Godzilla is receiving a tip on the phone from an informant. When Godzilla asks what the informant wants for payment, and offers the fellow money for his troubles, the informant states instead that… he just wants Godzilla to stop stepping on him.
Next, Mechagodzilla and Gigan have tied up the rose version of Biollante. MechaG sneers that Biollante may be obstinate now, but tomorrow she will see things their way. Then the next day Biollante has changed into her monster form and chases Gigan and MG away. Then we see Hedorah tied up as well, and receiving the same speech from MG. Next day, the entire interrogation room is covered in Hedorah slime as the smog monster shows his versatility in escaping. Things just don’t ever work out for the villains.
Detective Godzilla returns to the bar to interview KG one more time. Female head expresses dismay that he has come again, calling Godzilla overbearing. The right head claims that nothing has changed, so why is he here? The middle head says nothing… because it is a robot head now. Godzilla, feeling something is suspicious, notes that the middle head is being strangely quiet, to which the female head replies, “oh, is that so?” The bar also appears to be in a shambles. What could have happened?
Next, Jet Jaguar has just investigated a crime scene, and Baragon is delighted to see the robo-detective’s conclusions. The robot spits out a paper, which reads that Baragon is a Pisces with blood-type AB, and that the girl he is interested in is a Scorpio with blood-type A, and that they are like water and oil, and no chance… Baragon, thinking the robot has lost his marbles, smashes it with a mallet while Godzilla holds up a screwdriver, indicating he has been up to a bit of unauthorized adjustments on the robot.
Next Gigan, out shopping, encounters a scary-looking Anguirus and Battra, who freak him out. Gigan decides that normal folk are worse than he is, and he wants to quit being a villain. MG expresses surprise—what on earth happened when you were out shopping?
Finally, MG tries to run away from Detective Godzilla. “Hahahaha! See you next time, Godzilla!” But the Big G steps on MG’s cape, and the robot trips and falls, his machine-body breaking apart into many pieces. Godzilla declares the case closed… and has MG’s head mounted on a wall, labeled “from a villain.” Underneath is a mounted hand from Jet Jaguar, labeled “from someone I dislike.” The end.
“Godzilla Papa of Kaijuland” by Kazuki Motoyama
The next manga, by Kazuki Motoyama (a manga artist with credits in Bessatsu Margaret, Weekly Shonen Jump, Deluxe Bonbon, and more), is “Godzilla Papa of Kaijuland,” a manga focusing on the relationship between Godzilla and his son Minilla. The comic is eight pages long and includes 15 individual gag comics. The art this time is simple and cute, and less stylized than, say, Gen Satou’s. When Jet Jaguar makes an appearance, for example, he is immediately recognizable. Here Godzilla is depicted as a gruff, proud jerk of a father, and Minilla is sort of an innocent roly-poly of a kid. Godzilla is such a jerk that he is rather hard to like at times, such as in the opening strip in which Varan and a Meganulon approach the Kaiju King complaining of painful cavities… and Godzilla solves their problem by punching them in the face, thus breaking their teeth and presumably removing the cavities! Still, this set of comics also has some very memorable bits, such as a reference to Godzilla’s loss to Charles Barkley, and an appearance by Minilla’s mother!!!
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| Visiting Mama |
I already went over the first comic strip, so let’s go from there. The second strip is titled “I Want to be Popular with Girls!” Here, Minilla pops out of an egg, and a trio of Japanese teens immediately start oohing and ahhing over him. Godzilla witnesses that, and, stars in eyes, says, “I’m over here!” The girls dismiss him as being uncute.
Next, in “Compare Heights,” Varan and Meganulon are excited to go and bully Godzilla’s newborn child—but they find when they rush over to meet him that they are shorter that he is, with Varan at 10 meters, Meganulon at 5, and Minilla at 18.
In “Mothra-chan,” Minilla falls in love with a female Mothra larva and tells Godzilla about it. Godzilla says, “You’re interested in Mothra? I don’t know.” Then he says “That one is ‘hentai.’” Minilla thinks Godzilla is saying that he is a pervert (since “hentai” means “pervert” in Japanese), and pictures himself wearing panties and acting creepy. However, Godzilla used a different word with the same pronunciation, and was merely pointing out that Mothra changes form as she gets older.
In the next strip, we see that Mothra fights monsters with her thread, she makes a cocoon with her thread—and she does stupid human tricks with her thread, such as making Tokyo Tower with silk. Godzilla, Hedorah, and Magma are impressed.
Next up, Minilla asks Anguirus why his hair is always sticking up, and then wonders if it is because of the way he sleeps at night (Minilla’s imagination here is adorable). Anguirus, in very rough, tough-guy Japanese, says that it’s not hair—it’s horns! “Not that you father-son baldies would know about that!” To which Godzilla breaks off Anguirus’ horn crest—ouch!
The comic in which Charles Barkley appears features a mischievous Minilla asking Godzilla if he has ever lost a fight. Godzilla, in turn, claims that he has never lost as he is the king of the monsters! Minilla responds by asking Godzilla about a certain commercial in which he faced off against the basketball legend, and the comic includes an illustration of that face-off. Godzilla gets mad at Minilla for staying up late and watching TV, and Minilla claims that adults always act like this when things go bad for them.
Next, in “Papa Godzilla’s Job,” we see Godzilla at work. We first get a little history lesson about how Godzilla was 50 meters back in the day, then 80 meters in 1984, and 100 meters in 1991. This is all explained as Godzilla wearing layers of Godzilla costumes over his original body height, which we see in the last panel.
The next comic features Minilla looking at the cast of the Godzilla movies (Gabara, Battra, etc), and wondering if there are any truly good monsters. Mothra-chan says that even she sometimes smashes buildings. Hearing the discussion at hand, Jet Jaguar appears, claiming to be a true ally of justice! To which Gezora says, “You’re just a minor character that nobody knows about!” And Jet replies, weeping, “I don’t want to hear that from you!”
Minilla later asks Godzilla about his mother, since Mothra-chan (a female Mothra larva that looks a lot like Mosuko from “Street Fighter Godzilla”) has a mommy. Godzilla, looking pretty awkward, brings up the existence of Minilla’s mother, but claims she went away to the other side of the world, and there is an illustration that appears to show Momzilla (not her real name) disappearing down a huge shaft. That illustration made me think of the hollow earth from the unmade Bride of Godzilla, though perhaps that’s a stretch.. Minilla then goes to visit his mother in the second comic, sailing away to find her. He goes to the other side of the world. Momzilla hears Minilla coming and rushes to greet him… but narration informs the audience that in some species, the female is bigger than the male… and such is the case here. In fact, Momzilla is SO huge that she steps on Minilla accidentally, flattening him in the space of ONE footprint! If the Minilla appearing here is the size of the one from the films, 13-18 meters, then Momzilla is truly massive—perhaps even challenging the recent plant-based anime Godzilla for dominance as the largest in the zilla-family tree. Unfortunately, Momzilla is always depicted in shadow with a big question mark on her side.
Next up we see a comic in which Rodan is flying over buildings, causing them to rip apart, and accidentally does so to a bath house. The women therein pelt him with bathing goods, and Rodan says, “A hero shouldn’t fly.” (Minilla is unconvinced.)
Next we see Minilla saying to Godzilla, “You’re the king of monsters, so you can fly, right?” Godzilla wants to show off and immediately starts zooming through the sky ala Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971), but since he can’t see where he is going, he smashes into a building and looks like an idiot, which disappoints his son.
In “Education Papa,” Godzilla is teaching his son how to use his nuclear breath. He demonstrates, and then asks Minilla to give it a go. Minilla shoots a smoke ring, and at first Godzilla is just like, “Hahaha, that’s just a smoke ring!” But then the rink slices through a building like Ultraman’s Ultra-Slash. Godzilla pats Minilla on the head, telling him, “It’s a bit different than mine, but good job,” while thinking to himself, “This kid’s cooler than me!”
The final comic has Godzilla called to America to do a job. Godzilla seems to think it’s because he is a big star, but it turns out that the job is just to smash buildings. Wah, wah, wah.
I think this set of comics was one of the stronger ones, with a few very funny gags. It just ends so quick, one might wish for a few more strips.
“Godzilla de Faito” by Knife Senno
Following after Godzilla Papa, we get a comic which (we assume) will feature more fighting given the title—"Godzilla de Faito” by Naifu Senno (that HAS to be a pen name). The art this time around is decidedly less cute, with depictions of Minilla especially taking on a downright ugly, even almost sinister tinge. Godzilla, too, looks like he dwells on the “bad guy” side of the spectrum, and once again (in the scant eight pages) he does come across as a bit of an unpleasant lout. Still, this set of comics also has some delightful surreal moments, and fans who like to speculate about new monsters will find something to love as well. For what it’s worth, this batch also had a couple comics which I just didn’t understand and had to consult with my Japanese tutors to try to suss out their meaning.
The manga artist, Knife Senno, today is actually a fairly well-established cartoonist. A quick google search reveals her more popular works include Mantis Woman (a horror title) and Sister, and she also worked on a how-to book on tones for manga. Some of her work (such as the aforementioned Mantis Woman) apparently even have translated versions in English! Her twitter is NekoiRutoto.
The rundown of the manga:
The first comic deals with Godzilla smashing famous places in Japan. He then starts to consult some Japan travel books to choose the next famous place to smash. He gets quite excited when he finds out about Tobu World Square in Kinugawa, which is a theme park with dozens of 1/25 size famous landmark buildings from around the world for tourists to check out. It’s a miniature city, which fits well with Godzilla films and smashing miniature cities. So, then Godzilla heads out to visit Kinugawa and smash the buildings wearing sunglasses, and Anguirus tags along, saying they should drop by Edo Village as well (which is near the real Tobu World Square).
The second comic deals with Godzilla destroying a city, to the point that it goes up in flames. Imago Mothra shows up to try to convince Godzilla to stop, and they argue. Sanda and Gaira look on, pointing out amongst themselves that Mothra is actually making things worse by flapping her wings and causing the fire to spread.
Senno twice has monsters demonstrate their peculiar forms of play. Hedorah likes to play by melting onto the floor when someone approaches so that they don’t realize he is there, and annoying them with the stench. King Ghidorah’s sense of play, meanwhile, inspires him to intertwine his three necks and replace his wings with Japanese fans, then declaring that he has braided himself.
One comic features Godzilla going to a sushi restaurant run by Ebirah, and repeatedly asking for shrimp-based foods—much to Ebirah’s annoyance.
Sanda and Gaira are pranksters here, surprisingly teaming up (instead of fighting each other) and singing the Mothra song whilst bedecked in twin fairy disguises in order to play a trick on Mothra, who is pretty disgusted upon gaining sight of them in crossdress.
Mecha-King Ghidorah shows up in the next comic, the two organic heads decide to use their one mechanical head as a calculator, asking him to add three and two. The mechanical head then beeps and boops and spits out the numeral “six,” to which his compadres are impressed… Apparently they all suck at math.
Next up, the Giant Octopus approaches Ganimes and Gezora and exclaims that the other two monsters have cool names compared to him. Ganimes tries to think of a cool name for the Giant Octopus, and suggests “Takora.” The Giant Octopus is disappointed, and even was expecting them to say that. (Note: I looked it up, and “Takora” can be a real name. I am not sure if that was part of the joke or not.)
In what might be the most memorable comic for many fans, Gigan and Mechagodzilla (teaming up again) are scientists (?) who decide to try to make super hybrid monsters. It is a bit unclear if they actually create the following monsters or are just talking about POSSIBLY creating them, but we get the following hybrid freaks, complete with illustrations: A combination of Megalon and Rodan dubbed Megarodon (not to be confused with the Megalodon), a combination of Kamacuras and Kamoebas called Kamecuras, and the horrifying combination of larva Mothra with Minilla given the name Mimora (which they declare to look quite weak).
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| The Combination Kaiju Strategy |
The next comic is… confusing. The comic is playing with the meaning of the term “atsukurushii,” which often means something like “sweltering” literally, but can mean “annoying” or “troublesome” metaphorically. The comic is about Gabara making fun of Minilla for being “atsukurushii,” to which the little guy runs crying to Godzilla and asks him (in baby talk, replacing some ‘ch’ sounds with ‘t’ sounds) if he really is “atsukurushii.” Then in the last image, we see… well, it’s a little open to interpretation. I have talked with a couple different tutors about this comic because I was a bit confused about it. It’s possible that the last panel (which shows a close up of Minilla sweating and crying and nose running, with the words a… atsukurushii!) means that the little Godzilla is feeling hot and sweaty and sweltering, thus making a pun. It is also possible that it means Godzilla also thinks Gabara is annoying. Anyway, there you go!
Another comic illustrates Godzilla’s continued struggles in his love life as he pursues a date with Biollante (kind of strange to contemplate the genetics of that one), and getting sabotaged by the appearance of his son (apparently Biollante isn’t into taking care of other monsters’ kids).
Next, Hedorah crossdresses as a schoolgirl in order to try to get a job at a sushi restaurant (he fails), and in another comic, Mechagodzilla disses Godzilla for his infamous dance from Invasion of Astro Monster.
One comic that really confused me, though, featured Gigan decked out as a ruffian high school kid in school uniform, smoking a cig and smashing a city while muttering that this world is so lame. Suddenly Jet Jaguar appears wearing a suit, which startles Gigan. Jet Jaguar is his teacher for some reason, and the grinning robot declares that he understands Gigan’s feelings since he, due to his smiling visage, is not taken seriously as a robot of justice. In the final panel, Jet Jaguar invites Gigan to run into the sunset, which they do, smashing the city along the way.
This entire sequence is apparently a reference to a television program called Tobidase Seishun (badly translated as “Jump on Out There, Young Fella”), which featured a famous scene in which a rough student and a teacher dash into the sunrise. That television program also debuted in 1972, which may explain the connection to Gigan, who also made his first appearance the same year… but even with that explanation of the background, I still don’t know why Jet is the teacher!
The next comic deals with Godzilla suggesting to Mogera that they go for an underground exploration trip. Mogera excitedly starts digging right away with his drill nose, but ends up hitting an underwater hot spring that jettisons the robot back to the surface. Godzilla then soaks comfortably in the water instead of going underground for the trip.
The last comic deals with Godzilla and Mechagodzilla and their rivalry. Godzilla is all like, hey you big fake, can you do this? And then Godzilla uses his nuclear breath. MG shows that he can shoot lasers out of his eyes, which annoys G. So then G challenged MG to do the famous “shie” dance that he did in Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965). MG refuses, saying, “You really expect me to do something so embarrassing?” Godzilla feels crushed. The end.
Altogether, an imaginative set of comics, and I would say one of the better ones in the book.
“Goji Goji Fight!! Extreme Thirteen-Round Bout” by Souichi Sakura
This comic scratches the monster competition itch even if the kaiju that appear here do not actually FIGHT each other. Souichi Sakura’s art style is perhaps the most “anime friendly” yet—I could easily see this stuff getting animated and was even thinking that I had seen his adorable designs in other Godzilla media before. The manga this time is VERY formulaic, with each four-koma comic except the first and last featuring a competition between two monsters, and every time (except for the first competition obviously) the monster moving on from the previous fight loses, and the challenger wins.
I had never heard of Souichi Sakura, so I wanted to introduce him a little bit. He is also an established manga artist and a CG illustrator. His manga tends to be in the shounen and seinen manga categories, with titles such as Loving Eater, Decoder, and Let’s Chat, though none of these seem to be massively popular.
Here is the breakdown of his comic:
The first comic features Mothra and Hedorah acting as hosts to the competition, with Mothra doing most of the talking—the usual stuff about to the game. However, Hedorah interrupts asking for a drink, since none were provided. Mothra gets him a drink, noting that Hedorah was being an extravagant guest on the show, and we get started.
Ebirah and Mogera have a footrace, which Mogera handily wins.
Mogera and Oodako have a swimming competition, and Mogera just sinks.
Oodako and Gezora play “jintori” (which looks like Twister but is apparently about occupying your opponent’s base?), and Gezora wins because he has more limbs.
Gezora and Kamoebas have a skiing competition, and Kamoebas wins by simply rolling down the hill.
Kamoebas and Kumonga have a tree-climbing competition, and Kamoebas loses by falling out of the tree onto his back.
Kumonga and Godzilla have a yakitori cooking competition, and Kumonga loses because he is scared of fire.
Godzilla and Baragon have a competition to see who can be the best manga assistant, and Baragon wins because he is willing to stay up all night to work on the pages while Godzilla sleeps.
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| Round Seven |
Baragon and Manda have an obstacle course competition, which Manda wins because one of the obstacles is to go through a concrete tube—and Baragon gets stuck.
Manda and Jet Jaguar have a competition to make ice treats of some kind, and Jet Jaguar wins because Manda is weak against the cold apparently and thus the giant serpent flees from the -18 degrees Celsius refrigeration room.
Jet Jaguar and Anguiras have a bread eating contest, and Anguiras wins because Jet Jaguar can’t eat. (For some reason the bread is also suspended from the ceiling by string.)
Anguiras and King Ghidorah have a wankosoba-eating contest (basically wankosoba means lots of small bowls of Japanese noodles), and KG wins because it’s three-on-one (and presumably Anguiras is pretty full already—these competitions aren’t exactly fair…).
KG and Gigan have a competition cutting down trees, and Gigan wins by using his buzzsaw.
Gigan and Ebirah have a bonsai sculpting contest, and Ebirah wins because his claws make for good scissors that can cut stuff delicately, while Gigan just haphazardly hacks with his claws.
The last comic just features brief commentary from Mothra, and then Hedorah “defeats himself” because he has become dehydrated and collapses. This comic is fun, but also very lazy as every one of the thirteen competition comics feature a copy of the same panel in which Mothra comments on the fight with slightly different text.
“Hedorah: Big Charge Attack” by Pokki
Here we have a quirky manga starring Hedorah, which I certainly was not expecting—and from a manga artist called Pokki… no relation to the candy. I think (searching for this artist, a lot of Pocky came up, and I am unsure if he/she has done other comics professionally). Along with the unconventional main character, the art is also pretty unique. There is a sort of rough quality with sketchy skin textures and chubby bodies on the characters. It reminds me of something I might see in a cartoon short on Sesame Street, again. Do you know what I mean? Those weird scrappy animations they used to have on Sesame Street?
Moving on to the contents of the comics, “Hedorah: Big Charge Attack” starts with Hedorah as a wee water creature clashing with the local tadpoles. Those interactions culminate in Hedorah getting punished by the local parental frog. Then when Hedorah grows to his full size, he comments that he is not afraid of frogs anymore… only to be confronted by Gabara, who scares him away with his frog-like face.
Later we find out what Hedorah likes to eat—mercury, cadmium, and cobalt. Godzilla-chan comes up and sees that Hedorah is munching away and asks what he is eating. Hedorah answers with the above, and offers to share them with the monster king (looking here like a little kid). Godzilla runs away, saying he is full—and poor Hedorah cries, saying, “But they are delicious!”
Hedorah meets with Gigan, who wishes to see a mecha version of himself. Hedorah points out that he is already a mech, which shocks Gigan. The cyborg bird cries out at the sky—like, how dare you M-aliens, for doing that to me!
Megalon then introduces Jet Jaguar to Hedorah. He introduces JJ as a dude with a scary face, and JJ tries to scare Hedorah. And that’s about it. What’s with all the scary faces?
For fans who love obscure monster appearances, this comic also introduces Mecha-Hedorah, who sticks around for two strips. Of course this is all just a humorous take on the characters, so some might not take this appearance of a mecha version of the smog monster as an “official” take on the concept, but I love this stuff, just as I did when Mecha-Mothra appeared in Outrageous Flying Mothra.
Mecha Hedorah was created to defeat Hedorah, and its full name is Super Secret Weapon Mecha Hedorah. When they first face off, Mecha Hedorah tries to attack, but cannot because he has become too rusty. In the second comic, MH makes another attempt, this time as Powered-Up Mecha Hedorah. He lets loost with a sulfuric mist to menace Hedorah, but only ends up melting his own robotic body. The end.
And that’s it for Mecha Hedorah.
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| Mecha-Hedorah Raids Again |
Hedorah then falls in love with Biollante, but his attentions cause the rose to wilt. In an encounter with Mecha-King Ghidorah, the cyborg dragon pranks Heddy by claiming that the smog monster doesn’t exist in the future, causing the pollution monster to run away (apparently it was a lie). Hedorah meets with Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Megalon, and Jet Jaguar to play an RPG game (appears to be LARPing, really). Godzilla insists on being a king, KG wants to be an evil boss, and Megalon wants to be a god (figures). Hedorah is in the midst of pondering what character he should be when Jet Jaguar smashes him aside, declaring that he is a slime.
The last comic has Godzilla inviting Hedorah to see a rakugo performance, which is a kind of traditional Japanese comedy show. But in the end, Godzilla just wants to destroy the show, apparently because he hates puns. The end.
A bit short and a lot of the jokes don’t really land, but Hedorah is still a unique and fun comic.
“Together with Dad” by Hijiku Tsukamoto
We already had one take on the Godzilla father-son dynamic as a focus in “Godzilla Papa of Kaijuland,” but “Together with Dad” is a gentler version, with a warmer (if still incompetent) father and a deadpan take on Minilla. The art is very simple, with thin lines and extremely simple characters. I looked up Hijiku Tsukamoto, and I think I found him on Twitter, where he proclaims himself a manga artist who gets bit by cats, and he has his own doujinshi website which is currently taking a break.
Godzilla is a lazy dad at home, with not much skill for cooking or leading a household really—in the first comic, he basically lounges around the house all the day, but when he is interviewed by the media, he lies and claims he plays tennis.
Godzilla starts cooking for his son, with unfortunate results. When he asks Minilla if he likes the food, Minilla seems unimpressed, to which Godzilla cries out that he is a famous movie star! Minilla says, “That has nothing to do with it.” Godzilla goes on a rampage, smashing dishes… then picks them up himself. Apparently this sort of thing is one of his habits!
I like how Godzilla is depicted as a fairly loving father here. When Minilla asks about his mother, Godzilla dresses up as a female Godzilla to make him happy (it doesn’t work). He also apparently makes up a story about Minilla having a little sister who was captured by a villain. The way that this story is told, at first it seems like Godzilla is saying that Minilla really does have a sister. When Minilla asks about his siblings, Godzilla looks stunned and nervous. But in the last panel Godzilla seems incredulous that Minilla would believe such an unbelievable story.
Still, I like to believe that Minilla really does have a little sister.
Next up we are introduced to King Ghidorah (who kind of looks like three sock puppets, each with a neckband numbering them off), who is dispensing advice to Godzilla about how to take care of Minilla. Unfortunately, as Minilla explains in the narration, KG tends to give conflicting advice, and in this case he tells Godzilla that he needs to play more with his son… then says, no, actually study is more important. In the last panel, Godzilla is confused and crying, trying to figure out how to care for Minilla, and Minilla looks up surprised.
The next comic Godzilla is playing video games while KG suggests going outside for a picnic, or a drive, or to go fishing. Godzilla basically ignores KG, just saying over and over, “yeah, uh-huh.” Minilla then is upset in the final panel, perhaps because Godzilla was hogging the game console all day.
Next up Minilla introduces Biollante, saying that she is beautiful… until she takes off her make-up. Biollante is depicted as Rose Biollante when she wears make-up, and as the monster version when she takes off her make-up. Godzilla tells her that she is more beautiful without make-up, and Biollante is flattered. Minilla then says, “I don’t understand adults.” (Rose Biollante might be the most detailed monster drawing in Tsukamoto’s comic, though his monster version basically just looks like a generic carnosaur head.)
In the next scene, Godzilla is on the job, lying on a mountain (or a model of a mountain), filming a movie. In the scene, he is supposed to wake up, but he has actually fallen asleep on the set. Anguirus tries to wake him up, but Minilla says that once Godzilla falls asleep, he keeps sleeping for eight hours.
Next Godzilla is shown rampaging in a city—again filming a scene from a movie. He keeps blasting his nuclear breath, even after King Ghidorah calls “cut!” over and over again. KG is worried about the set getting ruined. Minilla says, “It seems Godzilla really likes breathing his nuclear breath.”
Continuing from the previous comic, Mothra in larva form appears, chastising Godzilla for rampaging too much. Mothra here looks really strange and is actually standing on her tail—she is almost unrecognizable. Anyway, after Godzilla agrees not to rampage too much, we find out that Mothra just wanted to use the city set as a place to make her cocoon.
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| Ms. Mothra |
The joke is extended in the next strip, where Mothra imago appears, working hard to clean up the set and encouraging the other monsters to do the same. KG is impressed, but Godzilla isn’t—as he points out, Mothra just wants a clean place to lay her egg.
Next up, we get to see that Godzilla is actually quite popular, as he is mobbed by a ton of fans—all of whom appear to be younger Godzillas. The girls squeal about how cool he is, and the males want an autograph or to just shake his hand. When Godzilla gets back home, he goes up to Minilla and he starts squealing and calling his son cool and asking him to shake his hand. Minilla is surprised and asks what is up, and it turns out Godzilla just wanted to see what it was like to be on the other side. Minilla thinks that a movie star has it hard, too. “It’s really tiring, huh, dad?”
The next comic continues to show Godzilla’s home life—this time he calls Minilla to show him something cool. When Minilla comes into the room, it turns out that Godzilla just wants his son to turn on the TV.
In the last comic, Godzilla is being interviewed. The interviewer wants to know what Godzilla’s next goal is. Godzilla says he wants to play many more roles and smash more buildings… and he wants to become an even bigger star. The other monsters look at him, thinking about how he is already 100 meters tall and 600,000 tons, but none of them say anything. (I like this comic, as it sort of makes a joke out of how Godzilla kept getting bigger and bigger in the Heisei series… and it’s even funnier now, with how much Godzilla has grown in Shin Godzilla, the Monsterverse, and especially the anime series!)
This comic makes little to no effort to make the monsters at all true to the source material, but I love the simple artwork and sort of peaceful, heartwarming feel. I would love to read a whole book of this stuff, even if some of the jokes are so generic they work for any father-and-son duo.
“RPG GojiQuest” by Nagisa Akechi and Hiroki Anryuu
Reading these comics for the first time, I can only guess how the project came together. Given that “RPG GojiQuest” has a very similar concept to a one-off strip in the “Hedorah: Big Advance” comic, I wondered which creator did the concept first and if there was any cross-pollination of ideas. “RPG GojiQuest” was made by Nagisa Akechi (who has apparently done some illustration work featuring Nintendo’s Kirby) and Hiroki Anryuu, but the publication doesn’t seem to indicate who did what on the comic beyond presenting Nagisa Akechi’s name in larger print. Does that mean Akechi was the brainchild behind the project? Who knows.
Still, much like with the delightful “Detective King Godzilla,” “RPG GojiQuest” embraces another world where the characters embody a completely different genre and play roles in an ongoing story. The gags are VERY mixed, with some quite funny, but many being pretty uninspired. The fantasy trappings are also very generic and lack creativity. Godzilla just wears a bland helmet, a piece of armor with “Go” written in katakana, and he carries a pointy sword and a boring shield with a cross on it. Evil King King Ghidorah (“king” is written in kanji and in katakana as part of his name—Maou King Ghidorah) is worse. His evil king get-up just kind of looks like a dress. Still, I love the idea of a Godzilla RPG, so I will go over the story with detail below.
We begin with Mothra as a monarch attempting to hire Godzilla (the protagonist and hero) to go out and take down the Evil King King Ghidorah. At first Godzilla turns down Mothra, but when Mothra offers a reward, Godzilla decides to take on the job. When Mothra offers Princess Battra’s hand in marriage, again Godzilla tries to walk out, but is persuaded to stay when offered a million gold as well.
Evil King King Ghidorah gets wind that someone is on his tail when Megalon warns the tri-headed terror… but Megalon can’t remember who was sent after EKKG. EKKG spies Godzilla through his crystal ball and readies his monster minions to fight back, including Hedorah, Gezorah, and Frankenstein. But Frankenstein gets confused and seems to think they will be fighting a whale. In the next comic, Sanda and Gaira appear before Godzilla and attempt to perform a combination attack, but just end up bonking heads with each other and getting upset. Later Rodan dive-bombs Godzilla, but when the Big G bends over to grab a dropped coin, Rodan ends up smashing into the ground and knocking himself out.
Gryphon/Black Moth then blocks Godzilla’s passage. Godzilla asks the Gryphon if he is a bird or an animal, and this so confuses the monster that Godzilla can just keep on going without engaging in a fight.
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| A Complicated Thought |
Next to attack is an evil version of Jet Jaguar carrying a knife. Jet’s first attempt is stopped mid stab because his battery runs dry. His second attempt also is fouled up, this time because of rust ala Mecha Hedorah.
We then are treated to a side story concerning King Caesar (boy has he gotten short shrift in this book). KC is a monster minion who actually wants to help anyone who needs it, but always ends up scaring people away. When he spots Baragon struggling under a heavy load, he offers to help the monster, but ends up terrifying him with his scary face. KC then sets up a stand to offer his help to any passersby, but no one dares approach. Finally, he makes a little shield out of his scary face for people to use, but that also goes nowhere.
We return briefly to Godzilla and the quest. Godzilla has now encountered a Megalon Fairy that flits about and offers to give happiness to him. Godzilla dismisses the fairy as just a bug.
Next we have another digression, this time with Anguirus, here depicted as a sleepyhead. The first comic is literally just him sleeping for several days straight. The next one features Anguirus thinking he needs to go see KG, but when he realizes he has ten minutes before he needs to head out, he decides to take a nap and ends up sleeping for three days.
Back to Godzilla, he has found Hedorah Armor which is impervious to weapon strikes and resistant to magical attacks. But Godzilla refuses to use it because it’s dirty. He then finds some medicinal Biollante herbs, which have the ability to replenish a hero’s energy and level him up. Godzilla refuses to take the stuff because he thinks it looks like it would taste bad.
The Biollante herbs must have gotten Godzilla hungry because next we see him pondering that he has eaten nothing but meat recently. At that moment Gezora attacks, and Godzilla is delighted to get some squid in his diet. Apparently Godzilla then eats Gezora, for in the next comic Kamoebas attacks and we see Godzilla with a tentacle sticking out of the side of his mouth. He then apparently tries to eat Kamoebas, but we don’t see the outcome.
Godzilla next encounters Hedorah. Hedorah is lying in wait behind a wall, and attempts a sneak attack. Godzilla easily parries the attack because he could smell Hedorah from a distance.
Godzilla then faces off with Maguma (really cute depiction here), and declares that he knows the weakness of the giant walrus. Maguma is surprised, muttering to himself that he never even told his own mother that secret. Godzilla manages to defeat Maguma by… putting a big rubber ball on his schnozz.
“I’ll remember this!” shouts Maguma.
As Godzilla continues to march through the forest, he gets tired and starts looking for something to get his energy back up. He finds a regeneration pool and runs towards it… but it turns out to be Hedorah. Hedorah offers to let Godzilla take a drink of his slime, but understandably our hero refuses.
We then get to see a treasure chest with a villain hiding inside, waiting to attack Godzilla, but for some reason Godzilla just walks on by without opening it, and we never get to see who was inside the box (I’m going to pretend it was Osorosu).
Godzilla confronts Rose Biollante and asks where KG is. Rose Biollante states that she cannot tell him because he must choose his own road, and so Godzilla decides to cut down the plant monster.
Presumably that threat produced results as in the next comic Godzilla is facing off against Evil King King Ghidorah. Ghidorah says “long time no see,” but Godzilla can’t remember who Ghidorah is. Turns out that Ghidorah and Godzilla used to go on quests together, but, according to Godzilla, Ghidorah was a lazy bum and so they went their separate ways. This ticks off Ghidorah. We then have a flashback that Godzilla wouldn’t provide Ghidorah with helmets (too expensive) or swords (because he wouldn’t use them), and so they went their separate ways and Ghidorah became evil.
Ghidorah tries to attack Godzilla, but at first he can’t decide which attack to use and the three heads bicker. Then they decide to use fire, but just as they are about to blast Godzilla, our hero points behind the evil king and says, “Oh!” When Ghidorah’s three heads look to see what Godzilla is pointing at, the fire balls that they were about to shoot out of their mouths go off and KG blasts himself to a cinder.
Godzilla wins and goes back to Mothra, but Godzilla says he doesn’t want Princess Battra and prefers to just take the money. That ticks off Battra, who punches Godzilla so hard that he smashes through the ceiling of the castle and off into the wild blue yonder. We next see Godzilla penniless and depressed when he is accosted by his wife (face covered by the word balloon), who scolds him for working for free once again. Godzilla grovels, as even he is weak in the face of his wife. The end.
“Godzilla is Always Angry” by Seiryuu
First of all, I just want to say… I am guessing Seiryuu is a pen name. Because the thing is, when I searched for this manga artist to see if I could find any extra details about him/her, I found out that the kanji/Chinese characters in his/her name are 成龍, which just so happen to be the same characters in… Jackie Chan’s name.
I mean… maybe Jackie Chan did a Godzilla comic. If so, he has some of the least likable art in the book.
Jackie Chan’s art depicts a grumpy Godzilla and his various exploits, and it returns to a somewhat more detailed look, in which the monsters are closer to their filmic counterparts, if still quite simplified. Godzilla’s skin has texture here at least, and Mothra looks very close to her movie self. Godzilla here is kind of stupid and is indeed a wannabe tough-guy, and he goes around trying to be tough and mean and sometimes doesn’t succeed. The jokes are pretty poor in my opinion, but there are still a couple highlights, and Jackie Chan’s contribution is one of the shortest in the book, so it’s over quickly. (Jackie Chan was pretty busy with his movie career in the 90s, so it would make sense that he would not have enough time to really do a lot of Godzilla comic strips for the project.)
The first comic involves Godzilla trying to relive his glory days of grabbing trains, but he finds that the modern trains move too fast and just keep running into his arms, smashing them away painfully. Next we see a random human father and son. The kid is asking what Godzilla is, and the father replies that Godzilla is a combination of a gorilla and a whale. This prompts the kid to imagine various gorilla whale combinations. Not very funny, but it’s mildly amusing to see the art and the joke about Godzilla’s name.
Next Ghidorah is envious of Mothra’s beautiful wings, and so Godzilla and Anguirus offer to paint Ghidorah’s wings all pretty. The design they settle on for the front looks rather like Battra’s wings. Ghidorah is happy and flies off, and we see that Godzilla and Anguirus have written rude things on the backs of his wings.
The next comic explores the history of how Godzilla’s face has changed throughout cinematic history, with Jackie Chan’s depictions of the Heisei/VS series Godzilla, as well as the Mosugoji and Kingugoji faces. Then we reach a mysterious Godzilla face that the author doesn’t recognize. It turns out to be Gorosaurus’s mug, but covered with bumps and bruises after an encounter with Godzilla.
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| Godzilla's Face |
Back to Godzilla being “tough,” we find out that he likes to stare down other monsters and he can stare down anyone. But when he tries to stare down Mothra, he fails and walks away in defeat, not realizing that Mothra was sleeping and never blinks. The stare-downs continue in the next comic with Ghidorah trying to impress the other monsters by staring down Rodan, Anguirus, and Godzilla at the same time.
The last comic has Godzilla visiting France. Godzilla tries to get the attention of the citizens (who are ignoring him) by doing the “shie” dance from Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), but the French just continue to ignore him, so he blasts them away. The end.
All right, all right, Jackie Chan most probably did not draw this Godzilla comic, but I wish the actual artist would have added in some Jackie Chan references since he stole the actor’s Chinese characters!
“High School Godzilla-Kun” by Gen Satou
This here manga is another by the creator of the first manga in the book, Gen Satou. This time Satou has proffered up a high school comedy featuring our favorite Toho beasties. The same criticisms and praises apply to his peculiar Godzilla art, though I loved Godzilla’s facial expressions in some of the panels here. On the other hand, sometimes I wasn’t sure who some of the monsters were that appear in particular panels just Satou’s art is so idiosyncratic.
There isn’t really an overarching story. Just individual gags. We start with the monsters getting cast in a play, and all the monsters are cast as monsters… except for Godzilla, who gets cast as a tanuki/raccoon dog. He is not happy. Godzilla then talks his way into the role of monster prince, but is dismayed when he discovers that as part of the role he has to kiss Hedorah.
Another comic, this one kind of bizarre, has various monsters declaring what their favorite food is until Baragon says that his favorite food is Gezora. Gezora appears and we have this weird reaction shot. This is also the manga in which a couple monsters appear that I wasn’t very confident in identifying, and the progression of the panels is pretty confusing.
The next comic has Sanda walking by listening to headphones, and Gezora asks him about what he is listening to. Sanda shares the headphones, but they don’t fit on Gezora’s huge head. Next some monsters try to play soccer with Mothra’s egg, which really ticks off Mothra. After that, Mothra overhears a kid who needs to catch a bug to show her teacher, and offers herself—but the kid dismisses her as just a moth.
Next a kid claims he has seen a monster, but the other kids won’t believe him without photographic evidence. Hedorah offers to allow himself to have his photo taken, but the kid dismisses him as garbage.
Next we have a food eating contest, but Biollante wins by eating all the contestants.
Next Sanda and Gaira try to do a classic sports day activity—the three-legged race. They end up fighting each other.
Next we have monsters calling out things they don’t like. Anguirus doesn’t like homework, Rodan doesn’t like green peppers, and Gaira says that he doesn’t like “Sanda!” And the two brothers get into a fight.
Next Sanda and Gaira play baseball, and Gaira’s bat gets broken by Sanda’s fastball. Then Gaira uses the Mothra larva as a bat.
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| Sanda's Star |
Jet Jaguar uses an online game to try to meet people, but the first girl he meets tells him she doesn’t like people who smile all the time.
King Caesar uses the same game, and the same girl tells him she doesn’t like people with scary faces. Depression.
The last two comics are about another classic sports day event in Japan. The monsters have to do a race in which they try to find whatever is on a random card given them (very often a person), and then (if I remember correctly) cross a finish line (I participated years ago when I taught at a high school in Japan). The gag is that “Hedorah” wrote his name on a bunch of the cards, but no one wants to find him and cross the finish line holding his hand. Those running the event just cancel the event and go on to the next, making Hedorah cry. The end.
Yeah, not so funny stuff. Kind of depressing, too, as Hedorah keeps getting the shaft. I did like the video game ones with their art mimicking pixels. And again I have to wonder… why are there so many of these comics about the monsters having scary faces? Aren’t they all monsters? I always thought King Caesar was pretty goofy looking really, not scary!
“Godzilla Kun Has Arrived!!” by Masao Kanada
As far as the art goes, Kanada’s work is one of my favorites in the book. It has a lot of detail comparatively speaking, but also retains a sense of personality and consistency while also keeping the designs close enough to the original movie designs that fans can instantly recognize the beasties. I especially like how Anguirus looks very dinosaurian. The general concept of the manga just seems to be to put the Toho monsters in normal human situations, like going to a restaurant, or karaoke, going fishing, or even joining a choir. Apparently Ghidorah really can sing well, too—as confirmed in the second Chibi-Godzilla children’s book last year. In other words, for all intents and purposes, the monsters are not giant in this comic. Personally I appreciate that there are a couple of basic word jokes, because I am a big pun-fan.
Unfortunately I was unable to track down any information about Masao Kanada, so I assume he has not done many other comics—at least under this name.
Here is my quick rundown.
Godzilla draws Tokyo, but in his painting, Tokyo is destroyed.
Anguirus visit’s Godzilla’s yakitori restaurant, and Godzilla cooks up Anguirus’ order by blasting the meat with his flame breath. He accidentally turns the food to cinders.
Anguirus suggests that Godzilla can cook the meat better if he doesn’t blast the meat directly. So Godzilla tries it, blasting his flame around the sides of the meat on the sticks—and ends up blasting Anguirus in the face.
Anguirus decides to wait outside until Godzilla can finish cooking up the yakitori. But Godzilla, in trying to cook the yakitori, ends up burning down his shop while Anguirus waits. (I especially love Anguirus facial expressions in this one.)
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| Yakitori 3 |
Godzilla and Mothra go to karaoke together, and the karaoke gives a score to the singers. Mothra gets a good score, but when Godzilla sings a song, he is so terrible that his singing destroys the karaoke machine. Mothra tries to give him encouragement by pointing out that he is indeed good at destroying things. Then Godzilla goes to karaoke with King Ghidorah, who mocks Godzilla for not knowing how to sing. KG then sings with each of his heads together and gets a perfect score.
The next comic is about when Godzilla has different monsters as guests. When Mothra visits, he has a lot of Mothra silk afterward. When KG visits, the hat stand gets filled up with KG’s three caps and Godzilla has nowhere to put his own. Finally, when Hedorah visits, the place stinks.
Next is a monster choir. The monsters are singing a warm up—do, ray, me, fa, so, la—don. Rodan finishes by saying “don,” thus saying his own name, “Radon” (in Japanese, the l and the r sound are the same). This gag continues in the next comic, where they sing, do, ray, me, fa, so, la, shi—and then King Caesar says “sa” to say his name, Shisa, in Japanese. (Why do they say “shi” instead of “tea”? I am not sure, really. In Japanese, where they speak using a syllabary rather than an alphabet, in a sense, they don’t have the syllable “tea” (usually) and instead have “chi”—but they replaced “chi” with “shi” so I’m confused.)
Next King Ghidorah goes to a restaurant, and Godzilla is his waiter. All of KG’s voices try to order at once, which confuses Godzilla, and KG ends up with a plate full of a hash of ingredients.
Anguirus goes to another yakitori restaurant, this time run by King Ghidorah. KG explains to Anguirus that if he orders one portion, he will get three pieces at his restaurant. Anguirus says, “Lucky! Give me one portion.” Then KG, in trying to cook the yakitori with his gravity beams, sends rays blasting all over the counter in front of Anguirus, scaring him away.
Godzilla sees someone fishing with a fishing rod, and decides to use Mothra larva as a living fishing rod, this time with silk as the line.
Next we see an open sky. Rodan flies by, enjoying the flight. Mothra flies by, declaring how comfortable flying is. KG flies by. Then Godzilla shows up on stilts, asking the other monsters to wait for him.
Anguirus goes to another yakitori restaurant, this one run by Mothra. He is afraid the yakitori will be covered by silk, but instead he finds that she cooks the yakitori via a more traditional method—by fanning the flames, but with her wings instead of an actual hand fan.
Godzilla comes across Gigan and Anguirus, who are fighting for some reason. Godzilla says, “hey.” Gigan and Anguirus respond by saying, “We’re busy.” Godzilla says, “Let me in on the fight.” Gigan and Anguirus decide to stop fighting and pretend to be good friends. Godzilla is upset they stopped.
Minilla asks Godzilla to buy a Mechagodzilla figure for him. The dorats ask their father KG to buy a Mechaghidorah figure. Mothra imago and Mothra larva feel left out, so they go to Toho Studios with a big sign asking them to make a Mechamothra. (This is the only comic in this particular series where the monsters appear to be giants in the end, as the two Mothras dwarf the Toho building.)
That’s all for this group—next!
“Monster Laugh Attack” by Lovely Shou
This very short contribution from Lovely Shou (I don’t know anything about this artist beyond his/her name) features art that feels more sketchy and rough. Still, for the most part it is easy to understand which monsters are being depicted. The jokes also tend to be about the monsters as full-size monsters, which is surprisingly a bit rare in this book. The jokes are only mildly amusing, but still point out some funny things about the Toho kaiju world.
The first comic has Minilla asking Godzilla why his face changes from movie to movie so much. Godzilla then hits Minilla, who gets a big swollen bump on his head. “Look, you changed, too,” he says.
Gabara is looking for Minilla in order to bully him. When Gabara finds Minilla, though, Minilla scares away Gabara because the little Godzilla has become a gangster kid under the influence of his father, who has become villainous again because of the the Heisei/VS continuity.
Mothra larva comes to chastise Minilla for being a bad kid, but while chastising him, she accidentally wraps him up with silk because it’s her automatic habit to do that. She is embarrassed.
Crowds of people celebrate as Rodan and Mothra fly overhead. But then they freak out and get mad when Godzilla flies overhead using his atomic breath, the flame from which hits the city and destroys everything. Godzilla looks apologetic as the people yell, “You idiot, Godzilla!”
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| Sky Monster |
King Ghidorah wants to bring the monsters together and stop them from fighting, so he develops a comedy act, calling himself Trio the King Ghidorah. His first joke is, “What time is it, Godzilla?” It’s five o’clock, la!” (“Five o’clock” is “goji” in Japanese, and he just appended “ra” on the end. That’s the joke, folks. He said “Gojira” when telling the time.) The other monsters hate his pun so much that a huge fight breaks out.
Given that some Asians (such as people from Malaysia or Singapore) sometimes put “la” on the end of sentences (in English even) made the last comic feel like a comment on other Asians, as if the reason they are fighting was because of using a stereotypical Asian affectation, but I don’t think that was intentional.
The end.
With only five strips, Lovely Shou’s contribution to the book was the shortest of them all. Yet the art is fine, the jokes are no worse than other sections, and I would even say some of the manga artist’s work here looks quite a bit better than others in the book. Too bad she only got three pages!
“It’s Godzilla! Godzilla Has Come!” by Masato Hazawa
Masato Hazawa’s “It’s Godzilla! Godzilla Has Come!” is another on the somewhat more detailed side as far as the art goes, with monsters drawn in a manner more closely mirroring how they appear in the movies. Godzilla himself seems to be based on the Heisei/VS. series incarnation. The monsters are also depicted as giant monsters again, rather than working human jobs or somesuch. One other aspect of Hazawa’s manga that sticks out is the unusual amount of blood that appears in the manga. The humor tends to be a bit more vicious, albeit with a slapstick air. Again, I actually found Hazawa’s blog, and he seems to be a huge Godzilla fan, even if he is not a prolific manga artist. Now you’ll find out what his comics were like that he only had a couple days to finish!
The first comic is about Godzilla stubbing his toe whilst emerging from the ocean, then falling backwards and banging his head on the rocks, causing blood to dribble across his face. Godzilla laments that he looks so uncool.
Next Godzilla is smashing buildings, but when he punches a skyscraper he just hurts his hand and worries that he doesn’t look cool (very image-conscious in this set).
In the following comic Gabara appears and tickles a sleeping Godzilla’s schnoz with a tree. Godzilla sneezes and scorches Gabara’s head with the flames.
The next comic references Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), with larva Mothra arguing with Godzilla and Rodan. The larva is trying to convince them to team up and fight KG. When they refuse, Mothra sprays them together with so much silk that they become a giant silk ball, which Mothra then uses to chase King Ghidorah with (even a three-headed alien dragon is afraid of a massive ball chasing after him).
Next KG and Godzilla face off, but Godzilla calls KG a coward for fighting three-on-one. KG says it counts as one-on-one, but Godzilla counters that if it’s really one-on-one, only one of KG’s heads gets to speak. That leads to the three heads fighting, and Godzilla smugly states that KG counts for three monsters after all.
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| Ghidorah is How Many? |
In the next comic, KG’s right head confesses that he has fallen in love with someone. The middle head is curious, and righty admits that his crush is Mothra. Middle head approves, but lefty mocks righty, asking what part of that ugly wench is any good. Basically, they fight a lot.
In the next comic, we get to see Godzilla’s relationship with Anguirus. Godzilla confesses to his friend that his eyesight is getting worse. Anguirus suggests that Godzilla get contact lenses, to which Godzilla responds that a pair of glasses would also be good and make him look sexy. Anguirus, imagining Godzilla looking lame in glasses, reiterates his suggestion that the king of monsters go for the contacts. Later, Anguirus goes to check on Godzilla and asks how the contact lenses are working out for him. Godzilla turns around, and we see blood is pouring out of both of his eyes because every time he tries to put the contacts in, he accidentally stabs himself with his claws! I know, dark, right?
Next, Godzilla, Gigan, Megalon, KG, and Hedorah decide to create a villainous group together, and they head off to cause some mischief. But Hedorah is slow and can’t keep up. “Wait!” he cries out. The end.
In the following strip, Hedorah trips on a rock and splatters, then reforms and keeps walking. “Wait!” he cries out. The end.
Did all the artists sit around and decide to rag on Hedorah or what?
Next, Godzilla and Anguirus want to swim, but find Ebirah is hanging out in the local swimming hole. Godzilla fires off his atomic ray and roasts Ebirah, but also evaporates all the water.
Next, Godzilla is bullying various monsters by forcing them to play a version of leapfrog against their will. Godzilla is all impressed with himself, but then Anguirus challenges Godzilla to try leapfrogging over him (a daunting task given Angie’s spikes), and Godzilla declines.
Next Anguirus invites Godzilla to go play with Mothra. Godzilla is hanging out, leaning against a mountain, and he refuses. Anguirus tries to get Godzilla to come, but Godzilla just won’t go. After Anguirus leaves, we find out that Godzilla’s back fins are stuck in the mountain and he can’t move.
Godzilla plays a version of red light/green light with Biollante, but it’s not much fun since Biollante just moves one vine head closer and closer to Godzilla.
Flower Biollante is talking to herself about how beautiful she is, wondering why she is so pretty and surrounded by so many ugly monsters. Then Godzilla shows up and points out that if she wasn’t blooming, she would look like Hedorah. Of course Biollante reacts violently, and Godzilla (with blood running down his face) tells Hedorah that life is full of ups and downs.
In the last comic, Biollante and Mothra are both talking about how beautiful the other is. Mothra can’t match Biollante’s beautiful flower petals, Biollante can’t match Mothra’s wings. Godzilla points out that they are both full of it, saying one thing but believing the opposite, and that prompts the two lady monsters to attack him and make him bloody. The end.
Perhaps not the most intelligent collection of Godzilla manga here, but I did like that Godzilla and Anguirus are depicted as friends/rivals.
“Godzilla Fairy Tales of Japan” by Gen Satou
Gen Satou is back at it again one more time with perhaps his most interesting Godzilla gag comic in which our favorite monsters appear as characters from (mostly) Japanese fairy tales. While the humor is still often hit or miss, I really enjoyed the unexpected ridiculousness of this particular set of comics—and we also see some pretty big surprises, including the only appearance in the book of the abominable snowman from Half Human (1955)! Let’s get started!
The first comic is a loose adaptation of Hanasaka Jisan, with Godzilla trying to get a dried up tree to blossom. He tries to blow on the trees, and ends up causing a forest fire.
Next we see an adaptation of the Yuki Onna (Snow Woman) story, which was featured in Kwaidan (1965). Gabara is the husband in this version, and he is seen confessing to a shadowy figure that he saw the Yuki Onna in the past. The shadowy figure starts to threaten the husband, saying that he has said something that he had promised never to say… (In the original story, a man encounters the titular Yuki Onna, who forces him to promise never to tell anyone of their encounter, or else she will kill him. Years later he marries a beautiful woman, and the woman coaxes him to reveal that he saw Yuki Onna. Turns out his wife is the Yuki Onna herself, and she then disappears because she doesn’t have the heart to kill him for his trespass now that she has fallen in love with him.) Well, in this case, as the mysterious shadowy figure starts to accuse Gabara of breaking his promise, Gabara points out that he is the Yuki Otoko (the abominable snowman) and not the Yuki Onna. This may sound convoluted and stupid, but it was actually one of my favorite comics in the book!
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| The World Also Has Scary Stories |
The next comic is an adaptation of the tongue-cut sparrow, with Rodan replacing the bird. Rodan offers Jet Jaguar one of two boxes. The big box has Godzilla in it, and the small box has Minilla. Jet Jaguar is disgusted because he doesn’t want either one. (In the original story, an old man who loves sparrows is married to a cranky old woman. The old man helps a sparrow, but when the old woman catches the sparrow eating food from her stores, she cuts its tongue out and chucks it out of the house. The old man goes to find the sparrow, which he does, and the sparrow invites him in to his sparrow home, and then offers the man a box to take home as a gift. He can take the big box or the small one. He takes the small one, which turns out to be full of incredible treasures. The old woman is disgusted that the old man didn’t take the big box, so she goes and takes the big box from the sparrow, only to find it full of monsters. I guess the joke here is that BOTH boxes are full of monsters!)
Next is an adaptation of Momotaro. Godzilla (with a mustache) finds a giant peach floating down the river, and when he cuts it, out pops Hedorah. Much to the smog monster’s chagrin, Godzilla immediately abandons Hedorah as a piece of garbage.
Next is an adaptation of Princess Kaguya. Gabara finds a strange bamboo shoot and cuts it, but the bamboo turns out to just be Manda somehow. (The princess from the kingdom of Mu should have jumped out…)
Next is an adaptation of Aladdin—so not all of these are Japanese fairy tales. Jet Jaguar is the genie, and Gaira makes three wishes: to be handsome, to be smart, and to kill his brother.
Next is another adaptation of Hanasaka Jisan, this time with Hedorah. When Hedorah blows on the tree, it just dies. Haha.
The next comic is a twist on a famous scene from the Japanese fairy tail Kachi-kachi Yama. While in the original a rabbit tricks an evil tanuki to take a mud raft into a river and drown, here Gaira tries to trick Sanda into riding a mud raft. But Sanda sees through the ruse.
The next comic is an adaptation of the Honest Woodcutter, which is a story in which a woodcutter drops his ax into a pond and a magic woman appears. The woman pulls out two axes, one which is gold, the other which is his ax. “Which is your ax?” she asks. When he is honest, he gets both axes. Anyway, in this version, instead of a woodcutter dropping his axe into the water, here Godzilla drops his lunchbox. The magical woman is replaced by Biollante, who asks if Godzilla dropped Sanda and Gaira into the water. When Godzilla protests that he dropped his lunchbox in the water, Sanda and Gaira get mad that he doesn’t want them.
In an adaptation of Urashimataro, Jet Jaguar takes the title role and rides Kamoebas into the depths, but it just turns into a giant fight between Gezora, Kamoebas, and Ganime.
The next is another adaptation of a famous scene from Kachi-kachi Yama, again with Sanda and Gaira. This time Gaira is trying to trick Sanda into carrying some wood which Gaira will then set on fire, but Sanda sees through the ruse again.
The next one is an adaptation of Princess Kaguya again, this time with Gabara cutting open a piece of bamboo, and Hedorah popping out. Gabara also dismisses Hedora as a piece of junk.
The next adaptation is based on the story Kasa Jizo. This time, when the old man gives the jizo statues his hats, Godzilla emerges to reward him with some snacks… but accidentally steps on him.
Next up is an adaptation of Ikkyu and the tiger. Here Godzilla plays the part of Ikkyu, and another monster that is hard to identify (maybe Gorosaurus?) plays as the monk testing him. Godzilla waits for the painting of the tiger to come alive so he can capture it, but then King Ghidorah bursts out of the painting instead. I would be lying if I said I really got the joke, even after reading the original story.
The last comic is a take on Jack and the Beanstalk. Godzilla is Jack, and he climbs the beanstalk into the sky… then gets bitten by Biollante. The beanstalk was actually her.
Even though in general I am not a fan of Sato’s artwork, I really enjoyed this last group of manga just because they were creative and downright weird! It is a ton of fun seeing the kaiju playing the roles of fairy tale characters as well.
And that’s it. For me, I had a great deal of fun reading through these comics and their multifarious and sometimes downright bizarre takes on Godzilla and the other monsters. Personally I am surprised at just how much attention Hedorah and Sanda and Gaira got… and even Gabara appears frequently! On the other hand, Megalon gets short shrift, and the abominable snowman only appears once. Fans of Minilla also get a lot to enjoy, as the little monster appears many times (though often as the butt of jokes). Fans also obviously can get a lot of enjoyment out of the numerous and neverending references to the films. As a big fan of Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, I loved seeing several references to that classic. Sure, the jokes fall flat as much or more often than they land, but I thoroughly enjoyed this volume and wish there were more like it! Highly recommended for fans who like their kaiju on the wild side! |
