Some few months ago I was checking out the Monster Island Buddies channel (for their reviews particularly), and I was enjoying the humorous commentary and the often obscure or quirky merch that the talking hand from that channel had managed to metaphorically pick up. In his video covering the crossover craziness of games like Battle Soccer and Battle Baseball, I was surprised and pleased to discover that there had been a manga adaptation of these games—and that the manga actually featured Godzilla and several of his monster friends! I then immediately searched the manga out on Amazon Japan and paid way too much to get myself a copy (especially given the lousy shape in which my copy came—coffee (?) stains, some doodling on one page, a freaking squashed mosquito on another—it wasn’t worth the 30 bucks or so I paid.)
For those unfamiliar with the series, basically Banpresto made a bunch of crossover video games wherein super-deformed/chibi versions of heroes and monsters from a ton of different Japanese media properties appeared together and clashed in a variety of sports, or went on adventures together. Given the copyright knots tied around such a property, unsurprisingly these games never really had a chance of coming to the USA—much like City Shrouded in Shadows a few years ago. Depending on the particular game, you can see such heroes and villains as the Godzilla kaiju, Ultraman and his incarnations and foes, robots from the Gundam franchise, characters from Masked Rider through the years, and even Mazinger Z, along with some original characters.
While I was aware of Battle Soccer due to the coverage on Toho Kingdom from many years ago, I had not realized how many other games were also created and published. I had never thought to look into the series much, given that in general I am not very enthused about sports. If I had known there were some action/fantasy titles in the series, I would have been more curious from the start! Unfortunately, the fantasy titles do not feature Godzilla.
Still, the collected volume The Great Battle III from 1993 by longtime Gundam manga artist Kouichi Tokita does feature a few pages with our favorite radioactive monster king, as well as some of his more popular co-stars. The rest of the story leaves Godzilla and co behind, but I will take what I can get.
The manga is broken into three sections—Battle Baseball, The Great Battle III, and Battle Dodgeball II (each section reflecting the content of different games). The first section is the only one that features Godzilla, and it is also the shortest at only around thirty pages in length.
The story opens on Konpachi World, a dream-earth on which heroes and rivals from various franchises live in peace, all due to an environment-sustaining device that protects the balance of this weird mini-planet floating in space. As the story opens, it seems like the sundry characters from Masked Rider, Godzilla, Ultraman, and Gundam franchises have just finished a game of Battle Soccer (King Ghidorah can be seen kicking a soccer ball away in the background). The Rivals (basically villains from the franchises) want to bet everything on a baseball match, to which Masked Rider Black RX asks, “Didn’t you already bet everything on a match of Battle Soccer?” The Rivals deny that they ever said such a thing, and the fight is on, to take place on a special asteroid set aside for baseball matches. On the Rivals side we have Baltan, Gigan, Shadow Moon, King Ghidorah, Zeong, Zaku, Shocker, Eleking, and Vigna Ghina. On the Heroes side we have Ultraseven, Rider Black RX, Gundam F91, Gundam RX-78, Rider Stronger, Angilas, Roman, Gun Cannon, and Ultraman Great.
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| Note the Twin Fairies cheering in the audience! |
The first match is Vigna Ghina against Ultraseven, with Vigna Ghina pitching. Ultraseven easily hits a homer in, causing the Rivals to get upset, and the heroes begin to wonder if they are really going to win this easily. Next Vigna Ghina pitches against Rider Black RX, and this time Vigna uses a special power in which he creates illusory body doubles of himself to appear right before pitching. But Rider Black RX has no problem hitting the ball because, as he says, while there may be three Vigna Ghana, only one ball is thrown. Baltan takes the pitching mound and uses his self copying power to confound pitcher Gundam F91... but F91 just hits the ball for the same reason that RX had no problem. We then fast forward, with some pages giving snapshots of most of the rest of the game. Toho fans will spot a fierce-looking Angilas holding onto the ball, King Ghidorah trying to cheat by wielding two baseball bats, Rodan using his flight ability to catch a fly ball, and a Mothra Larva in the audience along with the twin fairies, who are cheering the game. Basically everything is tied up by the end, and the last face-off is between Godzilla as the hitter and Zetton as the pitcher, with Gundam F91 and Black RX on bases one and two. Zetton predicts that Godzilla is going to get a homerun, and hesitates. Shocker calls time and runs up to Zetton, telling him to just walk Godzilla, to which Zetton willingly agrees. The ref on the side tells them to play, and Godzilla goads Zetton, saying that trying to make him walk is a stinky course—isn’t he the monster that defeated Ultraman?! Let’s have a serious match!
Zetton feels his pride as an Ultra-Monster challenged, and he gives the pitch his all, allowing himself to get sucked in by Godzilla’s mockery. To which Godzilla uses his “Godzilla Fireball Batting Form Number Two,” and hits the ball so hard it goes into outer space. However, right after that amazing hit, a meteorite falls from the sky, smashing into the dome protecting everyone from the vacuum of space, and thus Ultraman Great, Gundam F91, Kamen Rider Black RX, and Cyborg Fighter Roa (an original character from the games) get sucked into a fantasy dimension, and the story switches gears to the next game—The Great Battle III. Godzilla and the Toho crew never appear again—and when you consider that the last page Godzilla appears on is page 25 (actually just twenty pages of manga in), if you are a Godzilla fan, you might feel a bit disappointed.
As you can tell from the synopsis, this is all pretty short. It’s very goofy and comedic, and the Godzilla crew doesn’t get to do much. Still, I think the sequence is undeniably just plain fun and utterly ridiculous, and I like that. Where else in the manga world can you see Godzilla playing baseball? (Actually, there IS arguably another title, but I will save that for another day.)
What about what happens in the rest of the story? I am going to give a much-shortened version because otherwise we are going to be here forever. Basically, Cyborg Fighter Roa becomes the main character of the second section of the manga, and Ultraman, Rider, and Gundam F91 are his sidekicks. The gist is that, in this fantasy world, the evil Zaneru (apparently an original enemy from the games who our heroes have fought before) is trying to resurrect the ancient magic king Dark Brain, another super baddy from the games. In order to resurrect Dark Brain, Zaneru needs the pieces of the Eruburem (Elbrem?) Mirror, of which a good king gives our heroes one half. Our heroes travel about fighting baddies from the various media universes, plus element-themed golems (earth, wind, fire, etc). Eventually Zaneru gets his mitts on both halves of the mirror and faces off against Cyborg Fighter Roa, who alone can keep fighting as everyone else is too tired (the heck?). Zaneru resurrects Dark Brain, but Roa pretty handily defeats the super-baddie. However, when our heroes return to Konpachi World, Roa gets taken over by Dark Brain somehow, and they arrive on their world in another time, in the distant future I think. In that time, Dark Brain is in charge, and our heroes have to fight the baddies through several rounds of dodgeball to beat the bad guys once and for all. Eventually Mazinger Z and Boss Borot from the same franchise make appearances, though Boss has a lot more to do than Mazinger Z. Oh, Roa’s sister Emii also appears. Note that also, apparently, Roa was a cyborg originally created by Dark Brain. Anyway, in the end, our heroes save Roa and defeat Dark Brain again through a timely intervention via Kamen Rider ZO, but even in defeat, Dark Brain manages to reach for Roa from beyond the grave. Emii sacrifices herself in Roa’s stead, and our heroes vow to search the universe and bring back Emii. The end.
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| Godzilla loves his baseball--and his trash-talking! |
The story is very fast-paced and often devoid of any real tension. Even the biggest baddies are usually taken down with little hassle, with even big fights over in a couple panels if they aren’t just settled off-screen. The manga REALLY feels like a video game adaptation, with characters chasing magical items, buying magic items from shops, and trying to avoid taking damage from falling off moving platforms. The magic item shop is one of the funnier elements of the story, as our heroes buy healing scrolls and various spells from the shops—and even find one on Zaneru’s flying base, with the same proprietor they met before! (When the heroes first meet the proprietor, the dude pulls out a copy of the Battle Soccer cartridge and tries to get them to play it with him!)
At any rate, the story is very frail stuff, held up mostly by the novelty of seeing so many popular heroes from competing franchises working together in the same comic. It’s really not that creative or clever and is very, very simple... but it is kind of novel. Kouichi Tokita’s art is also quite good and fits the childish zaniness well, with well-rendered and expressive drawings of all the heroes. I love the art, which might be the high point of the comic.
However, given the obscurity of the title (it seems it was only published as a tankobon/collected volume once, in 1993), it’s expensive, and really only completionists and those REALLY curious about seeing what chibi-versions of Japanese hero franchises look like going on an adventure together should probably bother digging this sucker up. I definitely enjoyed the book, but I can’t in good faith really recommend it unless we get a new printing. Still, if you ARE a die-hard, this book has pretty easy Japanese, its quirky and weird, and you might have a pretty decent time! |
