After a memorable first chapter in the form of Movie Story Frankenstein vs. the Subterranean Monster, acclaimed translator and author Akira Nakao returns with a slightly more robust second chapter with his illustrated version of The War of the Gargantuas (1966), here titled Monster Picture Story: Duel of the Frankensteins. The title could be translated a few different ways—another possibility might be “Frankenstein’s Duel”—but I chose Duel of the Frankensteins because I thought it was way cooler. This picture story was apparently published originally in the summer of 1965 within the pages of Bessatsu Shonen Magazine: Summer Holiday Fun Special Big Series 「別冊少年マガジン」昭和４０年夏休みおたのしみ特大号連載—at least according to the reprint I own from the Godzilla All Movies DVD Collectors Box Vol. 22. I just wonder whether Kodansha might have a misprint, given that The War of the Gargantuas wouldn’t be released until the summer of 1966!!! At any rate, this time we have a longer (though still drastically cut-back) retelling of a classic Toho film accompanied by atmospheric (though this time monochromatic) illustrations from a different artist—Hideo Nakamura (not to be confused with the famous Japanese teacher of the same name). In my opinion, the changes to the adaptation this time aren’t quite as interesting as within Nakao’s earlier retelling, but let’s take a comprehensive look anyway before turning to a bit of analysis.
We start out with a small fishing boat moving into an unnamed harbor. Suddenly Gaira appears (here called the Sea Gargantua), and he is described as possessing one drooping eyebrow on one side that nearly completely closes off one eye. The monster attacks the ship and begins eating the sailors one after the other, and the young captain blacks out at the sight. He wakes up with the coast guard in a sick room and spills his story.
Soon Dr. Stewart and Akemi Togawa, who raised a Frankenstein monster in the past, hear about the attack, and they begin to speculate about this mysterious sea giant. Before they can get very far with their hypotheses, they get a phone call that the Sea Gargantua is attacking Tokyo Airport.
The Sea Gargantua really smashes things up, including a large passenger jet that comes in too close and succumbs to the monster’s Franken Chop. Sea Gargantua also rips off the control tower before the clouds part above and the sunlight scares him away.
Five days later, the nasty brute appears again, this time near the riverside in Sakawagawa. Akemi feels responsible for the monster, given that she thinks she raised him, and so she heads over there with Dr. Stewart in tow.
Before Akemi can do anything, though, the military engages with the Sea Gargantua, laying into the guy with howitzers, recoilless rifles, and rockets, all to little effect. After the Sea Gargantua lays waste to the artillery, the army proceeds to plan B. They harass the giant with helicopters, leading him to run into electrified cables tied between the trees. These electric currents combined with “murder rays” (presumably the MASER cannons, though they are not very clearly depicted) drive Sea Gargantua to retreat into the river—which is also electrified.
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It seems like its curtains for Sea Gargantua, but suddenly Sanda (called the Mountain Gargantua) appears from nowhere and rescues Sea. The army is so shocked they basically give up on sight. Mountain helps Sea escape, and Akemi proclaims that it was Mountain that she had helped raise—definitely not Sea. Soon after, Dr. Stewart studies the cells of each Gargantua from bits they left behind and because the DNA is the same, he comes to the conclusion that Sea must have grown from a piece that fell off of Mountain (which is immediately confirmed by the omniscient narrator).
Akemi thinks that Mountain may still remember her, so she is determined to go into the valley where the Gargantuas are hanging out and talk to him. Towards that effort, she enlists the help of the JSDF to protect her on the way—and then insists on going into the valley by herself while yelling, “Frankenstein! Don’t get all violent!” Pretty soon, Sea shows up and tries to eat her, and she gets cornered against a cliff drop off. Luckily, Mountain arrives in the nick of time and headbutts Sea. They roll down the mountain while battling it out and soon find themselves in the Tokyo/Yokohama area. Jets blast the heck out of the dueling pair while Mountain weeps and cries out trying to find a way to make things right with Sea, who won’t have any of it. The troubled brothers move the fight into the ocean, and it looks like Sea has the advantage until Mountain grabs a ship and cleaves half of Sea’s face clean off with it. Then that darn volcano spontaneously appears from under the water and consumes them both while Akemi and Dr. Stewart gaze on pensively. The end.
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Alright, so as mentioned previously, Akira Nakao’s version of The War of the Gargantuas is longer than his rewrite of Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), and as a consequence the narrative does feel slightly less rushed. At least this time Dr. Stewart isn’t as noticeably combined with another character the way Dr. Bowen had been squashed together with Kawaji. Still, Dr. Yuzo Majida (Kenji Sahara’s character) is gone completely, so any contributions he might have made now fall to Stewart and Akemi—but his absence does not transform anyone’s personality! Some character beats, such as the flirtations between Stewart and Akemi, as well as many minor roles including the singer and her awful song, and all the military characters are basically absent from the illustrated story except as faceless cannon fodder. The characterizations overall, then, falter here, without even the equivalent of that weirdly evil version of Dr. Bowen that showed up in the Nakao’s illustrated version of the previous chapter to spice things up. The one major character change that stuck out to me is Akemi comes across as incredibly stupid and reckless, charging off into the valley by herself and predictably nearly getting scarfed by Sea as a result.
Which brings us to the monster depictions and the changes there. Let’s start with Gaira/Sea first. The Giant Octopus never menaces the boat at the beginning, and so we also never get Sea Gargantua’s opening clash against the cephalopod. Of course, much of the battle action is modified throughout. In the movie, when Gaira attacks the airport, the passenger jet is successfully warned away, whereas in the illustrated version, Sea manages to down the flight with a Franken Chop, giving him a powerful sense of chaotic danger—more than when Gaira in the movie manages to down two helicopters which were deliberately harassing him. Still, without the scene of Gaira chewing up a helpless woman and spitting out her clothes, or the scene of Gaira lying in the valley surrounded by the discarded outfits of his latest victims, even though Sea (in the illustrated story) still eats people, he doesn’t come across as quite so evil. The electric attacks on Sea are a bit different in the illustrated version, too, with the added innovation of the electrified chords that more or less trip the gargantua, and less emphasis on the Maser cannons. In both versions, the military are surprisingly competent in taking down the furry green beast.
Meanwhile, Sanda/Mountain remains largely similar in movie and illustrated versions, though again with a little less development. There is no flashback with Akemi taking care of baby Sanda (and spilling milk in his lap), so we feel less attachment to their relationship. In the movie, Sanda saves Akemi from a disastrous fall, but injures his leg badly in the process—showing great self-sacrificial love for his mother-figure—and this injury is gone from the illustrated version. Sanda in the movie also cares about normal people, attacking Gaira initially not because his waterlogged brother was menacing Akemi, but because the villain had been chomping on the local youth. Still, while Sanda in the movie has more sympathy points, Mountain from the illustrated story gets the edge for hardcore bloody action when he rips half of Sea’s face off with the hull of a ship. Holy cow!
Both stories end with that obnoxious deus ex machina volcano that just shows up out of nowhere (maybe it was a Homger from Ultraman Ace). I really don’t like the ending in either version, unfortunately.
The monochrome blue artwork is provided by Hideo Nakamura, a prolific artist who did work for many magazines from yesteryear, including Shonen Sunday, Shonen Champion, Shonen King, and others—as well as art for sonorama publications like Tomorrow the Deathgod Comes and Captain Scarlett. Here I thought his artwork was solid and consistent, with detailed and moody depictions of the monsters and action, and realistic depictions of the human characters. Akemi looks a bit more like Kumi Mizuno than Takashi Minamimura’s paintings did in Movie Story Frankenstein vs. the Subterranean Monster—though I would argue that Nakamura also fails to capture Mizuno’s allure. Nakamura’s Dr. Stewart, on the other hand, looks (if anything) a bit more like Nick Adams than Russ Tamblyn—Nakamura depicts the scientist with a longer face minus the curly hair. Given Tamblyn’s horrible performance in the movie, though, I am glad to see him missing from the illustrated story version. The biggest problem with Nakamura’s art, though, is that the monsters look almost nothing like the filmic counterparts—and I can’t easily tell them apart from one another in the story! They both look like sharp-toothed sasquatches—I suppose the major signifying difference is that Sea has a dome-shaped skull with little hair up top, whereas Mountain has unruly black hair. Given that there is no color, we don’t get the brown and green to differentiate—but we also don’t get the noticeable scales on Gaira, nor his wide nostrils and exaggerated lips. With his tall facial structure, if anything, I think the Sea Gargantua looks more like Sanda from the movie, which is unfortunate.
I am not quite as enthusiastic about Duel of the Frankensteins as I was Frankenstein vs. the Subterranean Monster. The art while solid isn’t as memorable, and the story alterations weren’t quite as satisfying for me (other than the shocking use of a boat as a lethal weapon). Even Akira Nakao’s writing didn’t strike me as being quite as memorable this time around. Still, as a retelling that sticks a bit closer to the movie, the illustrated version functions as an enjoyable read, even if the choices made don’t improve upon the movie version, and the resulting shortened edits make the story feel a bit less substantial overall. Oh, brother. |
