One of the three Godzilla DVDs released by Tristar in October of 2004 comes Godzilla vs. Gigan. The film is a welcome addition to the growing line up of region 1 Godzilla DVDs, in particular if one wants to see what they can find going through some of the stock footage sequences frame-by-frame (is that the Arc De Triumph Gigan just destroyed?), and Tristar doesn't disappoint with the quality of this release. Overall, Godzilla vs. Gigan has a great video and audio presentation, although the way the film and subtitles are handled could have been better, while the extras are pretty minuscule on this release.

Video:
The video presentation, like on Tristar's Godzilla vs. Hedorah release, is nothing short of excellent. The colors on this DVD look great with a very vibrant array of colors present, even during the stock footage scenes, which show what a poor job ADV did with their release of Destroy All Monsters when the same scenes are compared. It's too bad that the brightness level is too low here though, with some portions of the night battle being a little hard to make out. The amount of digital inconstancies, like artifacting and shimmering, is minimal, with the movie looking very sharp. However, noise is an issue, as there is quite a bit of grain visible to the viewer beyond what I would consider a normal look for something lensed on film. The print used in the transfer is the International version of Godzilla vs. Gigan, although a new main title, Toho Eizo, and Ending sequences were done. All three of these sequences comprise of white text placed on a single color background, and look like they were slapped together relatively quickly. The quality of the print used is good though, with a minimal amount of scratches, except during some of the older stock footage sequences.

The film's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is maintained on this DVD as well.

Audio:
This DVD has two audio tracks present: Godzilla vs. Gigan's original Japanese audio track, and Toho's International English dubbed track for the film. Both tracks are presented in mono, as was the film's original audio format, and sound great given the source material. The dub track is recorded a little low here, at least when compared with the Japanese audio track, but otherwise it's a faithful recreation. However, there is a slight problem in regards to the Japanese audio track, as the film is the International version which means that the comic "speech bubbles" during Godzilla and Anguirus' infamous talking scene are missing, rendering the scene pretty confusing unless one switches over to the dub track. The audio is complimented here with both English and French, removable, subtitles that correspond to the Japanese track. Or at least they are supposed to correspond with the Japanese audio track, although there are a lot of lines here that either subtitle the dialogue from the dub track, like the classic "You cheeky pig!" line which should be "You made me a monster!", or were just made up altogether. The worst case of this is the line spoken in the restaurant, following the protagonist Gengo Kotaka being fired from his job as a manga artist, in which Gengo mutters a insult under his breath at his girlfriend. The original line in the Japanese version has Gengo complaining about her nagging, while the dub has him call her a "hard bitch", but he is subtitled saying the awful line "You Momagon" on this DVD.

Extras:
The extras found on this disc are the same disappointing assortment of trailers that are found on Tristar's Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla releases. It should be mentioned that the Japanese teaser trailer for Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. is included, which is actually a worthwhile extra, but far from enough to try and compensate for three discs worth of extras. Like all of Tristar's more recent Toho DVDs, the trailers play automatically when the disc is first played, meaning one will have to skip past them in order to get to the main menu. To end on a positive note, since I complained about how bad the menus looked on Godzilla vs. Hedorah, the menus found on Godzilla vs. Gigan are much more aesthetically pleasing.

Overview:
Bottom line is that despite some minor faults, this DVD still has a great video and audio presentation, and that alone will probably make this a worthwhile pick up for any Godzilla fans.

This disc is also featured in the DVD box set(s): Godzilla DVD Collection (3 pack), Godzilla DVD Collection (5 pack)