Kaiju Fan Confessions

For discussions covering more than one Toho film or show that span across more than one “era.”
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Major sssspielberg!
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Major sssspielberg! »

JAGzilla wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:33 pm I don't like Ultraseven all that much. I'm about halfway through, up to the episode with the fortune teller, so maybe the best is yet to come, but.... it's really just not doing much for me. Ultraman's characters may have been more cartoonish, but at least they stood out and I can remember their names. These guys just run together.

And while Ultraman shoehorning a kaiju battle into every episode got stale, the cackling, moustache-twirling, kamikaze killer alien of the week doesn't exactly stay riveting, either. You get the occasional mildly interesting villain, but at the end of the day every single one is irredeemably evil, and every single one refuses all attempts at compromise or negotiation and has to be killed. It just ends up feeling like what the show is really trying to say is that everything foreign or unknown is automatically bad and wants to hurt you. And then you have things like that episode encouraging kids to spy on and report their neighbors. Like, Jesus. You think this show was made during the Cold War? :lol: I get that it's just how things were at the time, and it is interesting as a time capsule, but it's still depressing. I'll take a hopeful Star Trek future over this any day.
I understand the way you feel. Seven didn't quite do it for me the first time I watched it, but it really grew on me as I sat with it after finishing the series. The characters don't pop as much as the SSSP in Ultraman, but they all have a moment or two to really shine throughout the show.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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JAGzilla wrote: Wed May 26, 2021 7:33 pm Ultraman's characters may have been more cartoonish, but at least they stood out and I can remember their names. These guys just run together.
That's not at all my experience. Overall, Seven has my favorite cast/team of any Ultra series.

While I like the original show's supporting cast a lot, Hayata himself is basically a non-entity. With Seven, you have a far more engaging and compelling protagonist in Dan Moroboshi (although the sustainable "formula" for developing an Ultra-protagonist would really come with Return of Ultraman's Hideki Go).

But I also really like Seven's supporting cast. Kiriyama is my favorite commanding officer from any of the series; Dan's very understated romance with Anne is fairly well played and feels organic, as does Dan's friendship with Soga; Furuhashi is extremely likable, and returning actor Sandayu Dokumamushi retains a little bit of the jovial attitude that defined the original show's team; and, while Amagi is not as fleshed out as the others, Bin Furuya is a striking presence and performs well on the occasions he's given more to do.

Most of the best material for these characters does come in the latter half of the series, but to my tastes the best of almost every Ultra series comes in its second half.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Gigantis »

I'm legit starting to feel that the team behind Singular Point pulled off the "evolving Godzilla" story better than Shin did.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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As usual, I probably spoke too soon. Return To The North and Showdown at 140 Degrees Below Zero were two of my favorite episodes yet, with the former doing a lot to flesh out Furuhashi (I agree that he's likable) and having a different, legitimately tense conflict in the impending plane crash. Windom the incompetent mecha-chicken was also a big highlight. Then the blizzard shutting down the base was handled well, and we did actually have aliens that semi-honorably admitted defeat and were 'allowed' to escape for a change.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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JAGzilla wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:57 am As usual, I probably spoke too soon. Return To The North and Showdown at 140 Degrees Below Zero were two of my favorite episodes yet, with the former doing a lot to flesh out Furuhashi (I agree that he's likable) and having a different, legitimately tense conflict in the impending plane crash. Windom the incompetent mecha-chicken was also a big highlight. Then the blizzard shutting down the base was handled well, and we did actually have aliens that semi-honorably admitted defeat and were 'allowed' to escape for a change.
Oh, yes! I tend to think of Return to the North as the point where the show really starts to get going! Although there are a few early episodes that I really love, the quality becomes a lot more consistent and the plots less repetitive around that point.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by godjacob »

I really dislike the Rebirth of Mothra Series as a whole, but I'll be damned if the Desghidorah vs. Mothra & Mothra Leo fight is not one of the most enjoyable fights of the Heisei era.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Voyager »

Most of these posts really are just unpopular opinions or even just opinions. We need confessions dammit! Like, maybe you killed people in hid the bodies in Kaiju suits.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by goji89 »

Voyager wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:54 pm Most of these posts really are just unpopular opinions or even just opinions. We need confessions dammit! Like, maybe you killed people in hid the bodies in Kaiju suits.
I can do a Taxi Cab Kaiju confession if you'd like.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Voyager »

goji89 wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 9:43 pm
Voyager wrote: Tue Jun 01, 2021 8:54 pm Most of these posts really are just unpopular opinions or even just opinions. We need confessions dammit! Like, maybe you killed people in hid the bodies in Kaiju suits.
I can do a Taxi Cab Kaiju confession if you'd like.
Yes sir, I’d love to hear another Goji89 whacky tale!
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Spuro »

Voyager wrote: Tue May 18, 2021 8:14 pm KK33 for life.
KK42 is better. :evil:





Anywho...

I may have mentioned this one before — or maybe I haven’t — but one of my least favorite Toho productions I’ve ever seen is none other than Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya’s Battle in Outer Space. It’s right up there with the Anime Trilogy for me.

It’s nothing more than a special effects spectacle with not a shred of meat or substance to either its story or its characters. And that would be fine, if not for the fact that the SFX scenes are extraordinarily dull and uninspired, save for some of the destruction scenes in the last five minutes of the film. I can’t stress enough how boring the movie is.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Terasawa »

I don't think BioS is a whole hell of a lot worse than many other films in the Toho canon. I think Tsuburaya's half is really strong, and it also has maybe Ifukube's best tokusatsu score propelling it from beginning to end. I like it. Shame that the script they shot was as bad as it was.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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KK42 wrote: Wed Jun 02, 2021 3:15 pm It’s nothing more than a special effects spectacle with not a shred of meat or substance to either its story or its characters. And that would be fine, if not for the fact that the SFX scenes are extraordinarily dull and uninspired, save for some of the destruction scenes in the last five minutes of the film. I can’t stress enough how boring the movie is.
Agreed that it's bare-bones spectacle, but amusingly enough, I actually really liked everything up until the last five minutes. The invasion of Earth was the part that bored me. It was flashy, but just rendered the rest of the movie pointless.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Cryptid_Liker »

I've gotten so used to the Singular Point version of Jet Jaguar that the Showa suit's face looks off.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Terasawa »

Re: BioS (again), I'd caution against saying it hasn't a "shred of substance." I think, as with a lot of the early tokusatsu films, there are themes and allusions that might best be interpreted through the lens of Japanese culture. Obviously that can be difficult if you're not Japanese, because otherwise the references seem cryptic or confusing. In the case of BioS, I don't think the moon was chosen just for its proximity to Earth. I think it's because Japanese culture holds many traditional beliefs about the moon (that's also true of probably every human culture).

On the eve of the expedition to the moon, as Katsumiya and Etsuko lay under the night sky and view the full moon. Etsuko describes the moon romantically, describing its beauty and referring to the Tsuki no Usagi and Taketori Monogatari folktales. Furthermore, Etsuko's admiration of the beauty of the moon is an allusion to a poetic expression of romantic love, as explained here. Katsumiya instead is absorbed by the reality of the moon, specifically that there are alien beings on it mounting an invasion of the Earth. To Etsuko, he says, "I wonder if mankind will eventually lose such feelings of beauty."

It's not coincidental that Sekizawa places this discussion on the characters' final night before entering space. They fear not only what the Natal will do to their world but also what exploration and the resultant knowledge will do to it. It's a discussion about the romance of opening the door and taking the first steps into the last frontier unknown to mankind. This scene is absolutely symbolic of the anxiety of losing old tradition and possibly even emotion itself to an increasingly scientific and rational world -- the movie isn't even trying to hide that. This is also why Etsuko gets so upset with Katsumiya: their world will change (literally and figuratively) overnight, and when she worries that their love for each other might change with it, he can only crack a (lame) joke.

I think the moon might have also been an attractive location for the filmmakers because of the moon's importance in the Zen school, where the moon represents enlightenment. Going to the moon in this film has the effect of forcing the characters to confront their traditional beliefs. The journey to the moon can, in a way, represent the loss of mankind's innocence. I don't know if that was the intent but I do like that idea because I think it philosophically mirrors Earth's Pyrrhic victory after repulsing the Natal. I also submit as evidence Ifukube's closing composition, which ends the film with an ambiguous and possibly mournful chord. :)
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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I think Kiryu is slowly rising my ranks of favourite designs of any character in the franchise.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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Voyager wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 2:47 pm I think Kiryu is slowly rising my ranks of favourite designs of any character in the franchise.
Damn, are our roles reversing???

I’m starting to like Showa MG and Showa in general more and more and here you are betraying Showa for Kiryu :lol:
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Voyager »

Jermobooka wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 3:24 pm
Voyager wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 2:47 pm I think Kiryu is slowly rising my ranks of favourite designs of any character in the franchise.
Damn, are our roles reversing???

I’m starting to like Showa MG and Showa in general more and more and here you are betraying Showa for Kiryu :lol:
Noticed how me, you and Breakdown are becoming MG’s just now.

Funny, isn’t it?

MG75 is still best boy.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by edgaguirus »

Showa MG has quite the magnetic personality.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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This is becoming the Kaiju Fan Puns thread and that scares me
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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This isn't the edit signature page :oops:
Last edited by Spuro on Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
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