Barizogon: Hey! That's Not King Caesar!

I was originally going to add today’s entry into my Pachimon Kaiju Showcase series but, considering the long-after-the-fact-parody nature of this article's titular feature, I decided to keep it relatively separated.

Plus, there isn't much to say on the character beyond its origins and obvious appearance.

Amapro is a ridiculously small (seriously, there’s like two or three people running it) independent Japanese toy company that specializes in limited edition vinyl figures based on overlooked and obscure kaiju. In addition to those, Amapro also creates arguably weirder and sillier original characters.

Sitting between these two extremes are figures inspired by the aforementioned Pachimon, taking different elements from more famous movie and television kaiju,  haphazardly birthing supposedly new (rip-off) monsters in turn.

That said, Barizogon is basically King Caesar from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) but with condor-like wings and a third eye in place of Caesar's forehead jewel.

Based on what little I could find online (again, these guys are S-M-A-L-L), Amapro will often repurpose their toy molds to make variations by reincorporating different body parts from different figures like an interchangeable jigsaw. Barizogon seems to be their own King Caesar figure reworked with a pair of wings taken from their numerous other bird-based ones.

There's also the official Sailor Fight channel, based around the robotic heroine from a series of short films that also showcases these same oddball vinyl toys. This channel may-or-may-not have ties to Amapro, seeing how one of its two public faces hosts the aforementioned content.

Daimajin and the Nerds Who Love Him

Our incredibly fearsome hero, ladies and gentlemen.

After the surprised success they had with the very first Gamera film, Daiei Films continued dipping their toes into the giant monster genre by producing AND releasing three films all within 1966 featuring Daimajin, a giant stone idol and supernatural deity who comes to life  to brutally punish mortal villains in feudal Japan.

The Daimajin trilogy joined the popular giant monster boom of the 1960s with the highly praised samurai period dramas of the same decade, resulting in a unique if brief series of dark fantasy films.

The channel Up From the Depths recently finished up their trio of video reviews on Daimajin presented here because why not (I felt like it, okay).

DAIMAJIN: The last remaining members of a royal family call upon their god to save their village from a brutal warlord.

RETURN OF DAIMAJIN: Two peaceful kingdoms call upon their god to save them from a rival invading clan.

DAIMAJIN STRIKES AGAIN: Four boys set out through the Majin's Mountain to rescue their family members from enslavement at the hands of a rival clan.

Last but certainly not least is a fantastic video lecture from the always awesome Maser Patrol discussing both the Daimajin trilogy alongside other giant-monsters-meet-samurai properties. Tons of cool obscurities and educational history points to chew on.

Since I too am a nerd who loves him, here's some more Daimajin images to end the post on.

Daimajin parts the waters, from "Return of Daimajin" (1966)

Daimajin in his inert statue form and his living form on the warpath.

Kaiju Images: The Stone Creatures

As previously stated, I'll be using my blog as a public service (limited and obscure as it is) for the Kaiju fan community online. And one such way to do so, is by posting random articles, featuring random images, of random Kaiju (giant monsters) from across random fiction!

I'll try my best to largely use images I've either scanned or taken myself - the latter of which, by using the age old method of a crummy digital camera, while sitting affront of a decent sized TV screen at night.

In other cases however, I will of course credit sources for images that I've 'borrowed' from other sites, and their related owners and contributors.

Especially since a lot of the most Obscure Kaiju characters have equally as few images floating about the Internet. And usually on web-pages that have an unreliable lifespan, like forum threads. Or the dreaded, diminished attention spanned beast dubbed Tumblr.

For this first outing, we're going to start off with some (crappy) screen-captures I made of The Stone Creatures; twin lion-like stone statues from third episode of Hanna-Barbera's "Godzilla" series, entitled "Attack of the Stone Creatures" (September 23rd, 1978).

'Crossfire! Crossfire!'

'Hey Godzuki! Check out my winter cool breath!'

'Huh...Not that impressive?'

'We're combing the desert, in search of Princess Vespa!'

'We ain't found S***!'

I'll have more Kaiju images to share on a near weekly basis from now on, so stay tuned. And if you'd like to assist me in this ongoing endeavor, with scans or screen-captures from your ends, please contact me through the comments below.