The Pachimon Kaiju Showcase returns with today's subject, Doilar!
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| Cleaned-up and enlarged version of Doilar's bromide by your truly |
For the uninitiated, the so-called Pachimon phenomena were cheap bromides (collectible postcards) created by Yokopro in the 1970's, around the time when movie monsters and television superheroes were very popular among children within Japan, all apart of The Henshin Boom or The Second Kaiju Boom as some pop culture scholars have dubbed it.
These bromide cards consists of 'new monsters' created from altered or touched up images of pre-existing characters, ranging from icons like Godzilla, Gamera, or the many opponents of Ultraman, to unorthodox sources like illustrated dinosaur books, real-world animal photography, foreign comic books, and lesser-known television monsters.
"Pachimon" itself is an unofficial and relatively recent fan-made term meaning 'stolen monster' which gives you a clear sign how suspect if not shoddy Yokopro's otherwise successful attempt was.
Although still quite obscure, The Pachimon Kaiju have garnered something of a cult following among modern-day collectors and otaku, which have resulted in vinyl figures (both official products and custom-built independents), fan-made video games, artwork, direct-to-video films, comedy spoofs, and other inspired extrapolations.
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| Unaltered version of the original Doilar bromide |
Originally presented in Yamapro Edition set, Doilar is a thinly disguised Gorosaurus, a fictional descendant of Allosaurus who first appeared in King Kong Escapes (1967) as one of the dangerous beasts who roamed the equally fictional Mondo island.
Gorosaurus was meant as a one-time only homage to The Meat-Eater from the original King Kong but, due to a fortunate stroke of luck via quality prop storage over at Toho Studios, Gorosaurs was re-used in the 1968 multiple-monster-romp Destroy All Monsters where the former antagonist joined the heroic Kaiju of Earth to battle against the evil space dragon King Ghidorah, delivering a memorably fearsome kangaroo kick to the three-headed villain's back.
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| Doilar vs. Gorosaurus: Compare and Contrast |
The image source used for Doilar's creation isn't a publicity photo of the Toho dinosaur but a beautifully rendered illustration taken from Ultra Books: Destroy All Monsters, a tie-in book and record album combo based around said film.
Upon retrospect, I believe a lot of the Pachimon based on the more famous movie monsters used secondhand materials, perhaps in a half-hearted attempt to avoid lawsuits or copyright infringement. it obviously worked considering how many of these oddball cards that there was.
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| LIES! The freeways in downtown Los Angeles are never this nice or vacant! |
Speaking of things that makes ones heart sinks: I couldn't find the background of an urban highway used in Doilar's card though I'm tempted to say it's downtown Los Angeles due to how it reminds me so much of the area, particularly the road bridges overhead, having driven through it myself many times before, trapped in way worse traffic than what's falsely presented above (Rainbows? Bull!).
In typical Pachimon fashion, not a single driver seems phased by the giant Doilar creeping towards them.
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| Doilar's Arctic Holiday (1967...NOT) |
While I usually don't do corresponding artwork for my Pachimon Kaiju Showcase articles (cannot afford the time and related stress), I did manage to whip up this photo-manipulated mock-up, taking a publicity photo from Gorosaurus' debut and added some rhinoceros horns and stegosaurs back-plates, all to give you Doilar's Arctic Holiday: a not-at-all-real production where the monstrous reptile saves a struggling ski resort and science station from a nefarious land developer.
Again, in true Pachimon fashion, I threw in some indifferent, un-phased, non-reactive vacationers (familial in-jokes) into the picture, like the indifferent, un-phased, non-reactive Londoners surrounding Danopura.
Lastly, here's an alternate version with just Doilar all by himself.
