Pachimon Kaiju Showcase: Danpuraa

Although only the third entry into this series, this is the first fully original monster featured in our Pachimon Kaiju Showcase, as opposed to photo-edited redesigns of existing movie, or television characters.

Danpuraa (alias Danpurar, or Danopura) is a plump quadruped, with heavy mammalian features, like some sort of wonderfully freaky walrus beast from a “Flash Gordon” comic strip. And despite not being as large as most Japanese giant monsters, Danpuraa is nonetheless causing destruction by crushing cars, and setting off nearby explosions.

Of course, the stiff upper lipped London pedestrians could care less, as they casually walk away from the mayhem. And virtually giving Danpuraa little, to no attention what-so-ever.

Now I don’t like to harp upon the limitations of artists back in the day, especially since they were able to accomplish a lot with said limitations, than most computer savvy photo-shoppers of today could do with more (myself included).

But little oddball details like the un-amused Londoners are still immensely fun to point out.

Pachimon Kaiju Showcase: Tobozu

Pachimon is the collective shorthand used for various Japanese bromide trading and playing cards from late 1960's and early 1970's featuring original Kaiju (giant monsters), created through both drawn illustrations and photo manipulations from more famous creatures from Japanese films and television.

Despite the wealth of fully original characters from these bromide cards, it was the 'rip-off photos' that gave Pachimon (Japanese for 'stolen monsters') its more infamous reputation; terrible shame of inaccuracy and people's misconceptions, really, and I'm no better either, by continuing my series of Pachimon Kaiju articles with said infamy.

Today, we have Tobozu (sometimes called Tohboze), who seems to be some type of sea monster who's invading a ship filled harbor. Many of you will immediately notice that Tobozu is a thinly disguised Gamera, lacking his original turtle shell, given a brown / orange-ish colored skin in place of the original dark green, uneven looking head spikes, and an extended under-bite.

But what really gets my interest is the small group of vacationers by Tobozu's hands / feet who haven't noticed or simply just doesn't care about their approaching doom. If you think that tidbit with the oblivious causalities is hilarious, I'll introduce you all to the London-based Danopura next time!

Before I leave you, I'd like to share my own artistic interpretation of Tobozu which is less of an educated guess on the monster's off-camera body shape than I just simply copying Japanese fan art of Tobozu, notably the Mugen video game versions.

Further Reading and Viewing Online:

Wikipedia Article on Gamera
Trailer for Gamera's 1965 Debut
More Pachimon Kaiju Images

Pachimon Kaiju Showcase: NOT Godzilla

Pachimon, or Pachimon Kaiju, is a term used for various Japanese bromide cards published around the early 1970's. These bromide cards were known for featuring bizarre imitation monsters, directly and indirectly based on more famous characters, if not outright stealing the likenesses completely through pre-digital methods of photo manipulation; hence the term Pachimon, 'Pachi' as in stolen, and 'Mon' as in monster.

Of course, this being simple 'fan slang', the term Pachimon is quite misleading as a good number of these bromide cards also featured fully illustrated, originally designed creations. Hopefully a better terminology will make itself present in the near future but, for now, we'll just refer to these cards collectively as Pachimon Kaiju.

Pachimon are quite obscure as it is, so instead of doing what every other blog has done in the past by uploading these visual oddities in bulk, I'm going to showcase these images a little at a time, along with my own personal insight towards the monster designs featured.

I'm going to start with two Godzilla-based rip-offs, just to get greater exposure among the more fickle American-based Kaiju fans, and to show off just how extreme the 'borrowed likeness' side of these cards truly went.

Above we have the mid-60s Godzilla suit altered with huge ears and a slightly larger bird-like beak. This entry hails from a particular series published by the company Yokopro which had giant monsters menacing foreign landmarks and countries around the world. Despite the Katakana on the bromide card itself (which simply translates as New York), this bird-beaked Godzilla has no real, proper Kaiju name, but a re-purposed playing card reissue of the image does rectify this.

The playing card names the monster Wadorisu (which can also be read as Waadorisu or Wardorisu). Wadorisu is a name that, to me at least, seems to match perfectly with the design's funny beak and ears.

Not much else to say on this New York Pachimon other than that the poor Statue of Liberty was getting harassed by monsters long before baby Cloverfield came along!

Now onto our second Godzilla knock-off who's been altered oh-so-slightly with a neck-frill and porcupine-style spines. The lower line of katakana on this image roughly translates as Yakobu which also means 'Jacob' in Japanese, however, I no idea if this is the monster's name or the airport location that its menacing. For now, we'll just refer to this critter as Yakobu whose design and overall card is a lot more appealing than the earlier New York Pachimon.

Actually, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibly that Yakobu is the Pachimon version of Jirass from "Ultraman", who itself was a refurbished Godzilla suit with an added neck-frill.

If that's the case, then this would be creature design equivalent of painting pure karat gold bars with gold hobby store paint. And then wrapping those golden abominations in shiny, gold colored foil, bought from a party supply shop.

Okay, so maybe its not THAT bad, but Yakobu still has the nicer looking bromide card between the two shown.

Further Reading Online:

All Monsters Blog's Profile of Jirass
More Pachimon Images

G-G-G-G-Ghost Godzilla!!!

UPDATE: Here's another official piece of concept art, that I totally forgot to upload the first time around. This one features Ghost Godzilla's visible dorsal fins, amongst some city devastation.

I don't have much time for an extensive article, centered around otherwise trivial nonsense. So here's a brief article...also centered around otherwise trivial nonsense!

And surprise, surprise! It's yet another Kaiju (giant monster) related one!

We'll be discussing unproduced, or abandoned monster movies once again, and this time, with one of the more famous examples of such - "Godzilla vs Ghost Godzilla" (1994-1995).

Originally planned as the final film to close out the Heisei-cycle of the franchise (1984-to-1995), "Godzilla vs Ghost Godzilla" had its then-current incarnation of the title Monster King, go up against the supposedly more villainous ghost of his long deceased, 1954 counterpart.

More information on the unmade project can be found at Toho Kingdom.

The concept was dropped, largely due to the previous two entries also featuring 'Evil Godzilla Clones'. Those being 1993's "Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II", and 1994's "Godzilla vs Space Godzilla". And "Ghost Godzilla" was replaced with the more original (and ultimately filmed) swan song "Godzilla vs Destroyah" (1995).

In recent years, the one piece of conceptional artwork done for Ghost Godzilla himself, has surfaced on several fan forums. But has yet to be properly posted on actual web-sites and blogs.

So 'Why the Hell not?' I figured!

The rough scan that's being presented below, comes from a licensed Japanese Godzilla book. But I currently have no idea to which one, or to said book's title. Enjoy the obscure eye-candy regardless, everybody!

Probably to the disappointment of many fan artists, the 'REAL' Ghost Godzilla is a fairly simple creature design, as it's just the 1954 original, but given a supernatural blue glow and transparency.

Don't get ME wrong though, as it's highly effective for what it is, and most certainly works as a 'Ghost Godzilla'.

But again, this is merely concept art, from the earliest stages of what ultimately became an abandoned production. And no clue how far the filmmakers would have gone with the Ghost Godzilla character, as to wither-or-not he'd transform between multiple other body stages. Much like The Librarian and her secondary 'back-off' form, from the classic comedy "Ghostbusters".

We are talking about the Godzilla films of the 1990's, after all. It's here (with the arguable exception of Godzilla / Burning Godzilla) that almost every creature featured in these movies, had one-or-more different body upgrades.

Like some kind of nightmarish, jumbo-sized precursor, to ludicrous Pokemon Evolution!

Concerning The Sea Dragon

So this post is based around the lesser known 1987 Japanese fantasy film "Princess from the Moon" ("Taketori Monogatari").

Produced by both Toho Co. Ltd and Fuji Television, "Princess of the Moon" was a prestige picture, based on the famous Japanese folktale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter", also known as "Princess Kaguya".

I'd go into further detail, especially the original story's proto-science fiction elements. But I'm not THAT good of a nonsense scholar, so I don't want to start spewing inaccuracies from the proverbial hinder, if you will. And besides, Wikipedia is NOT as useless as the so-called 'normal masses' will tell you otherwise, so here's their informative article on said folktale.

And instead, I'm going to focus on the 1987 adaptation's lone Kaiju named The Sea Dragon (or simply Dragon).

*********

Contrary to popular belief, mythology never remains constant, between all the various retellings and revisions done to them.

What Disney Animation did to the many Grimm Brothers fairy tales, and Ray Harryhausen nixing the sea monster Cetus, for an original character with the unoriginal name of The Kraken, are both examples of this.

Well, "Princess of the Moon" decided to put a giant monster into its own retelling, along with a newer sub-plot to get it there.

Basically, the half-human / half-lunar alien Kaya (Princess Kaguya herself), attracts the attention of several royal, and high ranking suitors. And Kaguya sends all of them on virtually impossible tasks, in order to sway their affections well away from her.

One such task sends the only real love interest of the lot, to sail to the ends of the Earth. And he, along with his crew, have a disastrous oceanic run in with The Sea Dragon, who promptly sinks the 'good' suitor's ship, with all hands on board.

I'd gleefully say 'Great job on that mess, Princess Kaguya!' But seeing how the somewhat aloof alien-human princess does indeed mourn this particular tragedy, by loosing her one decent would-be husband, that would just be mean spirited.

"Princess from the Moon" is one of those obscure Japanese fantasy films that the more mainstream Kaiju fans here in America MIGHT have heard of in passing (more on that later), but never really followed up on it.

Now there is a rather unfortunate bias these fans have towards all other forms of Japanese science fiction and fantasy. Mainly because Godzilla himself ins't in any of these non-Godzilla projects. And as such, they will openly dismiss and ignore even the exciting entries into the genre. Like last year's "Pacific Rim", and the better series within the Ultraman franchise.

But equally as problematic, is that most of these overlooked Tokusatsu productions are...well...just not that good, when finally seen. Or all that interesting, even by their own individual merits.

Now don't get me wrong, for "Princess of the Moon" is NOT at all a bad film!

It is a very well done, straight faced production, filled with a strong cast of equally prestige Japanese actors. Including world famous veteran Toshiro Mifune, as Taketori-no-Miyatsuko; the woodcutter-turned-wealthy adoptive father of Kaguya.

But like most big studio prestige films (prestige is a fun word to use), it's mostly pomp with very little circumstance. And as such, kind of monotonous to get through, viewing wise.

The film was directed by the acclaimed director Kon Ichikawa, whose work has often been noted by having 'a certain darkness and bleakness, punctuated with sparks of humanity'. However, "Princess of the Moon" is the only film of his I've seen, so I can't tell you for sure if his signature style also includes the aforementioned monotony.

Though with all that said, I'd really like to see his feature length documentary "Tokyo Olympiad" (1965) sometime soon.

Which finally brings us to freaking The Sea Dragon himself; he's barely in the blasted movie!

And no, I'm not being a bitter Kaiju fan here, but the monster's presence is so short, and virtually as pointless, that I honestly believe the movie would have benefited by NOT including the creature to begin with. And instead have Princess Kaguya's true love, be taken out by a regular sea storm. Just like the contractually obligated dead parents from Disney's "Frozen" (2013).

And what little screen time The Sea Dragon does have, we never really get a good look at the monster. Mainly the stiff puppet's back, being pulled through the water, of a smoke-covered model set.

With said, the only good images of The Sea Dragon have been from the few toys and promotional photos made. And so minor are these, that I was forced to make the following composite images through online theft (original web sources are self explanatory).

So how come A LOT of American Kaiju fans seem to be more aware of the minor creature, over the bigger film it originates from?

For a long while now (and still happening, apparently), a lot of people assumed that The Sea Dragon was a recovered, or refurbished monster prop from the failed Toho and Hammer Films co-production "Nessie" (1976-1979).

This of course have long since been disproved, as The Sea Dragon and The Loch Ness Monster from that unproduced effort, are two completely different, unrelated monsters. Both fictionally and actually.

But it's always worth mentioning, and to clarify the situation further, here's some really informative articles on the uncompleted making of "Nessie".

Cryptomundo's Article, by Mark Jaramillo.
A secondary article by Mark Jaramillo.

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.

HELP ME Identify This Mystery Plesiosaur Film!

So yeah...It's been over a year since this blog has been updated, and there's been various reasons for it (some of which stated in the video below).

But I also realize that having a blog allows better exposure, than just relegating myself to DeviantART, and DeviantART alone.

And as an expert of Kaiju (Giant Monsters), my site here can serve a much needed, no-nonsense service. Especially to the overlooked, and lesser known characters, of the genre. Even if my site has little-to-no traffic (more the NON), the articles remain in the 'Internet-Ether' for future readers, seeking such information.

For now however, let me present this hastily done video blog, where my huge rectangular head rambles on for 24 minutes, on both my pleasant childhood memories of early days, of the now infamous Disney Channel. And more importantly, discuss a mystery program from my childhood, about a grandfather and his grandson, trying to save a Giant Plesiosaur from an enclosed lake, and its mechanical floodgate.

If anyone can identify my mystery film, please leave your comments below. Or contact me at the right side of the blog.

UPDATE OF EXTREME HAPPINESS: reader Matthew B. Lamont identified the half-hour film as "Legend of Firefly Marsh" (1987), which I confirmed with an addition search across the internet.

Unfortunately, it's still horribly obscure, with no decent images of the lake Plesiosaur currently available, but its still a world of joy to finally know the title. Big thanks to you, Matthew!