Godzilla (1954) is often regarded as the firstkaiju movie. When developing it, Honda and Tsuburaya drew inspiration from the character ofKing Kong, both in its influential1933 film and in the conception of a giant monster, establishing it as a pivotal precursor in the evolution of the genre.[2] During their formative years,kaiju movies were generally neglected by Japanese critics, who regarded them as "juvenile gimmick", according to authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski.[1]
Camille Flammarion'sLe Monde avant la création de l'homme (The World Before Man's Creation) series in 1886 includes several illustrations that depict appearances of bipedal dinosaurs in modern society.
Genre elements were present at the end ofWinsor McCay's 1921 animated shortThe Pet in which a mysterious giant animal starts destroying the city, until it is countered by a massiveairstrike. It was based on a 1905 episode of McCay's comic strip seriesDreams of the Rarebit Fiend.[9]
The 1925 filmThe Lost World (adapted fromArthur Conan Doyle's 1912novel of the same name), featured many dinosaurs, including abrontosaurus that breaks loose in London and destroysTower Bridge. The dinosaurs of The Lost World were animated by pioneeringstop motion techniques byWillis H. O'Brien, who would some years later animate the giant gorilla-like creature breaking loose in New York City in the 1933 filmKing Kong. The enormous success ofKing Kong can be seen as the definitive breakthrough ofmonster movies. This influential achievement of King Kong paved the way for the emergence of the giant monster genre, serving as a blueprint for future kaiju productions. Its success reverberated in the film industry, leaving a lasting impact and solidifying the figure of the giant monster as an essential component in genre cinematography.[2]RKO Pictures later licensed the King Kong character to the Japanese studioToho, resulting in the co-productionsKing Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) andKing Kong Escapes (1967), both directed byIshirō Honda.
Yoshirō Edamasa directedThe Great Buddha Arrival in 1934. Although the original film is now lost, stills of the film have survived, and it is one of the earliest examples of akaiju film in Japanese cinematic history.[10] The 1934 film presumably influenced the production of theUltraman franchise.[11]
Ray Bradbury's short story published in the Saturday Evening Post, June 23, 1951 "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" served as the basis for the filmThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), featuring afictional dinosaur (animated byRay Harryhausen), which is released from its frozen, hibernating state by anatomic bomb test within theArctic Circle. The American movie was released in Japan in 1954 under the titleThe Atomic Kaiju Appears, marking the first use of the genre's name in a film title.[12] However,Godzilla, released in 1954, is commonly regarded as the first Japanesekaiju film.Tomoyuki Tanaka, a producer forToho Studios in Tokyo, needed a film to release after his previous project was halted. Seeing how well the Hollywood giant monster movie genre filmsKing Kong andThe Beast from 20,000 Fathoms had done in Japanese box offices, and himself a fan of these films, he set out to make a new movie based on them and createdGodzilla.[13] Tanaka aimed to combine Hollywood giant monster movies with the re-emerged Japanese fears ofatomic weapons that arose from theDaigo Fukuryū Maru fishing boat incident; and so he put a team together and created the concept of a giant radioactive creature emerging from the depths of the ocean, a creature that would become the monster Godzilla.[14]Godzilla initially had commercial success in Japan, inspiring otherkaiju movies.[15]
King Kong (1933) was a major influence on the Japanesekaiju genre.
The Arctic Giant (1942) is one of pioneering productions to depictGodzilla-esque characters to attack a modern civilization.[16]
TheGamera franchise played a significant role in forming the genre along with theGodzilla franchise and theUltra Series.
"Kaijin" redirects here. For the Chinese and Japanese legendary creature, seeHairen.
(怪人 lit. "Strange person") refers to distorted human beings or humanoid-like creatures. The origin ofkaijin goes back to the early 20th Century Japanese literature, starting withEdogawa Rampo's 1936 novel,The Fiend with Twenty Faces. The story introduced Edogawa's master detective,Kogoro Akechi's arch-nemesis, the eponymous "Fiend", a mysterious master of disguise, whose real face was unknown; theMoriarty to Akechi'sSherlock. Catching the public's imagination, many such literary and movie (and later television) villains took on the mantle ofkaijin. To be clear,kaijin is not an offshoot ofkaiju. The first-ever kaijin that appeared on film wasThe Great Buddha Arrival a lost film, made in 1934. After thePacific War, the term was modernized when it was adopted to describe the bizarre, genetically engineered andcybernetically enhanced evil humanoid spawn conceived for theKamen Rider Series in 1971. This created a new splinter of the term, which quickly propagated through the popularity of superhero programs produced from the 1970s, forward. Thesekaijin possess rational thought and the power of speech, as do human beings. A successivekaijin menagerie, in diverse iterations, appeared over numerous series, most notably theSuper Sentai programs premiering in 1975 (later carried over intoSuper Sentai's English iteration asPower Rangers in the 1990s).
This created yet another splinter, as thekaijin ofSuper Sentai have since evolved to feature unique forms and attributes (e.g.,gigantism), existing somewhere betweenkaijin andkaiju.[citation needed]
Daikaijū (大怪獣) literally translates as "giantkaiju" or "greatkaiju". This hyperbolic term was used to denote greatness of the subjectkaiju, the prefixdai- emphasizing great size, power, and/or status. The first known appearance of the termdaikaiju in the 20th Century was in the publicity materials for the original 1954 release ofGodzilla. Specifically, in the subtitle on the original movie poster,Suibaku Daikaiju Eiga (水爆大怪獣映画), lit. "H-Bomb Giant Monster Movie".[citation needed]Gamera, the Giant Monster, the first film of theGamera franchise in 1965, also utilized the term where the Japanese title of the film isDaikaijū Gamera (大怪獣ガメラ).
Seijin (星人 lit. "star people"), appears within Japanese words for extraterrestrial aliens, such asKaseijin (火星人), which means "Martian". Aliens can also be calleduchūjin (宇宙人) which means "spacemen". Among the best knownSeijin in the genre can be found in theUltra Series, such as Alien Baltan fromUltraman, a race of cicada-like aliens who have gone on to become one of the franchise's most enduring and recurring characters other than the Ultras themselves.[citation needed]
Eiji Tsuburaya, who was in charge of the special effects forGodzilla, developed a technique to animate thekaiju that became known colloquially as "suitmation".[18] Where Western monster movies often usedstop motion to animate the monsters, Tsubaraya decided to attempt to create suits, called "creature suits", for a human (suit actor) to wear and act in.[19] This was combined with the use of miniature models and scaled-down city sets to create the illusion of a giant creature in a city.[20] Due to the extreme stiffness of the latex or rubber suits, filming would often be done at double speed, so that when the film was shown, the monster was smoother and slower than in the original shot.[13]Kaiju films also used a form ofpuppetry interwoven between suitmation scenes for shots that were physically impossible for the suit actor to perform. From the 1998 release ofGodzilla, American-producedkaiju films strayed from suitmation tocomputer-generated imagery (CGI). In Japan, CGI and stop-motion have been increasingly used for certain special sequences and monsters, but suitmation has been used for an overwhelming majority ofkaiju films produced in Japan of all eras.[20][21]
Steven Spielberg citedGodzilla as an inspiration forJurassic Park (1993), specificallyGodzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he saw in his youth.[22] During its production, Spielberg describedGodzilla as "the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening."[23] One scene in the second movie (The Lost World: Jurassic Park), the T-Rex is rampaging throughSan Diego. One scene shows Japanese businessmen fleeing. One of them states that they left Japan to get away from this, hinting that Godzilla shares the same universe as the Jurassic Park movies.Godzilla also influenced the Spielberg filmJaws (1975).[24][25]
The popularPokémon media franchise has been inspired bykaiju culture since its inception, and many of its monster designs are based onkaiju.[26]
The music video for theBeastie Boys' 1998 song "Intergalactic", directed by band memberAdam Yauch and featuring a giant robot battling a giant octopus-headed monster, causing destruction to a city in the process, is inspired by Japanesekaiju films and TV series such asGodzilla andGiant Robo.[27]
In the Japanese-language original of theCardcaptor Sakuraanime series,Sakura's brotherToya likes to tease her by regularly calling her "kaiju", relating to her noisily coming down from her room for breakfast every morning.[28]
The Polish cartoon TV seriesBolek and Lolek makes a reference to thekaiju film industry in the miniseries "Bolek and Lolek's Great Journey" by featuring a robot bird (similar toRodan) and a saurian monster (in reference toGodzilla) as part of a Japanese director's monster star repertoire.[citation needed]
TheInspector Gadget film had Robo-Gadget attacking San Francisco à lakaiju monsters. In addition, similar toThe Lost World, it shows a Japanese man while fleeing from Robo-Gadget declaring in his native tongue that he left Tokyo specifically to get away from this.
In the second season ofStar Wars: The Clone Wars, there is a story arc composed of two episodes entitled "The Zillo Beast" and "The Zillo Beast Strikes Back", mostly influenced byGodzilla films, in which a huge reptilian beast is transported from its homeworld Malastare to the city-covered planet Coruscant, where it breaks loose and goes on a rampage.[30][31]
InReturn of the Jedi, therancor was originally to be played by an actor in a suit similar to howkaiju films likeGodzilla were made. However, the rancor was eventually portrayed by a puppet filmed in high speed.[32]
In the 2009 filmCrank: High Voltage, there is a sequence parodyingkaiju films using the same practical effects techniques used for tokusatsu films such as miniatures and suitmation.[citation needed]
The Japaneselight novel seriesGate makes use of the termkaiju as a term for giant monsters – specifically an ancient Fire Dragon – in the Special Region. Also, one of the Japanese protagonists refers to theJSDF's tradition to fight such monsters in the films, as well as comparing said dragon withKing Ghidorah at one point.[35][36]
Godzilla and Gamera had been referenced and appear many times throughout theDr. Slump series.[citation needed]
InPenn Zero: Part-Time Hero, there is a dimension that is filled with giant monsters that live on one island where they co-exist with humans that live on a city island.[citation needed]
In the "Sorcerous Stabber Orphen" serieskaiju are sent as a form of punishment for the breakage of everlasting laws of the world by the Goddesses of Fate.[37]
Batholith the Summit Kaiju (Japanese: バソリス) is a mountain (kaiju) originating from "Summit Kaiju International", an American media company based in Denver, Colorado. Batholith was first introduced to Godzilla fan during G-Fest 2017, which is an annual convention devoted to the Godzilla film franchise. Batholith the Summit Kaiju has appeared in various print media, including Famous Monsters of Filmland "Ack-Ives: Godzilla Magazine, MyKaiju Godzilla Magazine MyKaiju Godzilla Magazine, Summit Kaiju online video series, and other online media related to the Godzilla andkaiju genre.
In theNemesis Saga series of novels, Kaiju, also known as "Gestorumque", are genetic weapons sent by an alien race.
InJohn Scalzi's 2022 bookThe Kaiju Preservation Society, kaiju are a species of gigantic monsters that exist in a parallel earth accessible through radiation sources.
^Yoda, Tomiko; Harootunian, Harry (2006).Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present. Duke University Press Books. p. 344.ISBN9780822388609.
^Weinstock, Jeffery (2014)The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
![The Arctic Giant (1942) is one of pioneering productions to depict Godzilla-esque characters to attack a modern civilization.[16]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aThe_giant_escapes.jpg)
![The Great Buddha Arrival (1934), which potentially inspired Ultraman,[11] was one of the earliest kaiju films in Japan along with Wasei Kingu Kongu (1933) and The King Kong That Appeared in Edo (1938).[10]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aBouddha_Edamasa_1934.jpg)
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Media related toKaiju at Wikimedia Commons
