hey-hei - Tumblr blog

hey-hei · 2 years

Text

Kaiju Anatomy (pt 1)

688 notes · View notes

hey-hei · 2 years

Text

Toho Trademark Icon Archive (ver. 1.1.1)

292 notes · View notes

hey-hei · 2 years

Text

Kaiju Anatomy

398 notes · View notes

hey-hei · 2 years

Photo

Happy Halloween everyone! Here is a spooky Godzilla story I scanned and translated into English, from the Godzilla comic. It’s “Warning from G” by Shinobu Kaze.

You can read and enjoy the whole thing here, in PDF, or image by image:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pBneTwlYivW3Rl43nsG5wHoXfQz5aGQu/view?usp=sharing

By “conventional” Godzilla standards, this might be one of the weirdest Godzilla stories to ever exist. It mainly concerns Godzilla being killed by a martial artist, and Godzilla subsequently posessing a baby. Brief panels from this comic have appeared online over the years,often with biwilderment, and it’s no surprise why.

While I maintain it’s certainly out there, I think it’s incredibly fascinating once you know more about the background of the characters and philsophy behind the story, which is rooted in “Japanese Occultism”.

The story appears to largely be based on the philsophies and religious teachings of Onisaburo Deguchi.

The short version is that Onisaburo, according to Wikipedia, was a Japanese religious teacher who believed in a spirit world that reflects humanity. He believed that humanity needed to come together, and that negative energy/vibes, creates and continues horrible actions. While I’m always skeptical to praise spiritual leaders that sound nice on paper, it’s worth noting that Onisaburo was a critic of imperial Japan, as he apparently believed that the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan has a negative impact on the human and spiritual world. Therefore, the idea of the story is that ambigiously, post WW2, perhaps ideas and hatred still linger, or so much hatred exists in the world that Godzilla, a manifestation of evil, appeared (if this sounds a little like GMK, you’re not wrong!).

Therefore, the stories titular “warning”, is that if humanity continues to be horrible to one another, the world will get worse and worse, before horrible creatures will appear!

You can read more about him here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onisaburo_Deguchi

I think if you’re a fan of other Japanese series (Yu Yu Hakusho), this may also ring a bell. It’s the type of thing that may be repeatedly referenced in Japanese media (Like Journey to the West), that may not be immediately obvious to “Western”/“Non-Japanese”/“Non-Asian” viewers.

That brings us to the second weird intersection of the story, “martial arts”. I couldn’t find any English resources on Moshibe Uehara, so I apologize in advance if some of that was a little unclear, or if he was a real person and I’ve just misidentified someone. It’s worth noting that one

Professional Wrestler Jushin Liger is brought up at one point in the story:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jushin_Liger

What adds an extra layer of weirdness, is that Jushin Liger, the wrestler, partially bases his persona on the actual anime/manga series “Jushin Liger”, by Go Nagai. We’ll get to Go Nagai in a moment…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jushin_Liger_(TV_series)

Seishi Moribe

The character Seishi Moribe was a real martial artist. Unfortunately, little if any, information exists in English. What I can find about him was that his father was a personal bodyguard for Hideki Tojo, and that he was a martial artist before becoming a wrestling promoter. He later trained Masaharu Funaki, a renowned Japanese MMA Fighter. Funnily enough… Funaki would go on to play a small role as the commander of the Mutant Squad in Godzilla Final Wars!

Anyways, Horibe claims to have invented the “bone method” from the story (which really doesn’t have an english translation as far as I can tell), and his supposed feats with it are unreliable.

Ootomo Karo, whom the story claims originally invented ed the bone style, was a real general during the Nara period.

So, you wind up with a Godzilla tale that is, one part Godzilla, one part Japanese spirtuality, and one part martial arts. I think it surpsingly works well for what it is.

Shinobu Kaze is awesome, and I recommend looking into his other works. That brings us to “Go Nagai”, one of the most famous mangakas who is up there with Tezuka Osamu and Toriyama Akira. While not directly credited, the credit of the story is given to Shinobu Kaze AND Dynamic Pro. Dynamic production was one of Nagai’s studios/production crews. It’s unclear if Nagai was directly involved with this, but it’s pretty significant to have this involvement. It makes sense, as some of the ideas in the story also line up with Devilman’s theming and style.

PS: you may have noticed that my scans and image quality are a lot better. I’ve invested a lot in a better setup and process, so I intend to pretty much translate all of the Godzilla Comic and Godzilla Comic Strikes back over time.

141 notes · View notes

hey-hei · 8 years

Photo

Youkai and yuurei, art by Alien-D/Amayagi-dô Jun

Summer is Japan’s Ghost season. While Obon’s ancestors festival is around the corner, heat is also very thick and smothering. Since the Edo period, people have added two and two and found a way of cooling themselves - by sending chills down one’s spine.

Telling each others ghost stories (obake-banashi) or testing their courage at night, Japanese bring back to life their rich tradition of creepy ghosts and weird monsters. Be them old youkai or recent urban legends!

2K notes · View notes

hey-hei · 8 years

Photo