#Kaiju Booska

[chernobog13]

Seven, his son, Zero, and Zero's adopted brother, Booska.

[biorante]

[tokusongs]

"Kaiju Booska" OP (1966). Performed by Takahashi Kazue.

[jimpluff]

Naturally, based Gege Akutami (Jujutsu Kaisen) knows the deep-cut kaiju (below: Kanegon, Booska)

[theladydracula]

My favorite kaiju next to Pigmon - Booska!! He is just the cutest!

[iamthekaijuking]

Gigabash character overview: Woolley

It’s pretty common for media to have at least one adorable and marketable character, and Passion Republic Games have one for Gigabash. Being one of the four initial kaiju developed, Woolley was made to be cute and likable. He even had a promotional plush of his S-class form sold in the lead up to the game’s release!

Woolley is a slightly more defensive character with some quick movement options, a counterattack move, and two attacks that are impossible to block and require good timing to stop. He’s got a high skill ceiling and pulling off extensive combos can be tricky. But like with every character in Gigabash’s roster, he’s deadly in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.

Design

PRG took awhile to get a good design to settle on with Woolley, as they wanted him to be cute and likable all around and have a simple silhouette that was easily recognizable. Like Gorogong and Pipijuras, he went through multiple design revisions.

While there’s no direct statement on if any particular kaiju inspired Woolley’s design, he does bear a passing resemblance to another popular Tsuburaya icon: Booska.

Lore

Woolley is just one member of a species of kaiju known as the Yetis, peaceful kaiju who live in herds where they sleep and play all day and subsist entirely on Giga Energy. The reports on his character file actually give us insight into the evolution of his species, and how kaiju might evolve in the world of Gigabash.

Yetis are descendants of a small mammal with thick fur that migrated to the Himalayas sometime in the Pleistocene Epoch. Here they also used local hot springs to help stay warm, but these hot springs were connected to underground veins of Giga Energy. As they were gradually exposed to the substance, they slowly became larger and larger over subsequent generations and came to rely less and less on food for energy. In only a few million years they became 120 ton titans. They remained there until near modern day, and for the local humans it was common practice to go and collect shed Yeti fur to be used in the creation of coats.

At some point though, these Giga Energy veins ran dry, and this forced them to search for a new home. At least some of them migrated to a remote place in Siberia surrounded by mountains that has been dubbed the Yeti Sanctuary, and is rich with hot springs and Giga Energy. It even has an entrance to the hollow earth! The same one Pipijuras uses in his story mode too.

Woolley’s story mode revolves around him getting lost and trying to get home. One day he sees planes flying overhead and follows them out of curiosity, but gets lost in the process.

In his effort to go home he actually goes the opposite direction of where he came and gets increasingly distracted on his adventure, ping ponging across the world and interrupting the events of Pipijuras and Gorogong’s story modes.

It’s during this story mode we learn about a somewhat important location and information about the Yetis, another kaiju we’ll eventually get to, and kaiju as a whole in the world of Gigabash.

The area, which is one of the maps, is the Power Station, a section of Area 51 which seeks to figure out how to properly harness Giga Energy. As you’re aware, humanity has been trying to harness Giga Energy, but they’re having difficulties. Like with almost all of humanity’s power sources, in order to get electricity out of it you need to figure out a way to get it to turn a turbine that can spin a magnet around some electrical wires. This gets electrons flowing and thus generates electricity, and this is the basic principle of creating usable electricity. Apparently it’s hard to get Giga Energy to do this safely, although what part of the process is difficult to do with Giga Energy is never said. Only Otama Tec has figured out how to get this to work with the creation of their Gigatron Reactor, and they’re not keen to share their discoveries for reasons we’ll get to in the next overview. So the Global Titan Defense Initiative, being the dickwads they are, did a little corporate espionage and stole the blueprints of an earlier more theoretical version of the Gigatron Reactor and created the Power Station to test it out and improve it. It uses Giga Crystals (again, we’ll get to it) as the main source of Giga Energy, but kaiju can apparently be used as well since in his story mode Woolley gets captured and chained up to meet this fate. However, the Power Station is riddled with issues in no small part due to the sheer power of Giga Energy. It’s so dangerous that the GTDI makes any employees working there unsubscribe from their life insurance because of course they would do that.

As Woolley travels around the world, he meets entirely new herds of Yetis on his travels in every major location he stops at. These Yetis all have different colorations than Woolley and his herd, and are described as subspecies. It’s pretty likely that when the Yetis migrated from the Himalayas, the population split up in their search for sources of Giga Energy, and these different populations diverged from each other. They aren’t entirely isolated though as a few are aware of each other’s existence and point Woolley in each other’s direction, and it seems that Yetis as a whole have a shared language.

This brings us to something that’s never really explicitly stated but is shown to us and is obvious in hindsight; the kaiju in the world of Gigabash are sapient. The game is a party fighting game so obviously they would have to be smart in universe in order to have battle strategies and know how to use city infrastructure as tools and weapons as the player demands, but it’s one of those things where you realize it and go “Oh, yeah that makes a lot of sense… why didn’t I realize it until now?”. The Yetis in particular have even learned how to use fire, although they use burning vehicles as fuel instead of dry wood.

This shot also shows that Yetis can go bald. Like and reblog this post to slap the elder yeti’s bald head.

Woolley’s story concludes with him staying focused and retracting his steps (which gives us a lot of fun pictures) and eventually finding his way home.

There is of course one last fight, but it turns out that the other Yetis he met decided to follow him, and end up helping in defending his home. Afterwards they end up integrating with the Siberian herd quite well! Even though Woolley spent his story trying to get back to his family, it’s sweet to know that his efforts gave him an even bigger one.

All in all, Woolley is a great character and is a fun and adorable addition to Gigabash’s roster, and his story mode is sweet.

Also I don��t really know where else to put this but lore tidbit: in the Gigabash universe it’s implied the Soviet Union fell but Russia is still a communist country unlike the capitalist IRL Russia. They’re a dictatorship like IRL Russia though.

[coolkaijuadventrue]

I won’t explain, but this makes me experience something that can’t be put into words

[wildbeautifuldamned]

Rare Ultraman Mini SOFUBI Booska Collection Gashapon BANDAI 1997’ Kaiju Booska ebay pukupku66

[jetman-001-daira]

Booska!!

Parasa parasa!

[kaijutokunerd]

[chernobog13]

The Nakatomi family (of the Osaka Nakatomis) and their family pet.

Actually, this is the kaiju Banila from Ultraman repurposed (well, the body at least) as the Imora, who appeared on the Kaiju Booska show.

[herofestival]

[himitsusentaiblog]

A checklist of Ultra Kaiju vinyl figures.

[theladydracula]

@avartwork got me Booska!!!

[iamthekaijuking]

What each Gigabash kaiju we have so far is a reference to and what archetype they fill

Gigabash is an upcoming kaiju fighting game with so far 9 carefully crafted characters. As a kaiju game some may think it’s full of godzilla references, but Gigabash is actually heavily inspired by Ultraman. And this makes sense since Passion Republic Games is a Malaysian company and I’ve heard Ultraman was a big hit over there. So then, what does each kaiju reference?

Gorogong

Gorogong isn’t my favorite Gigabash character but I would argue that he’s definitely the best designed. With big arms like red king EX and the mug of guigass, it’s obvious what he references. However Gorogong is distinct enough that he doesn’t bear much of a resemblance to either monster that inspired his design, and he also wouldn’t look out of place in an Ultraman episode either. Gorogong wears his inspiration on his oversized sleeve but is still very much his own monster, and that is truly great creature design. In the context of a fighting game he’s the brawler.

Pipijurass

Everyone’s favorite star child who would love McDonald’s happymeal toys. He’s on the same boat as Gorogong in that his inspiration is obvious but he’s also distinct from said inspiration. The obvious comparison here is that of Alien Baltan, with the cybernetic claws being the dead giveaway. Although his colors seem inspired by Tiny baltan specifically. Another less obvious reference could be that of alien metron, as they have similar head shapes. Pipijurass is the ranged fighter.

Thundatross

Thundatross is the obligatory giant spiky anime Mech. Sadly there’s not much to say as I don’t know which anime inspired him. Although he does have a cool big sword.

Woolley

Woolley is a bit hard to pin down, but @master-of-gaburincho pointed out he could be based off Booska. He’s obviously the cute marketable monster, but I don’t know any Ultraman monsters he could be inspired by.

Gigaman

An Ultraman inspired piece of media wouldn’t be complete without its Ultraman, and that’s exactly who Gigaman is supposed to be. He’s a quick fighter with lots of combos. Interestingly, Gigaman in universe has been retired for 8 years and came out of retirement for the kaiju crisis happening when we play. He’s not as spry as he used to be and he’s not as in shape either. But that’s okay, it’s about time we had a dad bod ultra.

Skorak

The technical fighter with status effects, Skorak is a fun looking monster who looks like his name could be blorbo and that he could be the kaiju answer to live slug reaction. Interestingly he’s actually very intelligent and wants to conquer everyone (implied by the titles of his skins) and eat weaker titans. We’ve gotten an overlord slugulon monster in ultra media before too, albeit in the form of the way more lovecraftian Gatanothor.

Rohanna

Rohanna is obviously meant to fill the benevolent force of nature archetype in kaiju media like Mothra. And like Mothra she has dedicated followers. As a game character she’s the character that summons minions, thankfully though she’s not reliant on it.

Kongkrete

Kongkrete’s reveal was honestly out of left field. He’s obviously meant to be the surprisingly viable joke character, but I don’t think there’s really an Ultraman monster that inspired him. But I do think it’s really fun that buildings can fight back in a piece of kaiju media for once.

Rawa

Finally my favorite of the bunch, Rawa, who I’ve headcanoned as a small angry stupid guardian. My best bud @dappercritter pointed out that it could be loosely inspired by natsunomeryu from Ultraman. Rawa also fills the force of destruction kaiju archetype like godzilla, and does have a lot of energy based attacks like him. Rawa’s overall design also feels a lot like early to mid 2010s deviantart kaiju. The head of Rawa is also obviously based off that of nagas, which makes sense since again, Passion Republic Games is Malaysian.

These are the characters we’ve gotten so far, but the game is supposed to launch with ten, meaning we’ll be getting one more character before launch and potentially more after. And until then I can’t wait for Gigabash.

[obakewashinanai]

This is my interpretation of Eiji Tsuburaya’s amazing Kaiju Booska :)