Monster of the Day #945

Updated on July 9, 2014 By Ken Begg 8 Comments

Ahhhhh, that’s the stuff.

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  • bgbear_rnh

    A thousand katanas for one maser!

  • Flangepart

    “Destroya!”
    Hummm…might have a good idea there. One Kaiju could feed a family of six for two years…unless he gets them first, of course…

  • Rock Baker

    This one’s completely unknown to me.

  • Eric Hinkle

    So, kaiju in old Japan? I like the idea. But then, I liked Daimajin.

    By the way, has anyone here ever heard about the ‘lost’ kaiju flick ‘King Kong Appears in Edo’? Now that sounds like it’d be something worth seeing.

  • Luke Blanchard

    I’ve read about it online, principally, I think, at Wikipedia. The story sounds dodgy to me.

    Wikipedia’s page on the film has an image of a supposed advertisement for it “published in the April, 1938 issue of Kinema Junpo”. The monster in the images does not appear to be an ape and is human-sized in one scene (middle left) and a giant in another (top left). I think it was more likely a supernatural critter, such as a demon. My guess is the advertisement is a fake and the images are from a post-war movie or TV show. I can’t read Japanese, so I don’t know what the copy in the ad says.

    I can imagine the Kong name being appropriated for a film not about Kong, much as one might call a movie about an Australian vampire AUSTRALIAN DRACULA, but the title KING KONG APPEARS IN EDO suggests a movie that represented its critter as the actual Kong.

    It could be that the ad is fake but the film real. But if the Fuminori Ohashi quote in Wikipedia’s article on the supposed film is real, if the still that illustrates Wikipedia’s page on WASEI KINGU KONGU is real, and if it’s possible that Fuminori Ohashi worked on that other film, he might have been referring to it.

  • Luke Blanchard

    That said, there might be further evidence of its existence I don’t know about, such as a contemporary review. I’d appreciate any correction.
    Was the name Edo still in use at all for contemporary Tokyo in the 30s? I know it was renamed in the 19th century, but it mightn’t follow that the older name dropped completely out of use right away.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I think they were using Edo to refer to Kong visiting Tokyo back when it was called that. So rather than cops and biplanes, I imagine Kong faced samurai and ninja in gliders dropping those eggshell bombs on him.

  • The Rev.

    …I don’t know this one. I want to see it, though. What is it?

    If it’s from Yamato Takeru then I have absolutely forgotten it, which seems unlikely, but who knows?