Godzilla vs. Evangelion Dried Ramen Snacks

As a tie-in promotion with the Shin Godzilla movie, the makers of "Baby Star" dried ramen have released a really cool two pack featuring Japan's most famous kaiju vs. one of its most famous anime mecha characters.

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Excellent Hedorah Sofubi Exhibit

I recently saw an excellent exhibit of Hedorah sofubi figures. Here are pics:

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Vintage Godzilla Posters and Champion Matsuri Pamphlets

Very nice selection of vintage Japanese posters and Champion Matsuri pamphlets potted in Tokyo.

Here's a video I shot:

Epic vintage Godzilla movie poster and movie program display

Yesterday at Nakano Broadway I spotted one of the best assortments of vintage Godzilla posters, programs, and other movie materials I've ever seen for sale.

It looks like Mandarake was saving a bunch up to sell all together in honor of the big guy's 60th birthday. It's also probably no coincidence that we're in the middle of the Obon holiday season, during which stores are packed with shoppers.

Posters:

Some really rare posters for sale.

King Kong vs. Godzilla

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Godzilla movie promotions in Taiwan

Taiwan Godzilla poster inside movie theater.

Taiwan is a major market for international films, and the country goes all out in promoting Hollywood blockbusters. Recently, theaters pulled out all the stops to put Godzilla on everyone's mind, including some nice giveaways, displays, and cross-marketing efforts.

Taking a page out of Japan's decades-old tradition of handing out movie flyers at theaters, Taiwan put together an A-4 sized Godzilla flyer, But they took it a step further,

The flyer, featuring one of the main movie poster images (with traditional Chinese script) is on high-quality, heavy paper stock.

The back contains six stickers which can be peeled off one by one. Awesome!

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Art of Godzilla - Yuji Kaida Exhibition + Signing 開田裕治 原画展

In Ginza, Cheepa's Gallery has an ongoing exhibition of the works of fantasy and kaiju artist extraordinaire Yuji Kaida ( 開田裕治). The show is entitled Art of Godzilla: Kaida Yuji Original Exhibition. On display are dozens of works by Kaida-san, a commercial artist who has created images for books, magazines, and comics (including Dark Horse's Gamera), as well as packaging artwork for video games such as Sega's Snatcher and Daimakaimura - aka Ghouls 'n Ghosts. He has also provided the packaging artwork for numerous toy lines, including Zoids, Gundam, Macross, and of course Godzilla.

The show wraps on May 6, so to put a cap on the festivities, the gallery hosted Kaida-san for a signing session. The core of the kaiju-themed exhibition is a display of fantastic works by Kaida-san of Godzilla, Mothra, Gigan, and others. There's also a shop selling exclusive toy releases by Marusan (including a lovely blank GID 450 series Godzilla), in addition to post cards, cloth prints, and a new book featuring Kaida-san's art.

Photography was largely restricted, but I was able to take some shots.

Poster advertising Kaida-san's new book.

Two of the post card sets for sale.

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Japanese Monster Movie Poster Trading Cards

I recently came across these cool trading cards featuring scaled-down versions of movie posters from some of Japan's most famous kaiju-themed films, like Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. Mecha Godzilla. The cards, which are on good, heavy paper stock, were made in 1995 in Japan by Amada, a company that's been making paper-based items for quite a long time.

Here are pics of the cards I got:

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SDCC 2013: Godzilla Encounter

To build up excitement for the upcoming Godzilla movie (2014 release), Legendary Pictures went to great lengths to deck out an offsite building in San Diego for fans to check out. Time stamped tickets were distributed at the LP booth in the con.

The site was something of an homage to previous Godzilla films, along with some tantalizing looks at what the creature will look like in the new film. That part was absolutely off-limits to photography, so all I can share is a look at the first part of the exhibit.

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Interview with Marusan's boss: Eiji Kaminaga

At the recent Wonder Festival, I had a chance to talk with Marusan's boss Eiji Kaminaga for a few minutes. In this video, Kaminaga-san talks about Marusan's new Godzilla figures, Marusan's new mobile app, digital photo frame (with pics + video), and other sofubi and digital publishing plans.

Wonder Festival 2012 (Winter) / ワンダーフェスティバル 2012［冬］ Part 6 Videos

Here at last we arrive at the final part of our 2012 Winter Wonder Festival report. I only had a chance to shoot a couple of short videos. Here they are:

King Ghidorah



Dynamic Koguma



Complete Guide to Kaiju Korner's 2012 Winter Wonder Festival coverage:

Part 1 (Medicom Exclusives) click here.
Part 2 (Indy Sofubi) click here.
Part 3 (Garage kits, models, and miniatures) click here.
Part 4 (Monsters, Cosplay, and Assorted Mayhem) click here.
Part 5 (Exhibitions) click here.
Part 6 (Videos) click here.

I hope you've enjoyed our event coverage. See you next time!

Giant Godzilla Slide!

Pics and Videos of an enormous Godzilla slide have been surfacing, and I had to post here it's so cool. These are links, pics, and videos that I cobbled together from the Interwebs, so thanks to all who left the trail of breadcrumbs that made this post possible!

The Godzilla slide is located in Kurihama Flower World, which is near Kurihama, a city on the Miura Peninsula. I did some virtual leg work, and the closest station -Keikyukurihama - is about 1.5 hours from Shinjuku. Click here for public transportation routing from Tokyo.

I also plotted a walking route from the station to Godzilla. It's 1.9 kilometers. Here's a walking map. I imagine there are also buses and what not to get you from the train station to Kurihama Flower World, but even if there aren't, the good news is the park isn't too far out there in the boonies, and the most you'd have to walk is maybe 15-20 minutes from the train station to the park entrance, and then a few more minutes to Godzilla.

It sounds like a very nice park in its own right, with huge fields of flowers. But we're here to talk about flower stomping beasties!

Here are a couple more stills:

So you go in one end, and out the other. It's the circle of radioactive kaiju life! Oh, caaaan't you feel the...too much? OK, never happened.

Here's a video of Sir Beastie. Love the theme music!!!



Finally, here's an overhead satellite look + map to the site (zoom out from the top view). Unlike the huge Gundam which went up and down pretty quickly, this Godzilla seems to be a lasting fixture and has been around at least a couple of years. It looks like it would make a fantastic day trip from Tokyo.