Kaiju


Kaiju is a Japanese genre of films featuring giant monsters. The term kaiju can refer to the giant monsters themselves, which are usually depicted attacking major cities and engaging the military, or other kaiju, in battle. The kaiju genre is a subgenre of entertainment.
The 1954 film Godzilla is commonly regarded as the first kaiju film. Kaiju characters are often somewhat metaphorical in nature; Godzilla, for example, serves as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident. Other notable examples of kaiju characters include Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Gamera.

Origins

The Japanese word kaijū originally referred to monsters and creatures from ancient Japanese legends; it earlier appeared in the Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas. After sakoku had ended and Japan was opened to foreign relations in the mid 19th century, the term kaijū came to be used to express concepts from paleontology and legendary creatures from around the world. For example, in 1908 it was suggested that the extinct Ceratosaurus was alive in Alaska, and this was referred to as kaijū. However, there are no traditional depictions of kaiju or kaiju-like creatures in Japanese folklore; but rather the origins of kaiju are found in film.
The first appearance within a film title of kaijū was Genshi Kaijū ga Arawareru, literally "An Atomic Kaiju Appears", and the title in Japan of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. However, Gojira is commonly regarded as the first kaiju film and was released in 1954. Tomoyuki Tanaka, a producer for Toho Studios in Tokyo, needed a film to release after his previous project was halted. Seeing how well the Hollywood giant monster movie genre films King Kong and The 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 created Godzilla. Tanaka aimed to combine Hollywood giant monster movies with the re-emerged Japanese fears of atomic weapons that arose from the Daigo Fukuryū Maru fishing boat incident; and so he put a team together and created the concept of a radioactive giant creature emerging from the depths of the ocean, a creature that would become the monster Godzilla. Godzilla initially had commercial success in Japan, inspiring other kaiju movies.

Terminology

''Kaijū''

The term kaijū translates literally as "strange beast". Kaiju characters can be considered giant science fiction and fantasy creatures, and can be depicted as antagonistic, protagonistic, or a neutral force of nature. Godzilla has taken on all three roles at various points in the Godzilla franchise. Other examples of kaiju include Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Anguirus, King Kong, Gamera, Daimajin,, Guilala, Clover, Nemesis and Yonggary. Some Mecha characters, such as Mechagodzilla, M.O.G.U.E.R.A., Mechani-Kong, and Dragonzord may also count as kaiju. The term urutora-kaijū is longhand for kaijū in the Ultra Series.

''Daikaiju''

Daikaijū literally translates as "large kaiju" or "great kaiju" and refers to the larger monsters. The exact distinction is debated. This term is used for the most powerful kaiju, the prefix dai- emphasizing great power or status. The first appearance of the term daikaiju is in the Japanese title of Rodan, Sora no Daikaijū Radon. Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra are the san daikaijū, the three great kaiju. An example of the term exists in a 1908 book.

''Kaijin''

Kaijin refers to humanoid kaiju found in tokusatsu media, and is literally translated as "monster man" or "mystery man". The villains of the week from the Kamen Rider Series are examples of kaijin. In some instances, they have the ability to grow to kaiju-size, most notably in Super Sentai and Power Rangers.

''Seijin''

Seijin, literally "star people", appears within Japanese words for extraterrestrial aliens, such as Kaseijin, which means "Martian". Aliens can also be called uchūjin which means "beings from space". But they only best well known in the Ultra Series.

''Kaijū eiga''

Kaijū eiga is a film featuring one or more kaiju.
Toho has produced a variety of kaiju films over the years ; but other Japanese studios contributed to the genre by producing films and shows of their own: Daiei Film, Tsuburaya Productions, and Shochiku and Nikkatsu Studios.

Monster techniques

, who was in charge of the special effects for Gojira, developed a technique to animate the kaiju that became known colloquially as "suitmation". Where Western monster movies often used stop motion to animate the monsters, Tsubaraya decided to attempt to create suits, called "creature suits", for a human to wear and act in. 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. 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. Kaiju films also used a form of puppetry interwoven between suitmation scenes which served for shots that were physically impossible for the suit actor to perform. From the 1998 release of Godzilla, American-produced kaiju films strayed from suitmation to computer-generated imagery. 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 of kaiju films produced in Japan of all eras.

Selected media

Films