Ultraman | Musings of the Monster Librarian

Musings: Shigeru Mizuki’s Yokai and Shoji Ohtomo’s Kaiju: Love Is In The Details

I attended G-Fest this past weekend with my son, who is a huge Godzilla and kaiju fan (for those of you who don’t know what kaiju are, they are giant Japanese movie monsters, most of which have been created since the original Godzilla movie premiered in 1954. If you are a Gen Xer, you probably saw them on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon television).

While I’m not a huge Godzilla fan myself, I have lived with two of them, and it’s an education. But their enthusiasm in collecting action figures and watching the movies is nothing compared to the contagious love of the genre and almost everything about it that I experienced at G-Fest. You have to dig deep to find the kind of information some of the people running the sessions shared.

Yokai daizaiku (electric yokai) anatomical drawing by Shigeru Mizuki, courtesy of Monster Brains

The last session I attended was about art depicting Japanese monsters. One of the artists responsible for documenting Japanese monsters put incredible effort and artistry into depicting Japanese folk monsters, called yokai, particularly in the manga series Ge Ge No Kitaro. Eisner Award winner Shigeru Mizuki started out drawing pictures for Japanese story theaters called kamishibai, before the popularity of manga, studied and drew yokai from both the outside and inside (unfortunately, he died in 2015).

Drawing near the same time was another artist, Shoji Ohtomo. What Mizuki did for yokai, Ohtomo did for kaiju. His drawings show how interested he was in the details of what made kaiju work, and many people called him “Dr. Kaiju”. Unfortunately, while you can find a reasonable amount of information on Shigeru Mizuki, it’s not as easy to find the same

Cross-section of King Ghidorah (left), photo of Shoji Ohtomo (right).

about Shoji Ohtomo. Here’s a short piece I found over at Monster Brains that includes several of his anatomical drawings. And a few of my very blurry photos from the session, run by Stan Hyde.

Anatomical drawings of Gappa (left) and Gamera (right) by Shoji Ohtomo.

You have to really care about monsters to want to imagine what they would be like inside if they weren’t fictional characters represented by an actor in a rubber suit.

Shoji Ohtomo is also credited by some with the original design of Ultraman, an alien kaiju fighter. Ohtomo’s original drawing appears on the right, with more finished designs on the left. Before I became a children’s librarian, I wanted to be an archivist and manuscripts librarian, and getting to see the details that go into the process of creation, whether it is drafts of a poem by Sylvia Plath or the development of a character like Ultraman is why I wanted to do that.

Original drawing and cross-sections for Ultraman, by Shoji Ohtomo

It’s easy to write off some of these films as cheesy B-movies. As a genre, they do indeed have their cheesy, goofy moments. But there are many talented artists in a variety of mediums who have contributed to the development of kaiju eiga films and there is a lot more going on than there seems to be on the surface. Because so much of what makes these movies work occurred (and occurs) in Japan, and (at least given my experience at this convention) many of the makers and actors aren’t known outside Japan(three of the special guests needed a translator), most people don’t get to appreciate that.

What does any of this have to do with the horror genre? Well, if it had nothing to do with it, this would still be really cool to see. But besides stories about giant monsters being part of the stock in trade, many creators in the horror genre expend the same kind of attention to detail in crafting their art, and in the past have found their work similarly dismissed. I encourage you to explore the different ways monsters and horror are experienced around the world, so you can see that love of the genre expressed in the many different ways people perceive it. Look further, and find even more to love.

Kaiju Lovers Are The Best: G-Fest Report

The Monster Kid chatting with a kaiju at G-Fest’s Dojo Studios

This past weekend we went to G-Fest, a Godzilla fan convention in Chicago. The Monster Kid comes by his love of monsters honestly– he inherited it from his dad. The Monster Librarian has been a kaiju lover since before I met him, and in our first apartment I couldn’t walk through our shared study without some crazy looking critter falling on me. Boxes more of them in boxes were stacked in the closet until we moved out and my mom, over his intense objections, took all of them out of their original packaging to make them fit better in the packing boxes (all collectors wince now). The monsters were packed away in boxes again when we transformed the study in our first house into a bedroom in preparation for the arrival of the Monster Kid, and when we moved to a bigger house, they were packed into a closet. But not forgotten.

When the Monster Kid was about four, Dylan pulled out a giant tub of action figures and said, “I don’t think I can count on these being collectibles anymore. I want to take them out and play with them with the kids.” I was a little wary of this as toddlers and preschoolers aren’t generally known to be gentle with their toys. But his enthusiasm was contagious. Suddenly the Lego table became a battleground for King Ghidorah, Godzilla, Mothra, and friends (if you can call them friends). It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between father and son, although, unsurprisingly to me, many of the action figures were battered or broken (Dylan always seemed taken aback). They watched all the movies, then American 1950s science fiction monster movies. The Monster Kid discovered Ultraman, and a new obsession was born. We all discovered (or rediscovered) the coolness of Ray Harryhausen and stop-motion animation. Kaiju and giant robots appeared in the Monster Kid’s drawings and stories. I still have the piece of paper on which he wrote, for the first time, “Godzilla” (the letter z is backwards). Other creatures and characters have come and gone (although Harry Potter has had some considerable staying power), but the kaiju are always there. With the release of Pacific Rim, the collecting kicked up a notch, and interest in creating stop-motion videos caught on (it’s possible that our family is the only one in town to consider Pacific Rim a family film). Before he died, Dylan was building paper-mache mountains, painting models, and going through spray paint at an alarming rate. And for the first time he decided it would be fun to go to a fan convention. He and the Monster Kid were very excited about the movie they were making (the story was never actually written down) and going to the convention. We planned to go as a family. And even though Dylan couldn’t be there with us, we went to G-Fest.

I have to say that going to G-Fest really put fandom in perspective. We went to “Dojo Studios”, where fans were filming an original kaiju movie that they had been working on for something like five years. There was a life-size spaceship cockpit made, basically, out of cardboard, styrofoam, and spray paint. I saw the prices on some of the kaiju the Monster Kid has been playing with (and breaking) which bring a whole new meaning to what it meant for Dylan to bring out his collection for the kids to play with. I saw other kids who were as obsessed as the Monster Kid. I saw a lot of fathers and sons getting excited– in fact, there were several pairs in the costume contest (there were also mothers and sons, and brothers and sisters). It’s possible that this is the only time they get to be around other kids who love kaiju so much. And I saw the incredible font of information that my son possesses on the movies and monsters that populate the world of Japanese fantasy film.

I want to thank the organizers of G-Fest for making it possible for us to come this year, the fans I encountered who were pleasant, generous, and compassionate, and my non-fan friends who gave up vacation time so we could go. Kaiju lovers, and their friends and families, really are the best.