KAIJUOLOGY: The History of a Genre

Thanks everyone for the warm reception this video has received! I’m truly humbled that this manages to reach so many views in a little under two weeks! That said, I should probably address some criticisms I’ve been repeatedly receiving: - Yes, I missed some stuff. Big things like Gamera: Rebirth and the IDW Godzilla comics which are admittedly major oversights. These were the result of re-recording year-old narration to better cover more recent topics that I only alluded to in earlier drafts (such as Minus One and the MonsterVerse shows), and these got lost in the shuffle by mistake. Then there’s minor stuff like Reptilicus, the Ultraman Netflix anime, Gridman, etc. which was left out intentionally as they were either too minor to reference or that I didn’t want to overstuff the video with just a list of things that happened. It’s a history video, not a compilation. - Audio mixing is admittedly pretty wack at times. That’s just one of those kinks I’ve gotta work out as I make more videos. - A few pronunciation errors and minor mistakes made it by accidentally, sorry about that! I recorded each section in real time and was bound to mess something up lol Thanks again for the support, hopefully you’ll stick around for future videos!

Godzilla Minus One earning its Oscar is definitely a highlight of the entire Kaiju genre.

Brazilian 50 year-old here. Brazil has the largest Japanese community in the world outside Japan itself. Japanese migration officially started in 1908, and their culture has been ingrained into ours since then. And this pretty much includes Japanese Pop culture. My grandpa watched the original Godzilla in the movies back in the late 50s, my mom used to watch National Kid, and I used to watch Ultraman on TV when I was 5 years old, among others (Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot, UltraSeven, Magma Taishi etc). My brothers grew up on Changeman and Jaspion, and my son on the Power Rangers. But none of this is new here: I dare say we Brazilians have had more contact with this kind of content long before the Americans. As for the video itself, kudos man. Great research and I had a lot of fun watching it.

2 minutes in, this is great. May the algorithm bless you, my friend. Just keep grinding, it'll happen.

Being from Hawai'i, Japanese media was a big part of my childhood. There was Kikaida, Power Rangers, and of course Godzilla. My dad got me into Godzilla, and I've been a life long fan ever since. I'm glad to see Tokusatsu and Kaiju become part of main stream pop culture.

Even the Heisei era intro here goes hard. It’s hard to beat the Heisei era. Also this is a MASSIVE hot take but I feel KOTM is the best of the Legendary films. From the score to the monster battles, it scratches every itch for me.

52:44 Damn, Godzilla looked excited, he wanted to be a Hollywood star. 🥲

this is a insanely underrated video, hope this blows up

very very VERY well done, this was such a great watch! I'm so happy to see this video getting the views and reception it deserves. I'm so excited for whatever you work on next and in the meantime you should be so, so proud of your work here. this is going to be my go-to for introducing people to kaiju from now on. <3

Solid deep dive documentary style video on the Kaiju genre. However I'm a bit bummed you didn't talk more in depth about these topics: -Studio Trigger's SSSS.Gridman series which pays homage to the classic Ultraman -Evangelion and the rebuild movies igniting interest in mecha and kaiju within the anime sphere -The many King Kong movies after the original, including the Peter Jackson remake

You absolute LEGEND the love and care that went into this is unmatched, I’m gonna show this to everyone I know who is even slightly interested in the genre

One of the best Kaiju Genre Essays YouTube has to offer. Peak content, I hope this blows up even further. Subbed.

Hope there's more Gamera media. He's my favorite Kaiju

Be proud of what you've put together here. I stayed entertained the whole way through

wow, well done video sir. this was well worth the two hour watch. among all the crap that been on youtube lately, it nice and refreshing to a well put together essay video on this topic. as a kaiju movie fan myself, it's good to know kaiju movies were always a part of our history and are here to stay for decades to come.

I love, love, love "King of the Monsters" and especially its take on Mothra, and I fervently hope to see more of her.

Literal peak fiction of a video, good work.

I think Kaiju has an element of Yokai (妖怪, both of these characters mean strange or suspicious). Yokai are monsters that appear in Japanese folklore. Because Japan is an animistic country, people attribute terrifying phenomena such as earthquakes and flood damage to Yokai. During the Edo period, thanks to Ukiyoe (Japanese etchings), Yokai became more popular among the people and gained more variety. One example is a huge, haunted skeleton (がしゃどくろ), while another is a creature only washing beans in a river (小豆洗い). I believe that the animistic thought of likening this phenomenon to monsters and the rich variety have been inherited by kaiju. sorry for bad English!

Amazing. Can't wait for the Transformers documentary that you're obligated to make now

Excellent documentary! Probably the best documentary about Kaiju media on youtube! Though I will say I'm surprised you didn't mention Gamera Rebirth, since it's the first Gamera project since the mid 2000s. Also Gareth Edwards' 2010 film Monsters since it's not only one of the few big British Kaiju films but also Gareth Edwards' first Kaiju project. At least, I'm pretty sure it's a Kaiju film. Also surprised you didn't mention how the Cloverfield franchise crashed and burned. Especially since Clover makes a cameo in Paradox (tho this cameo is in the video's outro). And finally, I'm surprised you didn't mention the rest of the Pacific Rim franchise (Uprising and Black). I thought they'd get mentioned especially since Uprising was a complete failure that basically killed the franchise. But these are just really small nitpicks, fantastic video! I'm excited to see what else you got planned!