The Art of Tokusatsu: Daikaiju Edition

Here's what happened to Kawakita: Both GUNHED and GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE were box-office flops, and Kawakita was so devastated by this that it drove him to alcoholism the next year. One friend of his said, "He drank like he wanted to die." When he came back for GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH, he actually won an award for best special effects. Unfortunately, he let success go to his head, and he just gave up trying. Due to his experience working with Kazuki Omori (whom he butted heads with in their two films together), he was also distrustful of working with directors, especially Takao Okawara, whom he snapped at, saying, basically, "You do your own job, let me do mine!" I will say Kawakita actually improved after his Godzilla and Mothra films! Remember that he also directed the FX for the Choseishin Series (GRANSAZER, etc.), as well as the Godzilla Pachinko game, which has had his best Godzilla work after BIOLLANTE.

'Return' and 'Biollante' felt ambitious, like this was the next generation of Kaiju films. It sucks that Gamera had to pick up the torch Godzilla had dropped. That being said, those Gamera visuals are outstanding. Personally I don't look for realism in visuals when it comes to this genre, but the Gamera movies have shots that leave me amazed to no end. It really shows how far Godzilla had fallen

So what happened to Kawakita is basically what happened to Frank Millar. Also, my favorite toku moment is the introduction of Gaia in Ultraman Gaia. What I like about Gaia in general is how they make the suit actors feel heavy. Every time the actors take a step, we see debris fly everywhere. When we see Gaia land on the ground we see a repeated slow-mo shot with the debris flying everywhere. It's perfect.

the real question is what happened in Kawakita's life to make him so obsessed with sparkle confetti?

Leave it to tokusatsu fans to know what they're talking about when it comes to Evangelion, anyway great video.

I really love your channel, you really deserve more subscribers.

Let's take a moment to remember Eiji Tsuburaya

This video was incredibly hard for me to watch as I'm a fan of the heisei (some of it) and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II being my favorite movie in general but I do like how you bring up legitimate points on how Kawakita's work started to turn after Biollante

If only we could have gotten the Kawakita of vs Biollante for the rest of the Heisei era. Seriously. Biollante's effects blow the latter parts of the 90's away like Godzilla spamming his atomic breath

Wow I never appreciated how amazing the cinematography in the camera trilogy was!

I like tokusatsu but I really think that the old days are more suitable days for tokusatsu as the lower resolution actually helps to avoid us to see the details of the suit and the buildings which better establish the illusion, nowadays the higher resolution really makes us see the fake parts of them

Excellent analysis man! Yes! Even as a kid I always noticed that there was always something special about Gvs Biollante as it was very appealing to the eyes. One of my favorite scenes that comes to mind is Godzilla's arrival at the end of G2000 in the American version, great scene!

Pure, quality content, love your videos Blunova!

No wonder i liked vs biollante more than the rest

Oh boy, Ultraman Tiga is so awesome. It aired here in Brasil in the 90's, i believe it was the series that made me discover and fall in love with tokustatsu when I was just a wee kid.

Thank you for shinning a light on the visual masterpiece that are the gamera 90s movies

It's no wonder Otani was brought on to compose Shadow of the Colossus. He knows how to add gravitas to giant monster stuff.

The reason Godzilla vs Biollante looks a lot better than the following movies is probably because it had a different cinematographer and a larger budget.

This is my favorite of all your videos! Could you do one where you exclusively focus on the Gamera trilogy?

just noticed they even slow down the EVAs like in live action toku to give them weight