So, post your Godzilla and kaiju books! Novels, comics, magazines, non-fiction, Japanese or Anerican G books...whatever - show it off
I'll go first
I've got tons of Godzilla books, and I'm almost as serious about collecting Japanese G books as I am about Godzilla figures. Here are just a few of my favorites in my collection (I'll definitely post more photos of my book collection in the future as this thread receives more interest):
Pictorial Books of Godzilla 1&2
Still the measuring stick for what I expect in a great Godzilla book. The main focus of these two books is not really the films themselves, but the actual suits of the monsters. An amazing collection of rare photos from multiple angles of all of the major monster suits, puppets, and props. It's really a shame that a Pictorial Book of Godzilla 3 was never published, as there are plenty of suits props and materials from both the Mothra 3 series and the Godzilla Millennium series that could easily fill up a 3rd book(however, the equally amazing Shogakukan series of kaiju film books have more than filled this void over the years).
The bottom line is that no serious G book collector should be without these two great books.
Godzilla Encyclopedia 1954-1999
IMO, this ranks right up with the Pictorial Books. Each page is colorful kaleidoscope of fascinating, and often rare images from not only the Godzilla series, but most of the non-G sci-fi films by TOHO as well. This book is by Shogakukan, and I believe they produce the best damn G books out there.
Godzilla Pocket Guide 52
A wonderful little gem of a book that always seems to slip under the radar and overlooked in these G book
discussions. Unlike these aforementioned books, this book does not focus on the suits or films, but the monsters themselves. It is basically a massive, compact dictionary of all Toho daikaiju and stats slickly organized into categories (earth monsters, space monsters, mecha, etc). In addition, this book also details all of the human enemy and alien factions (i.e. X-seijin, Nebula Space Hunter M, Red Bamboo, etc.) or mutants (Matango, H-man, Vapor Man, Vampire Doll, etc.) and most of the major military weapons. All of the SFX films from G54-GFW are covered, so this is about as comprehensive as a pocket guide could get. Hell, even the most insignificant creatures, such as the jungle lizard from GvsKing Kong and the "Leaf man" that attacks Ichiro in G's Revenge are featured...talk about dedication
This book is rather inexpensive compared to most Japanese books at around $10, so you can get a lot of bang for your buck. It's also fairly easy to find to boot...this book is vintage Shogakukan at their best.
Godzilla Women of Toho Mook
This book is far better than a similar themed book released a while back (which focused mostly on GxMG's Shaku Yumiko instead of a *real* comprehensive book on TOHO's Godzilla women). Really a great book with a lot of stills of the most famous TOHO SFX actresses I had never seen before, as well as interviews with most of these lovely ladies (in Japanese of course). Even Tomoko Ai, who disappeared after making TOMG and has never really been interviewed, has a lengthy interview in this book.
) Unfortunately, most of the photos below are not original photos by me...they're various images I've found online from various places, for all my Super Complete Works books are back in America and I bought *long* before coming to Japan. The next time I go back stateside (who knows when that will be...haven't been home for nearly 5 years with no foreseeable plans too), I'll definitely try to take a group shot of all of the Shogakukan "Super Complete Works" books together.
