This will probably get lost in the shuffle due to the pending release of the
ROE comic
, but I was finally able to hunt this down. It’s basically the same size as Yosensha’s other well-known and excellent
All TOHO Daikaiju and
Shodai Godzilla “
Mooks” and the “Haruo Nakajima Photo Collection”
Book (which Yosensha considers a “Book” and not a “Mook”, despite being nearly the same dimensions as the two aforemention "mooks" ...gotta love the quirks of Japan!).
However, this particular book is far more text heavy than the richly photo-heavy
All TOHO Daikaiju and
Shodai Godzilla, in the same vein as the recently eleased
Godzilla-New Century Special Effects Movie MOOK. However, the book is leaps and bounds more pleasing than **** in that its main focus is on Godzilla, Ultra-7, Kitakawa restrospective, whereas “
Godzilla-New Century Special Effects Movie MOOK” focused solely on Hollywood sci-fi/monster movies and barely mentioned Godzilla (despite the Godzilla-centric cover. It’s the only Yosensha G-related book I’ve passed on it).
In regards to this particular "mook" in question, this is a very hard one to review, as I'm sure it has some great content, but my kanji skills are still limited, so it's hard for me to judge it's comments. However, it has some really interesting stills from Ultra-7 along with the cast of the series and how they look today. For me personally, the highlight of the book was a spotlight of Beverly Li from
GvsMG74, who was the Okinawan girl who sang to wake King Ceasar. They also had a retrospective on the recently deceased Kawakita, an interesting spotlight on the Godzilla "Hotel" room (I would love to stay a night there, but at nearly 30,000 yen-50,000 yen ($300-$500), even a Godzilla maniac as myself has to balk at that. In regards to G2014, the article doesn't appear to offer anything new that we don't already know (just a rundown of news a speculation), but I'll try to have my Japanese GF gloss over it and see if there is anything special I missed.
Overall, would I recommend it? While not a bad book, it is very text heavy, so unless one is fluent in Japanese, I would recommend this for serious G book collectors, but not for more casual book collectors. Since the words "Vol. 1" in its title, I hope we can get another book with a little bit more emphasis on Godzilla down the road. Yosensha has started something good with their line of Godzilla "Mooks"...
Anyways, here are few photos:
I swear, even in Japan it can be a pain in the ass to hunt G-related stuff down. It seems that only the big Kinokuniya stores in Shinjuku or Shibuya are the only places to find new G books, so I may not be able to make it up there until this weekend.