Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

It took a lot of convincing for my parents to buy me Godzilla vs. Smog Monster from Toys R Us back in the day lol

I remember most of those and I still have a few floating around somewhere (My War of the Gargantuas VHS is signed by Mr. Nakajima himself!)

Man, I watched that Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies tape CONSTANTLY.

I really dig those paintings on the Video Treasures Godzilla releases, "fuzzy" Godzilla and all.

The New World covers for Gigan and Mechagodzilla are some of the very best art to ever appear on a VHS release. There's something very professional and mature to the art and layout of the boxes for these tapes that you just didn't find anywhere else during that time. Not quite sure why Starmaker seems to get the majority of the credit for their covers, even in that TK article.

Though my first exposure to Godzilla was catching bits and pieces of Mothra vs. Godzilla, Monster Zero and Godzilla's Revenge on TNT one night in (I think) 1996, I didn't really take an interest in the character until my parents took me to see GINO on opening weekend in 1998. At the age of nine, and as a fan of Jurassic Park and silver screen reptilian creatures since I was four, it was mind-blowing. It wasn't long before I sought Godzilla out online with the family desktop computer, with Barry's Temple of Godzilla quickly becoming a Holy Grail of information to me as a young fan.

The next time my mom took my brothers and I to Video Express, a local mom 'n pop rental outlet in Wichita Falls, TX, I immediately went searching for Godzilla titles. They did not disappoint.















Get this, TWO copies of Terror of Mechagodzilla sitting on the racks just waiting to be looked at!





(Not realizing that it was a sequel to another movie sitting on the shelf nearby, Terror became my first Godzilla rental and the first real Godzilla movie I watched in its entirety.)



After weeks upon weeks of renting these movies one at a time and digesting each of them for five days before they had to be returned, I realized that one of Godzilla's co-stars that I'd come to recognize had his own movie sitting right there in Video Express's sci-fi section. Now THAT was a cool surprise!





The next time my mom took me to Blockbuster Video, which we only went to every once in a while because it was much further uptown, I found many Godzilla tapes that Video Express did not have. By this point, I had already memorized all 22 Godzilla movies in order of release thanks to Barry's Temple, so discovering all these tapes of Godzilla movies that I'd wanted to see was like finding the Ark of the Covenant.











They also had a couple other cool-looking monster movies that I'd never heard of before but ended up loving.







Then, much later on, my mom took me to the even further away and less-visited Hollywood Video, which had more Godzilla that I'd yet to see.






The next year, thanks to reading the news on Barry's Temple, I bought Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla and Godzilla vs. Destroyer and later Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II as they were released.

For me, Godzilla Raids Again and Godzilla vs. Hedorah were the lost Godzilla movies. No matter where I looked, I just couldn't find any video store that carried either of them for sale or for rent. I finally saw Hedorah when it aired on the SciFi Channel around Christmastime in 2000, which I recorded to tape. (I wouldn't own an actual, commercial-free copy of the film until Sony released their DVD in 2004.) Godzilla Raids Again was the last of the first 22 Godzilla movies I saw, when I bought a set of five VHS tapes for $10 from a guy on eBay in (I think) 2001.













Ah, good times.