The Luminous Fairies and Mothra

[lhb412]

Hot on the heels of his translation of the first two Godzilla novelizations, now Jeffrey Angles is translating the original Mothra novel into English, to be released early next year!

https://kaijuunited.com/2025/05/13/dr-jeffrey-angles-shares-details-about-forthcoming-novella-translation-of-the-luminous-fairies-and-mothra/

[Benjamin Haines]

Hell yes! It's starting to feel like a golden age of English-language Godzilla books.

What are the chances of Jeffrey Angles translating any of Kenpachiro Satsuma's nonfiction books? I know that Satsuma wrote a photo-filled book called Inside Godzilla about his experiences playing Godzilla, and another book called North Korea As Seen By Godzilla about his time making the movie Pulgasari in North Korea.

[lhb412]

I don't know the likelihood, but those kinds of books are definitely high on my wishlist. I think the Satsuma books in particular have potential crossover appeal because of the Korea stuff and just the way he sold the peril/exertion/adventure of suit acting.

[Kailem]

English versions of Satsuma's Godzilla books would be an instant buy for me, for sure. I'm not going to be holding my breath or anything, but I feel like with these recent novelisation translations the chances are still probably higher now than they've ever been that it might happen.

[lhb412]

Glimpsed some of the videos where folks got early review copies. I had no idea this was so short! It really is a novella. For some reason I thought it was sprawling and the story was drastically cut down for the movie?

[lhb412]

Read this at the beach. The actual novella is super slight, more a short story, and it's full of sketchy detail... but there's some absolutely fascinating things in there, and Angles' extraordinary afterward charting the development of the story and subsequent movie are some of our best kaiju scholarship. He caps it off by arguing, rather persuasively, that the Doctor Doolittle books involving the giant moth must've been an inspiration at some point in development - because it goes far beyond the mere concept of a big moth!

I'm not sure what other works this guy could translate, but I'm all for any follow-ups possible.