Toho, the Japanese company that gave us Godzilla, made its Comic-Con exhibitor debut Thursday with its first booth in the dealers’ room.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be the highest-grossing film franchise but the title for longest-running with the most feature films goes to Godzilla, who has appeared in more than 30 Japanese films and then crossed the Pacific to star in a trio of Hollywood features with more to come.
Godzilla was born in 1954 out of an atomic blast and out of the imaginations of producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, filmmaker Ishirō Honda, and special effects genius Eiji Tsubaraya. Another key factor in bringing the giant kaiju to life was suit actor Haruo Nakajima. Suit actors brought the giant monster to life and even into the new millennium and one of those suits is on display at Toho’s Comic-Con Booth.
"So when in 1954 Godzilla first came out with a human being actually inside, it weighed about 220 pounds and it was very heavy," Akito Takahashi said through a translator.
Toho’s Takahashi has the coolest job title ever, Head of Project Management for the Godzilla Strategic Conference. He explained that Toho felt the 65th birthday of its character merited the company’s first Comic-Con booth and some repackaging that included giving the cinema icon his own Twitter handle and Instagram account.
"Yes, yes, rebranding and repackaging for sure," Tahahashi said. "
Old or new, anything Godzilla gets the attention of The Legal Geeks’ Joshua Gilliland.
"It's preview night and I came straight to the Godzilla booth because I want one of those 65th-anniversary Bandai toys because, I mean, that belongs on my bookshelf," he said. "I look forward to getting in line for it."
The screen-used props in the booth gave Gilliland something to geek over as he prepped for his panel “Long Live the King of Kaiju” about who might be liable for all the destruction Godzilla and his fellow kaiju cause.
"We're going to talk about who pays the cleanup costs for Hedorah, like could you trace it back to the oil companies that did the oil spills," Gilliland said of Toho's Smog Monster that was born in the eco-conscious early 70s.
Ramie Tateishi uses Godzilla in teaching a class about Japanese science fiction at National University. In the booth, he considered things like the Oxygen Destroyer that killed Godzilla in the 1954 film.
"Think about what the Oxygen Destroyer does," he said. "It removes oxygen from the water, water being H2O so you remove the oxygen and what you're left with is hydrogen and the hydrogen bomb testing was very topical at the time of the first Godzilla movie. And Ghidorah is very symbolic to coming as China did its first atomic testing in 1964."
If you are at Comic-Con you can visit Godzilla at booth 3535 and even get your photo taken with the 65-year-old and still reigning King of the Monsters.
