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Kaiju

Japanese media genre

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Historically, giant movie monsters were known in Japanese as daikaijū (大怪獣 lit. 'giant monster'); however, the broader term of "kaiju" has largely replaced this. The term can also either refer to the monsters themselves or the movie genre in which they appear. In contrast to "giant movie monster", the term "kaiju" is generally used to specifically refer to the Japanese style of giant monster media, which traditionally uses actors in monster suits and scale model sets. Its widespread contemporary use is credited to tokusatsu (special effects) director Eiji Tsuburaya and filmmaker Ishirō Honda, who popularized the Japanese kaiju film genre by creating the Godzilla franchise and its spin-offs.

The first "giant monster movie" is debatable. The 1921 animated short film The Pet (1921) features a giant monster attacking a city, and the 1925 silent feature film The Lost World famously features a dinosaur being brought to the streets of London, subsequently inspiring the creators to make the 1933 movie King Kong. The Japanese style of giant monster movies with suitmation starts as early as the 1930s with movies such as Wasei Kingu Kongu (1933), The Great Buddha Arrival (1934), and The King Kong That Appeared in Edo (1938). The first Japanese "kaiju movie" to see international success is the 1954 feature Godzilla. When developing it, creators drew inspiration from the character of King Kong, both in its influential 1933 film and in the conception of a giant monster, establishing it as a pivotal precursor in the evolution of the genre. During their formative years, kaiju movies were generally neglected by Japanese critics, who regarded them as "juvenile gimmick", according to authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski.

Kaiju are often somewhat metaphorical in nature; Godzilla, for example, initially served as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident. Other notable examples of kaiju include Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Gamera, and King Kong.

Etymology

The Japanese word kaijū (怪獣（かいじゅう）, ) translates literally as "strange beast", and originally referred to monsters and creatures from ancient Japanese legends; it earlier appeared in the Chinese Classic of Mountains and Seas. There are no traditional depictions of kaijū or kaijū-like creatures among the yōkai of Japanese folklore, although it is possible to find megafauna in their mythology (e.g., Japanese dragons). After sakoku ended and Japan was opened to foreign relations in the mid-19th century, the term kaijū came to be used to express concepts from paleontology and legendary creatures from around the world. For example, the extinct Ceratosaurus-like cryptid featured in The Monster of "Partridge Creek" (1908) by French writer Georges Dupuy was referred to as kaijū.

It is worthy of note that in the Meiji era, Jules Verne's works were introduced to the Japanese public, achieving great success around 1890.

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