Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

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LSD Jellyfish
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Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in me making maps of kaiju's positions, and actions within each individual film. I would make a map for each individual Godzilla film (and other Toho films down the line) and map where kaiju make their appearances, and which specific cities they destroy. I would include rough time frames, or allow it to be obvious what time frame of events there are.

This might seem like a really minor thing, but since moving to Japan I've realized how important a lot of Japan's topography and geography is important to kaiju films. A lot of films have very logically planned out sequences of where kaiju appear and march towards. However, it's really easy to forget this, and not notice where these events take place. It's easy to mentally generalize everything as "Tokyo". A good example is that in Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster, Ghidorah flies around pretty quickly from different parts of the country with easy, but to casual viewings, it may just seem like Ghidorah starts out in one area and sort of remains there. Another example is that in Shin Godzilla, they start out early saying Godzilla is attacking "Tokyo", which is correct, but slightly misleading to western fans. In context, they don't mean Tokyo City, but rather the prefecture or state. Of course he winds up later in Tokyo, but it's why early on Godzilla is in the countryside.

Bear in mind, I'm busy translating some old Godzilla manga, and writing up an article for the main site, so I wouldn't start this for another month, but I'm interested if anyone would like me to make these maps.
Last edited by LSD Jellyfish on Thu Nov 07, 2019 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by Gigantis »

Eh,sure,why not? It could be fun!
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by GmkGoji »

This sounds like a fun project. Do your thing man.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by JAGzilla »

Seems like it would be useful to have maps like that around. Fanfic writers or someone might benefit from them. and it's just a cool idea in general.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by Zarm »

I'd be very interested!
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by szmigiel »

https://dev.classmethod.jp/business/bus ... -godzilla/
On this website a fan created an interactive map of locations that are given in each Godzilla film.
Unfortunately while google translate does work on the page, it doesn't work on the interactive map, so you will need to be somewhat familiar with Japanese to be able to navigate it. But it can be searched by film, and you can zoom in down to street level.

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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

szmigiel wrote:https://dev.classmethod.jp/business/bus ... -godzilla/
On this website a fan created an interactive map of locations that are given in each Godzilla film.
Unfortunately while google translate does work on the page, it doesn't work on the interactive map, so you will need to be somewhat familiar with Japanese to be able to navigate it. But it can be searched by film, and you can zoom in down to street level.
Thanks, that’s very useful. I can actually read pretty much all the map related stuff.

However, my idea was to make a map for each individual film, to show the movement of the kaiju in each film coherently.

One thing that’s interesting though is how Godzilla always appears from the Pacific Ocean. He barely ever if ever approaches from the other side.
Last edited by LSD Jellyfish on Sat Nov 09, 2019 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by GigaBowserG »

...Now that you mention it, a lot of the Godzilla "Super Complete Works" books have these kind of simple maps included. Example one from GvD Perfection:

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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by edgaguirus »

It would be an interesting tool to learn more about the nation Godzilla calls home.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by JAGzilla »

LSD Jellyfish wrote: One thing that’s interesting though is how Godzilla always appears from the Pacific Ocean. He barely ever if ever approaches from the other side.
That is interesting. Maybe that's just for story convenience; if he mostly just hangs out on Japan's Pacific coast, that makes him mostly Japan's problem, and the rest of the world can be more or less ignored. Put him in the Sea of Japan, however, and China, Russia, and the Koreas are (realistically, at least) going to have to sit up real straight and take notice, likely leading to serious tension over how to deal with him. There's probably a cool movie to be made, there, but most likely it would be hard to market to China...

That, and the Pacific side has more major cities.
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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by canofhumdingers »

This sounds like a really cool idea! I’d love to see maps of this kind!

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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by mikelcho »

If anyone wants to, there's a map called "Godzilla's Path through the Marvel Universe" listed in the Information section on the Wikipedia article "Godzilla (comics)" that can be viewed.

Just thought you'd like to know.
Last edited by mikelcho on Fri Nov 15, 2019 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by Rody »

I think this is a great idea; it would be a clear and interesting way of realizing the stories better from a western perspective, with little knowledge of Japanese geography.
Might I suggest gauging interest in other communities, as well? I bet the folks over at Monster Zero would have a blast with a project like this, and some of the people on Facebook, Tumblr, etc might really enjoy it too (if you have any accounts or connections through those sites).

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Re: Maps of Kaiju in Film: Would you be interested?

Post by Showa Gojira »

Absolutely! I've seen some maps like this in a few Japanese Godzilla books and they always looked cool. It would be great to have a map for every movie! :D
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