INTERESTING JAPANESE MAGAZINE #7:

FIGURE KING

 

There are a lot of 'monster magazines' in japan. And there are a lot of really stupid monsters. Because when you've got a 'guys in rubber suits who kick a lot' industry that has to churn out 100 new movies every month, all with different monsters, at some point the costume designers are going to crack. But Ultraman went beyond being cracked . . .at some point in the 70's it seems the ENTIRE CAST scored some Ultra-Mega-Space LSD and just came up with the most retarded monsters ever made. This isn't an Ultraman fan page, plus I'm ignorant, so I won't go into the exact historical details. But basically here's the problem:

GIANT MONSTER CHICKEN!! GIANT MONSTER MOLE!!! MONSTERS WITH ABDOMINAL BODY PAINT FOR NO REASON!!

What makes FIGURE KING unique among monster magazines, is that they seem to ENJOY doing articles about the dumbest, most embarrassing monsters that they can find. The most demented, silly, 'I-can't-believe-we-ate-the-whole-blotter' monsters ever made, the worst kind of godzilla rip-offs, the not-even-trying-anymores, the kind of monsters that give the whole industry a bad rap. the outcasts that even the OTHER spiny-backed, city-crushing, ray-beam-shooting ugly aliens can look down on.

and then there's this guy.

and this guy and his friend, an amusing blend of "RESIDENTS" -style ocular creepiness with 'LOVE IS. . . .'-style nonthreataning preteen nudity.

plus, SPINACH MONSTER!

 

As I may have mentioned, my grasp of Japanese is too poor to even read kids' fairytales, let alone a 40 page expose on THESE GUYS.

So I can't tell why MONSTA KING is the way it is. they might be covering the total loser failure monsters just out DUTY-- "no matter how crappy it is, we are real fans so we must be completists." or maybe they're doing it out of a fanboy's delight in the obscure-for-the-sake-of-obscure. But I like to THINK that they are writing about total loser failure monsters because, as otaku nerds, they feel a sense of kinship and loyalty to the outcasts and underdogs.

OH, plus my computer broke, and I went on a date with a grindcore singer.