Agon The Atomic Dragon AKA Giant Phantom Monster Agon (1968-1990s) [REVIEW] Uranium Chorogon

Digging deeper into the kaiju crevices, we find a lot of minor monster flicks from the “monster factory of Nippon”, Toho, in this case being a mini-series made of 4 episodes and with a confusing release history, as it was completed in 1964, but wasn’t broadcasted on Fuji TV until 1968, after Toho realized the project involved two of their own talents, with Fuminori Ohashi (Tsuburaya’s special effects apprentice) and writer Shinichi Sekizawa, already proven for penning other kaiju classics such as Mothra, Mothra Vs Godzilla and Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla (the 1974 one), and the company was convinced that Agon didn’t directly step on the nuclear toes of their monster star.

I said a confusing release history because in mid 90s the episodes were recompiled into a feature lenght film and distributed internationally onn VHS as Agon: Atomic Dragon… and i can’t find any source that actually pinpoints when exactly it was released in the 90s, Letterboxd instead says it was in the 80s, and there’s also a japanese DVD release in 2005 by King Records.

Thankfully is not hard to find in any form, as the english subbed episodes can be found on Youtube, and you might stumble upon fansubbed releases of the feature lenght compilation version.

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Don’t expect a review of Godzilla Battle Line

I planned to play and review this one like i did for the other mobile Godzilla titles Toho unleashed on us this year, as in via the EXPRESSO format, but the game just refuses to work on my iPhone, regardless if i reset the device, uninstall and reinstall it, remove other apps to make space in the phone’s memory storage, i have tried for 2 weeks by now to make this damn thing working on my device, but it ALWAYS, without fail, immediatly crashes after being launched.

Despite the app being constantly up to date and my device being compatible with it.

I have no clue why, the updates didn’t change a fuckin thing, and unless the next one magically fixes the issues (which seems to affect other uses with more advanced iPhones), i’m never gonna be able to play the damn thing, and hence i will never be able to review it. And i kinda wanted to do that, for completition’s sake if nothing else.

The review might happen, and they might just update the game to make it work immediatly after i post this, and tomorrow i will be able to play with no issues at all.

But until that happens, the review isn’t either.

Sorry, but that’s the situation, so expect other EXPRESSO reviews coming from tomorrow onwards, today is a forced review-less day.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla VS Kong (2021) | MONSTERS, FIGHT!

This review is out only now because we didn’t fuckin get the movie (officially, anyway) here in Italy until now. Streaming only, due to cinemas just now preparing to re-open in some capacity.

So, after some delays and a wait that consumed me, the monster RE-match of the millennium has finally happened, as part of Legendary’s Monsterverse.

And it delivers, it does, even though there are caveats, ones that most people already know and are willing to ignore, especially because Godzilla II: King of The Monsters already had these issues.

Plot sees Godzilla rampage in New York for unknown reasons, and the Monarch company is basically engaged to use Kong as a guide to reach his ancestral home located inside the “Hollow Earth”, supposedly common origin to all the giant monsters. This because they sensed a huge energy source there and plan to use it in order to power up a weapon capable of stopping Godzilla.

The effects are top notch, the monster fights incredibly satisfying, there’s actually a bit of personality to the monsters (even if Godzilla – by Toho’s strict decree – doesn’t talk in any way) the Hollow Earth scenario is actually quite a spectacle and interesting, even if the plot is a bit there to justify the monster fighting and not the other way around, combined with the human characters really being… just kinda there to be there, mostly coming off as annoying, stupid or a bit douchy.

And i’m “sorry”, but we spend a lot of time with them as well, they’re played by good actors, we can have better scripts and better human characters for monster movies, even by just looking at MonsterVerse’s own Kong: Skull Island.

Could have been better, but overall it’s still a blast to see, especially on the big screen.

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Defense Force iOS | ♫ To protect Mother Earth… ♫

The second of the three mobile Godzilla games promised by Toho for 2021, advertised a month ago as Godzilla Battle Line, published by Nexon and co-developed by Neople and Studio 42.

After the odd but cute stats raising-pet simulator of Run Godzilla, now we have a more traditional offering for a mobile licensed spin-off game. It’s not exactly a proper tower defense, but more of a tapper with RTS elements: units despatch and attack automatically the enemy waves from building you can upgrade, but you can also tap on them for extra damage (especially when their weak points show up), or use the various Kaiju Cards left by fallen monsters and/or obtained via card packs, of course available to purchase for real money.

It’s a decent little timewaster, a little more engaging than the usual tapper, but it’s aggressively monetized, even if it’s oddly pushy in making you watch ads to boost stats like production speed or to get resources, instead of just saying “cough up the cash to save time”, and i feel it’s the lesser evil of the options they could have gone with. BUT it still feeds into the same objective: to get you spending real money on the card packs and batches of premium currency, especially since the game remembers you revenge can be had easier by wiewing ads, etc.

Presentation is good, the story is what you’d expect, as an EDF commander you organize a defense line to repel kaijus attacking Earth, often sent and/or resurrected by the evil aliens called Xilliens. By progressing you get new locations to build bases, the ability to summon new allies with passive abilities, new monsters (some obscure references to Toho’s non-Godzilla material), making for a decent and entertaining loop, even if you’d wish for a bit more depth to it.

[EXPRESSO] Run Godzilla iOS | Tamakaiju

Toho plans to release not one, not two, but THREE Godzilla mobile games this year worlwide, and the first one is the already available Run Godzilla, which isn’t an endless runner (despite the title kinda implying it), but more a simulator-raising game where you take care of your very own kaiju in order to… make it run like a horse.

I’ve seen people describe it as basically Uma Musume but with kaijus instead of horse girls… and it’s not that far off. And by that i mean it’s basically a stat building game where you increase the stats of the monster before taking on races, where you can just tap a button to encourage the monster to go faster, but that’s about it, you don’t control the kaiju directly.

Strenghtening the monster is done via a typical idle game setup, as you juggle resources to have enough people praying for the monster to grow, extend the time they will stay in the group, pick up apples and gems to recruit more people, and change weather to influence the growth of a some stats over others. The kaiju itself has an “expiration date” which can’t be extended, but the following generation/monster will inherit some experience points, and the loop repeats.

It’s more complex to look at than to actually play, just a thing you’re supposed to tinker with on a somewhat regular base, as timers keep running regardless, so you might come back to find the your digital “pet kaiju” (one you don’t have to feed or “poopscoop”) already dead/expired.

It’s a thing to thinker with more than play, and while it’s very honest about it, outside of the initial novelty it’s hard to care for long if you have at least another free-to-play game/app you keep coming back to regularly.

Zarkorr! The Invader (1996) [REVIEW] | Cinephiles Of Earth, Beware…

You can hardly go more Z-grade cinema than with Zarkorr! The Invader from Full Moon Entertaiment, at least regarding movies that do have production values and some backing behind them. Of course, you can go even worse, as the company itself demonstrated last year by making a zombie movie about the Coronavirus… and by that i mean putting a shitty comical dub track over Bruno Mattei’s Hell Of The Living Dead, with a tiny bit of new footage to act as a “framing device” of someone watching Hell Of The Living Dead while quarantined at home. Good lord.

But thankfully this is just Full Moon Entertaiment doing a direct-to-video kaiju movie, about aliens that have been observing Earth for centhuries, and one day decide to challenge mankind by sending in a huge monster called Zarkorr to wreak havoc with its size and lazer eyes. As the human champion, they choose an incredibly average postal worker, Tommy Ward, as the only one who can defeat Zarkorr and save the planet.

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Gappa The Triphibian Monsters (1967) [REVIEW] | ♫ It’s The True Mystery of The Universe ♫

Yes, with a “G”.

One of the minor, less known giant monster, and the only kaiju eiga ever made by Nikkatsu (which almost went bankrupt after releasing it), also known under the mystifing title “Monster From Another Planet” in the US, and directed by Hiroshi Noguchi, better known for the Cat Girls Gambler yakuza series and the Ginza Mighty Guy/Ginza Whirlwind series.

Oddly, the plot is virtually identical to the one seen in Gorgo (hi again), with a grouple of people (in this case a group of reporters and scientists instead of a salvage crew) capturing and bringing a monster from its island (here a place called Obelisk Island) to “civilization” in order to become a media attraction. But this also angers the natives of the island and – more importantly – the parents of the infant Gappa monster, who head to Japan and cause huge havoc in their wake.

If japanese monster movies taught me anything, it’s to never steal children, especially those of literal giant monsters. Just don’t. Or stop.

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Varan The Giant Monster/ Varan The Unbelievable (1958) [REVIEW] | Kaiju In The Middle

***Sorry, i wasn’t able to find a copy that didn’t have the hardsubbed american title.***

Godzilla is, has been and probably will be in secula secularum the greatest legacy of Toho and its empire of weird monsters. But of course, if the Big G sits at the top of “kaiju mountain”, and other monsters from their own movies have become inscindible part of the Godzilla series, some of them don’t dine at the court at all, and just get called back as jesters for the big monster mashes.

Varan is sadly one of them, and it’s a bit sad when they decide a frigging giant shrimph like Ebirah was worth doing new effects when Godzilla Final Wars came around, instead of just re-using old footage from Destroy All Monsters, like they did for Varan’s (among others) cameo, just happy to be there and cheer from the sidelines, even when Minilla is frigging more useful. Poor Varan.

But of course he did debut in its own movie, Varan The Giant Monster, and yes i’m talking about the original version, not the americanized one that does go under the title of Varan The Unbelievable, and alters the plot to include the american army… because America, that’s the reason. Sighs

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[EXPRESSO] Pacific Rim: The Black (Season One) (2021) | Netflix Kaijus

For whatever reason, Netflix perseveres in commissioning 3D CG anime based on popular franchises, despite them often not looking good and anime fans notorious knee-jerk reactions of disgust towards 3D CG anime.

So while we wait for Godzilla Singularity Point (which looks notably better), let’s give Pacific Rim: The Black a shot, because Legendary really wants to make this one a franchise. This specific entry (written by Greg Johnson and Craig Kyle but co-directed by Masayuki Uemoto, Susumu Sugai and Takeshi Iwata) follows a couple of siblings that find a Jaeger called Atlas Destroyer and go on a journey with it, after their parents never came back and kaijus destroyed Australia.

And you know what, an anime series spin-off is a shoe-in for Pacific Rim, but once i saw the PV, i realized why most people won’t bother… and yes, it’s animated by Polygon Pictures, which means the robots and monsters look fairly good, but the animation for the people – sporting nicely drawn character models – also has this stiff, uncanny, robotic feel to it. And this honestly doesn’t look much better than the Blame movie or the Godzilla anime trilogy Polygon Pictures also made for Netflix, while this style of “3D anime” has vastly improved in quality over the last few years.

Shame because the giant mecha battles against monsters look good and are fun, but the humans characters or the plot surrounding them aren’t that interesting, and sometimes their animation is just crap. The script, while unremarkable, tries to add something new to to the Pacific Rim universe, but it’s kinda of half baked attempt as it starts getting better only at the very end of this very short first season. Overall, it’s… alright.

A second season has already been greenlit… but i still wonder for whom exactly.

Reptilicus (1961) [REVIEW] | Danish Dragons

Denmark gave the world many things, despite what Shakespear told us, many influential painters and artists, many metal bands like King Diamond, Manticora, etc.

But you don’t exactly think Denmark when you think giant monster movies, and the only that still comes to mind is the old Reptilicus, a danish-american coproduction, with two existing versions, one completely shot in danish and the international release that was cut and changed by the screenwriters to make it more marketable (and american) by good ol’ American International Pictures.

While the movie it’s available in DVD fairly easy (and i do own it), i’ll mostly refer to a fansubbed copy of the original danish version. The international release, aside from a complete redub due to the cast very thick danish accent (kinda dumb how AIP didn’t expect that since the cast IS danish), cuts the scenes where Reptilicus flies… because the effects aren’t that great, but added the special effect of green poisonous saliva shooting out when the monster opens its jaw.

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