A podcast seeking entertainment and enlightenment through tokusatsu. Origin Story: After vacationing on the Monsterland Resort, professional writer/raging nerd Nathan Marchand got a job as the curator of the Vault containing the films about Monster Island’s many kaiju residents. Now he and his intrepid producer, Jimmy From NASA (who miraculously survived the infamous War in Space), record a bi-weekly podcast critically and academically examining each of the films in the prestigious Vault with one to four guest hosts chosen from Monster Island’s many tourists. Philosophy: Kaiju and/or tokusatsu fans will tell you these genres are undeniably fun. What’s often missed, though, are the deeper meanings below the sensational surface. Meanings entrenched in the story’s original historical and cultural context. That’s why this podcast believes in film appreciation. What’s that? It’s studying a movie’s script, direction, cinematography, and other aspects of filmmaking. It’s learning how and why it was created since movies aren’t made in a vacuum. This is especially true with foreign films. Non-native audiences are separated by both time and culture with them...
https://monsterislandfilmvault.podbean.com
Episode 17: ‘The Last War’ (Mini-Analysis)
Hello, kaiju lovers!
Except today’s episode isn’t about giant monsters. Heck, it’s barely about tokusatsu. Nathan is analyzing the criminally underseen 1961 antiwar drama The Last War. While most of the creative team behind the camera aren’t the ones usually followed by kaiju/toku fans, there are several familiar faces in front of the camera: Frankie Sakai (Mothra), Yuriko Hoshi (Mothra vs. Godzilla, etc.), and Akira Takarada (too many to list). This film depicts a middle class Japanese family navigating everyday life interspersed with Japanese government officials and foreign soldiers trying to avoid World War III. It is a perfect snapshot of the Japanese national spirit at that moment in time and, Nathan argues, is the precursor to 1984’s The Return of Godzilla. As part of his analysis, Nathan reads the Bible passage quoted in the film (plus the following two verses that would’ve offered some hope) and a John Bradley poem that would’ve been perfect for the end of the film.
All this plus Nathan opens the mailbag to answer some listener feedback!
This is meant to supplement this episode of Kaijuvision Radio, which featured the fantastic Danny DiManna: Episode 43: The Last War (1961) (NATO) (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
I’d like to give a shout-out to our Patreon patrons Travis Alexander (host of Kaiju Weekly), Danny DiManna, and elizilla13! Thanks for your support!
Read Jimmy’s Notes on this episode.
Please donate to David Marshall and his family on GoFundMe.
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© 2020 Nathan Marchand & Moonlighting Ninjas Media
Bibliography/Further Reading:
- “Explaining Japanese Antimilitarism: Normative and Realist Constraints on Japan’s Security Policy” by Yasuhiro Izumikawa (International Security, Vol. 35, No. 2 (FALL 2010), pp. 123-160)
- “The Last War” (Wikizilla)
- “Little Prayer on Hiroshima Day” (from Erotica Atomica by John Bradley)
- “Long live pacifism! Narrative power and Japan’s pacifist model” by Karl Gustafsson, Linus Hagström & Ulv Hanssen (Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32:4, 502-520)
- “A Pacifist Japan Starts to Embrace the Military” by Motoko Rich (The New York Times)
- Terror of the Lost Tokusatsu Films!: From the Files of the Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies by John Lemay
- “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” (Wikipedia)
- “Yoshida Doctrine” (Wikipedia)
The post Episode 17: ‘The Last War’ (Mini-Analysis) appeared first on The Monster Island Film Vault.