The Kaiju Transmissions Podcast

For the second part of our three part look at the beginning of Tsuburaya's Ultra-franchise, Byrd, Matt and guest host Eric look at the original Ultraman!  After the success of Ultra Q, Tsuburaya quickly got to work on a follow up, which introduced the world to the visitor from the Land of Light!  Ultraman quickly became Japan's first real superhero phenomenon!  Listen as we talk about the history...

We're finally taking our first dive into Tsuburaya's Ultra-franchise!  On this first episode of a three-part podcast series, Byrd, Matt, and guest host Eric discuss the very first Ultra-show, Ultra Q!  Before Ultraman took Japanese airwaves by storm, Tsuburaya combined the Twilight Zone with the kaiju genre and gave us the delightfully weird Ultra Q!  This classic series is still beloved to this d...

At long last, we're back with another commentary!  This time, Byrd, Matt, and guest hosts Eric and Trev discuss what some consider the red headed stepchild of the Millenium series of Godzilla films.  Maasaki Tezuka's directorial debut regularly shows up towards the bottom of people's Godzilla movie lists, but is it really all that bad?  Which of our hosts lean negative, and who considers it a gem...

Byrd and Matt are joined by guest hosts Tom and Trev (of Days of Future Podcast and If It Bleeds We Can Kill It) to dig into the new Godzilla anime film that was just released worldwide on Netflix.  In this film, mankind has abandoned Earth, only to return and find that Godzilla has reigned supreme for 20,000 years.  For years, people have wondered what a Godzilla anime would be like and now we fi...

Byrd and Matt welcome back very special guest, Norman England!  Many people people know Norman's work as a journalist, photographer, critic, and director, but he also lends his hand to translations quite often.  The most crucial thing about watching and understanding any foreign language film is a good translation and Norman has quite a few subtitling credits under his belt (he also teaches classe...

Byrd and Matt welcome very special guest, author Steve Ryfle to the show for a sprawling interview about the life and career of Ishiro Honda, director of many classic tokusatsu films (among other genres).   Steve co-authored the brand new biography, Ishiro Honda:  A Life In Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa (with Ed Godziszewski).  This eagerly anticipated book is the first official English biograph...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  To bring the holiday cheer, Byrd and Matt discuss Love and Peace, the 2015 film directed by acclaimed Japanese auteur Sion Sono.  This offbeat holiday film concerns a wannabe rockstar that flushes his pet turtle down the toilet.  Said turtle goes deep in the sewer where he meets other pets and toys that have been carelessly thrown away and taken in by a kindly drunk.  Meanwhile,...

With Christmas right around the corner, Byrd and Matt watched Kihachi Okamoto's BLUE CHRISTMAS (aka Blood Type Blue), deeper cut from the Toho science fiction library.  This paranoia-fueled thriller is about a string of UFO sightings that turns the witness's blood blue.  The blue bloods are feared by society and the government and well... things get worse from there.  So how does this bleak holida...

With Star Wars mania once again sweeping the nation, Byrd and Matt take a look at this TV spin off of the infamous Japanese Star Wars rip off, Message From Space.  After that film was released, Toei produced a television series spin off called Message From Space: Galactic Wars, which ran from 1978-1979.  When the show was bought by an American distributor, the series was condensed into a feature l...

Byrd and Matt are joined by guest host and Kamen Rider fan Eric to discuss the cyborg-grasshopper warrior’s output in the 1990s.  Commonly given as the easiest entry point for newbies getting into the Kamen Rider series, the franchise’s output in the 90s consisted of the films Shin Kamen Rider (1992), Kamen Rider Zo (1993), and Kamen Rider J (1994), along with the short films Kamen Rider SD, Ultra...

We're back with an exclusive interview with suit actor/mo-cap performer Mizuho Yoshida!  For this episode, Byrd traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan and sat down with Mr. Yoshida for this career spanning interview.  Fans know Yoshida best for many iconic roles, including the GMK Godzilla, half of the Legion Queen in Gamera 2, Zeiram, Death Ghidorah and Dagarah in the Mothra films, and Solid Snake in...

At long last, we're back with more Gamera talk! We are joined by guest hosts Tom and Eric to discuss Shusuke Kaneko's acclaimed Gamera trilogy and 2006's reboot, Gamera the Brave. Kaneko's Gamera trilogy of the 90s remains three of the most beloved kaiju films of all time by both fans and critics. We will talk about whether or not these films earned their reputation and discuss how they hold up in...

As a Halloween bonus, Byrd and Matt discuss and review the first screen adaptation of William Hope Hodgson's "The Voice In The Night" (the short story that Toho's Matango was based on). This was an episode of the Alfred Hitchcock produced anthology TV series "Suspicion," which aired on NBC in 1958 and starred James Coburn, Barbara Rush, Patrick Macnee, and James Donald before their careers took of...

Just in time for Halloween, Byrd, Matt and guest host Tom take a look at Daiei's Yokai franchise! This includes the original trilogy of 100 Monsters, Spook Warfare, and Along With Ghosts, as well as Takashi Miike's 2004 reboot, The Great Yokai War. You'll hear us discuss all four movies, as well as give a crash course on what a Yokai is, the influence of GeGeGe No Kitaro, and more! These are prime...

On a new October podcast, Byrd and Matt are joined by guest host Tom to discuss Toho's "Mutant Trilogy." It is time to discuss more of Toho's human sized monsters, as we discuss The H-Man (1958), The Secret of the Telegian (1960), and the Human Vapor (1960). Although not as popular as Toho's giant monster films, the mutant films are every bit as noteworthy. As always, we have a lively discussion,...

In our second October horror episode, Byrd, Matt, and guest host Trev (Days of Future Podcast, If It Bleeds We Can Kill It) dip their toes into the Eko Eko Azarak franchise with a discussion on the first three live action movies. Produced by Gaga Co. and Tsuburaya Films, these were based on the popular manga of the same name. The series follows a young schoolgirl witch who travels from town to tow...

On another very special episode, Byrd and Matt and joined by actress Linda Haynes for this candid, career spanning interview. Kaiju fans know her best for her role in Ishiro Honda's Latitude Zero. She also starred in many 70s cult favorites such as Coffy, Rolling Thunder, and Human Experiments. We discuss these films, as well as variety of topics such as her work with directors like Ishiro Honda,...

Happy October! KT is once again going through Japanese horror films for the entire month and we're kicking it off with the classic anthology film Kwaidan, directed by the great Masaki Kobayashi. This independent feature was produced by Ninjen Club and distributed by Toho in 1964 and features four horror stories based on the Japanese folk stories of author Lafcadio Hearn. We discuss how the film wa...

Byrd and Matt welcome special guest, author John LeMay ("The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monsters" book series) on the podcast to discuss kaiju movies that almost were! It seems almost as if for every Godzilla movie that got made, there are several scripts for other movies that never saw the light of day. John's newest book, "The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monsters: The Lost Films" details that ver...

On a special episode, Byrd and Matt welcome Linda Miller, best known for her role as Susan Watson in the Toho/Rankin-Bass classic King Kong Escapes! In addition to her starring role in one of Toho's golden age kaiju films, she also made an appearance in Toei's cult favorite, The Green Slime. Linda discusses both films, her modeling career, being directed by the great Ishiro Honda, language barrier...

On a very special episode of the podcast, we are ridiculously excited to welcome the legendary and prolific martial arts action star Sonny Chiba! Matt ventured to Fandom Fest in Kentucky to sit down and talk with Mr. Chiba. With nearly 200 acting credits, Sonny Chiba has done it all. He's well known for his roles in cult classics like the Street Fighter series, Golgo 13, Message From Space, the Ya...

On a very special edition of the podcast, we present another celebrity interview with actor/stuntman Kenji Ohba! Kenji is best known for playing the long-running Toei tokusatsu superhero Space Sheriff Gavan, as well as his long career as a stunt man. Matt traveled to Fandom Fest in Kentucky this past July to conduct this interview. Ohba discusses his tokusatsu beginnings as a stuntman/suit actor i...

Byrd and Matt are joined by silent film historian and film restorationist Nicolas Ciccone to discuss Willis O'Brien and Harry O. Hoyt's 1925 game-changer The Lost World. Nicolas had the experience of reconstructing the film with newly discovered footage for Lobster Films' upcoming blu-ray release (in addition to providing the audio commentary). This pre-King Kong dino-on-the-loose classic is the v...

Byrd and Matt are joined by Trev (If It Bleed We Can Kill It and Days of Future Podcast) to take one of our occasional detours outside the giant monster landscape to examine the the Death Note franchise. In the early 2000s, this supernatural thriller became a worldwide phenomenon, starting with the successful manga and anime series. It also spawned multiple live action films from such genre heavyw...

From June 30-July 3 of 2017, Godzilla suit actors Haruo Nakajima and Tom Kitagawa were featured guests at the Days of the Dead convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. This is the panel Q and A with the two actors from the convention. Unfortunately, this would also become one of Haruo Nakajima's final interviews and his final convention appearance. The two men answer questions about how they got invol...