The Kaiju Transmissions Podcast

Byrd is joined by Lux, Tom (of the Final Forum Dragonball Podcast), and Trev (of the Failure to Franchise Podcast) to talk about the new film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire! This new entry in Legendary Pictures' Monsterverse is another crossover between the two monster icons, as they go up against the threat of the evil ape Skar King and his army of apes and the frost monster Shim

Our pals Trev (frequent KT guest) and Chris over at the Failure to Franchise podcast had Matt and Byrd on their show to discuss Godzilla 1998! We discussed how it came to be, memories of living through the marketing and release of the film, the backlash to it, and the lasting effects it had on the franchise. Did the movie impact the series for good or bad? Is it as bad of a movie a

Byrd and Matt discuss Daiei's 1962 period monster movie, The Whale God (aka The Killer Whale). Directed by Tokuzo Tanaka (Zatoichi series), with a script written by Kaneto Shindo (Onibaba, Kuroneko) based on the novel by Koichiro Uno, it tells the story of a whaling village in the early Meiji period being terrorized by a gigantic whale. Two men, Shaki (Kojiro Hongo of the Gamera fi

Byrd, Kevin and Justin interview poet and Japanese literary translator Jeffrey Angles about his recent translations of Shigeru Kayama's 1955 novelizations of Godzilla '54 and Godzilla Raids Again (now available for the first time in English via University of Minnesota Press). We talk about Angles' interest in Japanese literature, his love of Edogawa Ranpo, the tightrope of maintain

Byrd, Matt and Tom discuss Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the recent MonsterVerse spin-off series on Apple TV+. The story flashes between the 1950s and the 2010s as it follows the founding of the Monarch organization (introduced in 2014's Godzilla reboot) and two siblings trying to untie their family's mysterious history with it. Join us as we discuss the shows pros and cons, the cha

Byrd and Lux ring in the new year by talking about two Showa-era "colliding worlds" epics. First is Daiei's Warning From Space, the first Japanese science fiction film made in color. It tells of a race of cyclops starfish aliens who warn humanity that a planet called Planet R is on a collision course with the earth. After that we discuss 1962's Gorath (technically a New Years movie

Byrd, Matt, Kevin, Lux, Trev, and Tom assemble for a sprawling mega-sized, in depth review of Godzilla Minus One. Toho's latest entry in the franchise is a reboot taking place in the 1940s, as Japan rebuilds after World War 2. It follows Koichi, a former kamikaze pilot with survivor's guilt and PTSD as he struggles to find his lot in life and confront his trauma, as the H-Bomb muta

In our lead up to Godzilla: Minus One, Byrd, Lux, Tom and Kevin examine more science fiction and fantasy films from director Takashi Yamazaki (Parasyte, Ghost Book, The Eternal Zero). Yamazaki made his first feature in 2000 and has been a consistent hit maker since, making some of the most successful Japanese films of recent years. For this episode, we discuss and review his debut

If you think Halloween came and went too soon, Byrd, Tom, Lux and Kevin are here to help soothe your Halloween Hangover with some more yokai-centric madness, with Toho's 2022 fantasy film Ghost Book (aka Yokaipedia). Directed by Takashi Yamazaki (Godzilla Minus One, Eternal Zero, Parasyte 1 & 2), this adaptation of the "Ghost Book Obakezukan" picture books tells the story of a

Our October horror series continues as Byrd, Tom, Lux and Kevin discuss Shinya Tsukamoto's cult classic Tetsuo trilogy! Tsukamoto burst onto the Japanese indie scene with the first film in 1989, cementing him as a master of surrealist outsider cinema, putting his name alongside directors like Sogo Ishii, David Lynch, and David Cronenberg, and also becoming an icon of the emerging J