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It�s been a long year. In the world of kaiju eiga, it really has been a crazy ride. 2006 saw the release of some great DVDs, wild rumors, and sad deaths. Tsuburaya Productions started yet another legal battle with Chaiyo; this time in China, whilst Ultraman celebrated its 40th Anniversary with a great Ultraman Mebius TV series, and the movie: ULTRAMAN MEBIUS & ULTRAMAN BROTHERS (2006). It wasn�t just a big year for Ultraman, either. Gamera returned to his roots with his first millennium film: GAMERA: THE LITTLE BRAVES (2006). Tokatsu film JAPAN SINKS (2006) also had a marvelous run in Japan, and Kamen Rider also had a nice year, KAMEN RIDER KABUTO (2006), the Kamen Rider TV series of the year, returning Kamen Rider to their original roots. KAMEN RIDER KABUTO: GOD SPEED LOVE (2006) also hit theatres as the theatrical adaptation of the series. Kamen Rider creators and current owners Toei Productions also produced KAMEN RIDER: THE FIRST (2006), in celebration of their 35th Anniversary. Toei also celebrated thirty years of Super Sentai on TV. Mirrorman also returned in a new movie, MIRRORMAN: REFLEX (2006), which was basically the Ultraman Nexus of the Mirrorman universe. Takashi Miike also announced that he would be directing Kadowaka�s remake of Daiei�s classic DAIMAJIN (1966). Kaiju Big Battel also had one of its most successful years ever on the road. So, as you can imagine, most kaiju have been pretty busy recently. Unfortunately, of all kaiju, the king of the monsters was no where to be found. Despite some incredible American DVD releases, another successful G-Fest, and the continued production of hyped fan film Godzilla: Zero Hour, the king of the monsters� IMAX plans basically went completely down the tube, whilst two major fan sites, www.tokyomonsters.com and www.gojistomp.org were forced to shut down. Also, the worst of all, the entire fandom suffered a huge blow on February 9th, 2006, when Akira Ifukube died. Following Ifukube were many other great writers, composers, actors and more, including Tetsuro Tamba, an amazing actor with grand talent, Akio Jissoji, famous Ultraman director, Japanese-American actor Mako, who shared the same skill and experience of Tamba, Hiroshi Miyagawa, prestigious musical composer, Kunio Miyauchi, popular Ultraman/Ultra Q composer, and Aaron J. Smith, editor of www.monsterzero.us, sadly died at an early age from a major cardiac arrest. And as if this wasn�t bad enough, more bad times were to follow. After GAMERA: THE LITTLE BRAVES (2006) failed to meet expectations at the box office, Kadowaka Pictures canceled the DAIMAJIN (1966) remake that had been planned for a 2008 release. And to the utter surprise of most fans, it was reported on a German site that Sony had plans for a Godzilla 2 for the summer of 2009, and many were quite relieved when the reports were denied by Sony.
Close to the ending of the year, Godzilla tried to have somewhat of a movie. During mid-2006, Koichi Kawakita was granted permission by Toho to use a few Godzilla suits to make three mini movies for the popular Japanese pinball game, Pachinko. If you got a specific combination or got a lucky ball, the Pachinko screen would display a Godzilla battle. There were many different battle possibilities, the game choosing one to play randomly. The possibilities were:
1. Millennium Godzilla vs. GMK King Ghidorah
2. Millennium Godzilla vs. GFW Gigan
3. Millennium Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
4. Millennium Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (AKA Kiryu)
5. Millennium Godzilla vs. Destroyer
Godzilla also had assistants that randomly either appeared to help Godzilla or not. These assistants were Rodan, Mothra, and Minilla.
These stories are what made up the year 2006 for kaiju. This year has really been a mixed bag for kaiju. So, we�ve decided to balance things out. Here are the top five best and worst things that happened in 2006:
The Top Five Worst Things of 2006
5) GAMERA: THE LITTLE BRAVES (2006) failed to reach expectations in the box office, and the poor performance also convinced Kadowaka Productions to cancel the remake of DAIMAJIN (1966).
4) Two major fan sites, www.tokyomonsters.com and www.gojistomp.org, were forced to shut down, and the entire American Godzilla fandom began to grow smaller.
3) Godzilla 3D To the Max, Godzilla�s hopeful IMAX film, basically lost all hope of going into production, without any word from Yoshimitsu Banno on how the film was going in months.
2) 2006 was the first year since 1998 Toho did not produce a kaiju film.
1) Aaron J. Smith, Akira Ifukube, and many others sadly passed away this year. The entire fandom has taken a heavy hit as the last man included in Godzilla�s creation has passed away, and even more damage has been received from the sad news of many other deaths of other huge members of the fandom. They will be missed.
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