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MOBY-DICK; OR: THE WHALE in Japan by Henning Strauss
The following essay was initially planned to be included on the SRS release of The Whale God, but did not wind up on the final release. As such,…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 62: A Typhoon of Sushi
New panel recording up on YouTube, this one is from Anime NJ++ this year. This one covers the Sushi Typhoon imprint and some general history of Japanese splatter…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 61: Netflix’s Yu Yu Hakusho show
In this episode, Kevin, Josh, and Lux sit down to discuss Netflix’s 2023 adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho. As three relatively hardcore fans of the source material, we…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 60: Midnight Tokusatsu part 1 at G-Fest
This went up on YouTube back in September, but somehow I missed linking it on the blog: a presentation Mike Dent and I did at G-Fest 2023, covering…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 58: A History of Marvel in Japan (Otakon 2023)
Last weekend was Otakon, where I got to give a panel detailing the wild intersection of Japanese pop culture and Marvel comics. This one details Marvel books based…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 57: A Decade(-ish?) of New Generation Ultraman
In this episode, Kevin is joined by Alex, Connor, and Jared as the gang look back on the decade since Ultraman Ginga debuted, recapping all of the mainline…
Presentation: Takashi Yamazaki retrospective for Kaiju Masterclass
Forgot to post this here earlier, but here’s a presentation for Kaiju Masterclass from earlier this month, giving an overview of Takashi Yamazaki’s entire filmography and speculating ab…
Obligatory Tenth Anniversary Post
Holy cats, it’s Maser Patrol’s tenth anniversary! That’s right, the blog began on January 1st, 2013, the same day as the 50th anniversary of the Astro Boy anime.…
Halloween Hijinks: Hollywood Horror in Japanese Comics
Have you ever wondered about how the Death Note anime started during the short four-month window between the two live-action movies? Or how Parasyte’s anime debuted the same…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 57: Japanese Dinosaur Movies at G-Fest XXVII
One more G-Fest recording for this year! This panel had content from across Asia, but we only had time for the Japanese part at the show, so a…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 56: Lost Films Trailer Reel at G-Fest XXVII
Another G-Fest panel is now up on YouTube, looking at various trailers for projects that either never saw the light of day, or wound up quite differently from…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 55: Tomoko Ai Interview (live at G-Fest)
Jessica Tseang was due to interview the great Godzilla and Ultraman franchise actress Tomoko Ai at G-Fest this year, but wasn’t able to attend the convention due to…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 54: Tokusatsu vs Wrestling at G-Fest XXVII (with special guest Chris Eaton!)
One of several live recordings from G-Fest XXVII, this episode was a panel in collaboration with Chris Eaton of the Kaiju Kingdom Podcast, looking into the overlap of…
First reaction to Shin Ultraman (from NYAFF premiere)
*mild spoilers if you haven’t watched trailers or seen the latest Bandai figures* Shin Ultraman is, after the Rebuild of Evangelion and Shin Godzilla, the third entry in…
Sweet, Sensitive (Sometimes Sexy) Sentai-style Supervillainesses
Of all the new anime this season, the one that’s caught the tokusatsu fandom by storm the most has been Miss Kuroitsu from the Monster Development Department. The…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 53: Error 4444
In this episode, Kevin sits down for an interview with the team behind Error 4444, an exciting new home video label that’s specializing in Asian genre film. We…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 52: Ultraman Trigger
On this episode, Kevin is joined by Alex (Control All Monsters, 13AM Games, Seismic Toys), Connor (Easter’s Kaiju Kompendium), and Mike (Vintage Henshin) to discuss the latest entry…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 51: Covid and Con-troversy
On this episode, Kevin is joined by artist John Bellotti Jr of Robo 7 to discuss recent developments of the convention scene from the Artist Alley perspective. Topics…
30 Fun Zeiram Facts for Zeiram’s 30th
2021’s been quite a year for franchise anniversaries! We kicked it off with some retrospective trivia for the 50th anniversary of Spectreman, had galleries for the 50th anniversaries…
30 Fun Zeiram Facts for Zeiram’s 30th Birthday
2021’s been quite a year for franchise anniversaries! We kicked it off with some retrospective trivia for the 50th anniversary of Spectreman, had galleries for the 50th anniversaries…
Kaiju Masterclass II this weekend!
This weekend is Kaiju Masterclass, the second annual meeting of the premiere online convention for all things kaiju-related. There’re lots of cool guests this year, including Ryuhei Kitamura,…
Halloween Hijinks: Japanese “Slasher Monster” Movies
It’s almost Halloween, which means it’s time for an annual tradition at Maser Patrol: a recap of a horror-related trope or subgenre in Japanese entertainment! We’ve talked in…
Thirteen Japanese Jasons for Friday the 13th
Compared to other major occidental holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day, Halloween has been notably slow to pick up momentum in Japan. The reason for this is mainly…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 50: Junji Ito Goes to the Movies (Otakon 2021)
Wow, episode 50 already? Well, that’s not counting a handful of other panels like Kaiju Con-Line, Kaiju Masterclass, Anime Lockdown, and more, so maybe it’s not that much…
Anime Lockdown: Ultraman in Animation
I was recently able to present at the Anime Lockdown online convention and salvage the doomed “Ultraman in Animation” topic from a few years ago. Thanks to John-Paul…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 49: Otaku Life in Germany
Grüß Gott! In this episode, I’m joined by Henning Strauß (not “Straub”!) to discuss the history of kaiju (and also of other tokusatsu, anime, and manga) in Germany,…
Old-school Special Effects with S(e)oul
Welcome to Maser Patrol, a weblog that covers Japanese genre fiction. But, it being April Fool’s Day, imagine if we did something crazy, like punking readers by instead…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 47: Symphogear
After a long hiatus, it’s time for another episode of the Maser Patrol podcast. This time, we take a look at a show with a valuable life lesson:…
Happy 50th Anniversary to Spectreman!
It’s now 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the 2nd Kaiju Boom, also known as the Henshin Boom, a period when Japanese television was flooded…
End-of-Year Maser Patrol News Recap
Apologies: I’ve been bad about making timely news recaps this year. 2020 has been terrible, and the general stresses of the world combined with some personal life situations/tragedies…
Unmade movie review: Versus (2008)
Note: this thumbnail was for fun and was not part of the unmade movie’s script The early-to-mid 2000s were perhaps the peak of Japan’s soft power in Hollywood.…
Kaiju Transmissions podcast: Ryuhei Kitamura’s Action-horror
I was on Kaiju Transmissions last month for a post-Halloween show to talk about some of Ryuhei Kitamura’s early action/horror output, including: Down to HellVersusAliveAragamiLonginus He̵…
Interview: Tokyo Shock
I recently sat down for a conversation with Media Blasters to discuss the past and future of the Tokyo Shock line. The brand has been particularly active lately,…
Halloween Hijinks: Japanese Body Horror
Confession: I was struggling to come up with another iconic monster to round up for this year’s Halloween article, and as such, a suggestion came my way –…
Loose news round-up (plus random thoughts)
The recent Godzilla SP announcement proved to be the kick in the pants that I needed to get a new post together…however, Wordpress had some other plans, changing…
Quick update
Hi all, Kevin here. The blog has gone sadly neglected for the past few months, for which I apologize; the stressful current state of world events has certainly…
Watch/Read/Buy: a recent media-merchandise roundup (US-focused)
Since I’ve been negligent for the past couple of months, I thought it might be good to do a quick rundown of some of developments regarding the recent…
Kaiju Transmissions triple-shot
Also, because I forgot earlier, I did guest spots on three episodes of Kaiju Transmissions without posting about them here. I wholeheartedly suggest adding Kaiju Transmissions to your…
Podcast recap: Kaiju Con-Line double-feature
Hi all, Apologies for the lack of blog posts during all the lockdown. A lot of steam was let out of the weekly news recaps due to all…
Scanlation: Gamera vs Morphos (1999, Nenpei Moo)
Arrow’s Gamera: The Complete Collection is hitting on August 17, with an assortment of amazing special features hitherto unseen for the franchise. To celebrate this incredible boxset, we…
News recap: RIP Nobuhiko Obayashi
Welcome back! Hopefully everyone is following good social distancing guidelines, but in case you need some help, our favorite kaiju heroes are here to help: On to…
April 4/5: Kaiju Quarantine live podcast festival
This weekend, an octet of kaiju-centric podcasts will be gathering on Discord to do one live commentary each on their favorite giant monster movies. The Maser Patrol podcast…
March news recap – plenty of new kaiju and hero media is a good reason to stay inside
In the overall scope of world events, this March has been one of the most impactful months in recent memory, as COVID has interrupted plans on all scales.…
Kaiju Transmissions podcast: Virus (1980)
While there hasn’t been a new Maser Patrol episode in a hot minute, Kevin (along with author John LeMay) had a chance to drop by the Kaiju Transmissions…
Kaiju-fied news recap
In a rare event, there was actually so much kaiju-adjacent news in the past week that rather than posting at the standard biweekly rate, I’m opting to do…
February news recap
Procrastination and distraction has gotten the better of me again, but the inundation of kaiju news items in the past couple of days has made it impossible to…
New Year’s news recap
Happy new year (admittedly a couple weeks late)! I’ve been distracted from putting together news recaps for a while, but that just means a lot more things to…
Maser Patrol podcast episode 46: Lost Films and More with John LeMay
Looking for a last-minute Christmas present? Well, you’re in luck, because John LeMay has a varied bibliography on topics ranging from history, UFOlogy, horror films, cryptozoology, spaghetti…
The 2010s: A decade in review timeline
As December winds to a close, I find myself reflecting back…. back on how many podcasts, blogs, and YouTubers seem to have already done their decades in review,…
News recap: First TsubuCon quite a success!!
This weekend was the first ever Tsuburaya Convention (TsubuCon), attached to Wonder Festival. As an inaugural outing, there were a number of fantastic announcements and reveals, including: The…