In honor of today’s release of Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max, I wanted to remind you that Godzilla is so popular in Japan that he’s even had a few theme park attractions made in his honor. Directed by Koichi Kawakita, who helmed 1989’s Godzilla vs. Biollante, and featuring Megumi Odaka as the telepathic Miki Saegusa, 1994’s Monster Planet of Godzilla, or Kaijū Puranetto Gojira, was one of the earliest known attractions based on the long-running Toho kaiju franchise and, as typical for most early versions of things, it’s kinda weird in hindsight. How weird did it get? Well, does the picture below answer your question?
What’s the deal? Monster Planet was shown at Harmonyland and Puroland, a pair of theme parks owned by the Sanrio Company, producers of the insanely popular Hello Kitty franchise. Basically, this brief crossover would be the Japanese equivalent of Mickey Mouse showing up in front of the Millennium Falcon ride at Galaxy’s Edge on a whim. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a version of Monster Planet with the Hello Kitty footage intact but I was still very impressed by the effort that was put into this short but fun Godzilla adventure. I hope you enjoy it and I wish you the best of luck on the pre-film Godzilla quiz.
Credit: Michael Callari
interesting use of bubble wrap to end the attack!!
didn’t do too well on the quiz, only got 7 right.
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