Kaiju

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Kaiju" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Kaiju (Japanese: 怪獣（かいじゅう）, Hepburn: kaijū, lit. 'strange beast'; Japanese pronunciation: [ka̠iʑɨː]) is a Japanese term that is commonly associated with media involving giant monsters. Its widespread contemporary use is credited to tokusatsu (special effects) director Eiji Tsuburaya and filmmaker Ishirō Honda, who popularized the kaiju film genre by creating the Godzilla franchise and its spin-offs.^[1] The term can also refer to the monsters themselves, which are usually depicted attacking major cities and battling either the military or other creatures.

Godzilla (1954) is often regarded as the first kaiju movie. When developing it, Honda and Tsuburaya drew inspiration from the character of King Kong, both in its influential 1933 film and in the conception of a giant monster, establishing it as a pivotal precursor in the evolution of the genre.^[2] During its formative years, kaiju movies were generally neglected by Japanese critics, who regarded them as "juvenile gimmick", according to authors Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski.^[1]

Kaiju are often somewhat metaphorical in nature; Godzilla, for example, initially served as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident. Other notable examples of kaiju include Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Gamera.