02-06-2009 01:03 AM

More...

Someone want to explain to me why "monsters attacking Japan" was such a huge part of Japanese TV and movies back in the day? I mean, really! It wasn't just a few Godzilla movies, it was pervasive in the culture, it seems to me. Here we're talking about an entire freaking TV series dedicated to fighting off monsters!! Why? What spawned this fascination with monsters?

Arne,

I would say it is more than just a fascination with fighting off monsters. More of a fasination with comic book type superheros and animae culture in general. It was more than just one TV series too. There were tons of them, both live action and animated cartoons and I would bet they are still around. I think Power Rangers here in the US was derived from the Japanese version. I lived in Hawaii for several years in the early 1970's and we had several Japanese superhero series on TV with english subtitles. Kikaida, Rainbowman, Karmen Rider, etc. All with the same general theme as Ultraman. They were pretty cool to us young kids at the time though. I'd be interested to hear Kats take on this.

-Mike

Yeah, I figured there was probably more than just that one series. As I said, it appears to be culture-wide. Interesting but probably not understandable from our Western perspective.