Japanese Sci-Fi A to Z

Thanks to Christopher Elam over at the OWARI blog, I have a lot more Japanese science fiction movies to track down now. Inspired by my posting of the Giant Monsters vs. Alien Invaders article, he has followed suit with Star Warp's "Japanese Sci-Fi A to Z."

Now I know where the kaiju Manda, a giant dragon-like serpent, originated: 1963's Atragon. Previously I'd only seen him in stock footage from various Godzilla movies and assumed he was just a space filler on Monster Island.

I also know more about the Japanese character Starman, along with a variety of Japanese movies that Tom Rogers apparently hated on principle. Chris has some interesting theories about the freelance writer's career and writing style, but I also can't help but wonder if "Tom Rogers" wasn't just a pseudonym employed by the editors of science fiction and fantasy magazines whenever they needed to give credit to a questionable article. Will the real Tom Rogers please stand up?

Brains and Blobs from Outer Space

Last week I discussed the June 1978 issue of Space Wars, the first science fiction magazine I ever read. Well, the very same month, publisher Myron Fass also put out this issue of Star Encounters. Besides having similar covers, they both also had articles comparing and contrasting Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Space Wars contained an article by Tom Rogers on Giant Monsters defending Earth from Alien Invaders. In Star Encounters, Tom writes about Brains and Blobs from Outer Space:

"Since 1933," Tom begins, "there have been about 30 films that have featured bodiless brains, outsized masses of living protoplasm and similar disturbing and unnatural things." He then goes on to cover classics of this subgenre, including The Blob (and the sequel Beware! The Blob!, a.k.a. Son of Blob), The Green Slime, and 27 other films (which for the sake of convenience I'll list in alphabetical order):

1. Angry Red Planet
2. The Atomic Submarine
3. Barbarella
4. Brain from Planet Arous
5. Caltiki, the Immortal Monster
6. The Colossus of New York
7. The Crawling Eye
8. The Creeping Unknown
9. Curse of the Fly
10. Donovan's Brain
11. Enemy from Space
12. Evil Brain from Outer Space
13. The Final Program
14. Flame Barrier
15. The Flesh Eaters
16. The H-Man
17. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
18. Island of Terror
19. It Came from Outer Space
20. Journey to the 7th Planet
21. Last Days of Man on Earth
22. Not of This Earth
23. The Space Children
24. Space Master X-7
25. The Unknown Terror
26. The Vampire Bat
27. X the Unknown

Number 12 above, Evil Brain from Outer Space, is one of the Starman (known in Japan as Super Giant) films (not to be confused with the movie starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen) recommended in the blog comments by fellow blogger Chris Elam:

Oh my stars, I remember that Brains and Blobs article! I liked the Fass publications because they covered plenty of weird stuff. This included running what was essentially fanfiction with articles like "What If Jor-El Had Been Wrong?" and the amazing theory that Tusken Raiders were adolescent Jawas.

Haha, yeah, different Starman. There are four of them, edited from Japanese movie serials (usually two-parters). Since you watched Green Slime on YouTube, here they are there:

Atomic Rulers

Invaders from Space

Attack from Space

Evil Brain from Outer Space

They're all out on DVD, if they float your boat.

Finally, because I'll take any excuse to post a Simpsons image, here is the poster for Treehouse of Horror XVII, which includes the segment "Married to the Blob," in which Homer morphs from morbidly obese into a giant blob and begins eating his way through (the citizens of) Springfield. Contains the best Dr. Phil cameo EVER (Hint: I'm not a fan).