November Bday 2

This card is for a VERY big birthday boy; someone who comes up from the depths; he's thirty stories high, comes breathing fire and his head in the sky.

A Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's film, premiering November 3, 1954, has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd. The monster has appeared in numerous other media incarnations including video games, novels, comic books, and television series.

With the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the Japanese consciousness at the moment of the first film's premiere, the huge dino-dragon guy was conceived as a monster created by nuclear detonations and a metaphor for nuclear weapons in general. As the film series expanded, some stories took on less serious undertones portraying him as a hero while other plots still portrayed him as a destructive monster; sometimes the lesser of two threats who plays the defender by default but is still a danger to humanity.

Even if his appearance has changed over the years, many of his characteristics have remained constant. His roar has remained the same, only changing in pitch, and is in fact copyrighted, and so characteristic that anyone can know when the huge creature is coming just by hearing it… okay, by hearing the roar, the scared citizens yelling and the army's tanks. Also, his approximate appearance, regardless of the design of the suit utilized for the creature, remains the same general shape, which is instantly recognizable: a giant, bipedal mutant Dinosaur with rough, bumpy scales that change color throughout the movies, being brown in the original, then various shades of green and almost black scales, a long powerful tail, and jagged, blue or dark purple dorsal fins; a blended chimera inspired by various prehistoric reptiles. And, of course, he remains as one of the most powerful 'kaiju' (giant Japanese movie monsters) ever.

So, Happy Birthday, Big Guy… just, please, stay out of Tokyo. Or any other city.