GOvember, 2024!

In honour of Godzilla's 70th anniversary in November, I hope to write a little bit about the Big G every day. Thanks to my awesome calendar (Thanks Ed!), I have been able to gawk at Gojira whenever I go to the loo.

Here's a taste, a mini-diorama from Godzilla Raids Again. (ゴジラの逆襲 Gojira no Gyakushū, lit. "Godzilla's Counterattack")

 

Unfortunately, the hour is later than I thought, so I need to cut this short. I'll leave you with this episode of Faerie Tale Theater as a tribute to the late great Teri Garr!

Who knew Kramer was a King!

I'm off to Kitakami for a wedding tomorrow, so I bid you adieu. More Godzilla goodies plus a roundup of Countdown to Halloween bloopers.

Trick or Treatment.

I'm late with my Halloween wrap up. For a change, it's not because I'm hungover. Just a lazy day.

100 bucks for a pumpkin! And it was too big to take on the subway.

The highlight lowlight of my day yesterday was receiving a Flu AND a Covid vaccination both in the same arm. I felt no real ill effects other than a lackadaisical attitude toward the rest of the day. I did the shopping and handed out some candies to random costumed passersby. The cutest were a mother/ daughter duo who wore matching Cop outfits, including kiddy cuffs. This quintet agreed to have their photo taken.

These are the treats I handed and eared and nosed out (Body parts gummies). 

When last we spoke, I was just about to retire before watching Hunger Games Battle Royale. I don't remember much about the movie though it was nice to see it with subtitles so I could figure out what was going on. Director's cut: though I'm not sure what footage was added/subtracted. Seems like there were more shots of their JHS before they were kidnapped to the island. If you've never seen it, watch this trailer and see why I mistook it for Hunger Games.

But before I watched this, I viewed another movie called Kwaidan. (Click for the Wiki page.)

It has four ghostly tales and my favourites were as follows: "The Woman and the Snow", now let me interrupt for a commercial from Yokai.com.

雪女 (ゆきおんな) or Yuki Onna is a Snow Woman. This description sums her up rather well. "Yuki onna prey on travelers lost in the heavy snowstorms that blanket the Japanese Alps in winter. They have an otherworldly beauty, with long black hair and dark, piercing eyes. Their skin is ageless and as white as snow, but their bodies are as cold as ice. A mere touch is enough to give a human a deep, unshakable chill. They feed on life force, sucking it from human’s mouths with an icy breath that freezes their victims solid." Check out that link for more info.

In the Kwaidan tale, a woodcutter named Minokuchi falls prey to AND falls in love with a Yuki Onna. At about the 3:20 mark of this video, you can see the highlights of the story.

The other story was regaled to me by two different students of mine. I asked my adult classes to tell me a Yokai or Ghost story and they both came up with similar versions of this tale, "Hoichi, the Earless" which is the third story in Kwaidan.

Once again, our sponsor interrupts.

耳なし芳一 (みみなしほういち) Mimi Nashi Houichi or Hoichi the Earless. "Hōichi was a blind biwa master who resided at Amidaji, a Buddhist temple in Shimonoseki. He was renowned for his skill at performing The Tale of the Heike–particularly his rendition of the Battle of Dan no ura and the death of the child emperor Antoku. His playing was said to be so splendid that he could even make ghosts and demons cry."

Although there aren't any subtitles, this story is fairly easy to follow.

I know I promised to present Junji Ito's works daily, well that plan didn't work out very well. I need to plan ahead better. Here are the covers of a few of his works that I purchased for a few hundred yen weeks ago. Someday, I hope to read them so I can get my money's worth. (Note: a few covers have been shown before.)

Speaking of covers, I was planning on showing lots of Phantom Stranger, Deadman, Spectre, etc. I didn't get around to them very often.

 

 

That's enough for now...

All in all, a pretty good Halloween day yesterday and I went to bed and had a good night's sleep, even with the sore arm.

Be sure to wander over to the main page of Countdown to Halloween to find other bloggers' missives.

I'm going to take a break and then do a Round-up of a lot of tidbits that I intended on showing earlier. 

Only 333 days until the next Countdown to Halloween!