06.17.2018: Taste of G-Fest with Yuji Kaida, Kazuhiro Nakagawa & Ryuki Kitaoka

In this episode, Kyle speaks with Yuji Kaida, Kuzuhiro Nakagawa and Ryuki Kitaoka (all reacorded at last year’s G-Fest). It’s time for an interview mulit-ball! At last year’s G-FEST, a number of podcasters and youtubers were given the opportunity to interview the convention guests in 15 minute sessions. In this episode, you’ll hear two of these interviews and a panel recording from the convention, plus I go into some details about the upcoming festival, happening July 13th-15th in Chicago, Illinois. The first interview is with Yuji Kaida, a master painter and illustrator who has an eye for giant monsters. He’s also a big mech artist too. But for more information about this living legend, check out the links below to some of his work. And I do believe that the final image in this post is the Godzilla 1954 painting Kaida-san referred to in the interview. Our second interview is with a younger assistant director from Japan who has been working steadily in the Japanese film business, Kazuhiro Nakagawa. He worked on both live-action Attack on Titan films and Shin Godzilla. Nakagawa also directed a recent independent kaiju film entitled Day of the Kaiju (2012) And thirdly, join myself, Stan Hyde, Robert Scott Field and Japanese stunt actor Ryuki Kitaoka for a panel reflecting on his career as a stunt actor in Japan and in Hong Kong, and his fateful meeting with Jackie Chan. We get to hear about his work on the Ultra series and his time at Toho working on Godzilla Final Wars. Don’t forget that if you want to submit your homework for this month’s daikaiju re-discussion film Wrath of Daimajin (1966), please do so here. AUDIO INTERLUDES: 1. Monsterland Tour from Destroy All Monsters (1968) 2. 12 Intercept Godzilla (M16) by Akira Ifukube from Godzilla (1954) 3. 18 EM20_CH_Alterna_04 by Shiro Sagisu from Shin Godzilla (2016) 4. We Love X II (Cruising The Cirro-Stratus) by Keith Emerson from Godzilla Final Wars (2004) 5. Godzilla by The Creatures from Hái! (2003) SUGGESTED VIEWING: Yuji Kaida Interview at SciFi Japan Yuji Kaida’s Shin Godzilla cover of Famous Monsters #289 Yuji Kaida’s Ultra Kaiju Coloring book! and that’s ^ what I’m talking about when I say Kaida-san is prolific! Day of the Kaiju trailer by Kazuhiro Nakagawa — and the entire Day of the Kaiju film Hope you enjoy the episode!