Destroy all Monsters



When we have Godzilla symbolizing the nuclear attacks on Japan and Astro Boy (or Mighty Atom as he's known in Japan) the triumph of good vs evil, justice and inocence. For Japan, the boy robot became a symbol of the nation's resurgence. Junichi Murakami, who runs the OsamuTezuka Manga Museum, says many Japanese companies use Astro Boy's image as the symbol of high-quality, made-in-Japan products.Thirteen years of economic decline and political scandal have robbed the Japanese of self-confidence, and there is a desperate urge to find local heroes. A boy robot with rocket-powered boots remains the perfect idol and at the same time, focusing on one aspect of modern civilization: the idea that science could bring us a wonderful world. Now that we talked about the post nuclear monsters and Astro Boy interpretations. Enter the big 4 meter high robo-warrior sentai (in this iteration made of wood in order to get the molds in fiberglass) The term "sentai," meaning "task force," refers to superheroes who battle a sinister presence bent on conquering the world with hordes of generic foot soldiers and weekly monsters. But although sentai dates back to 1975's Goranger, its traditions have themselves been borrowed from prior works within the Japanese category of filmmaking known as tokusatsu. What follows is a series of tokusatsu milestones which have contributed to make sentai what it is today. Including Ultra Man and Mazinger Z among others. Carlos conjures the mysticism, religious values and tall tales from latin America to create the next issue of what we are going to see. A series of unique monsters, so far 50 are already done in paper and production will start in early 2007

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Joel is a contributor on Design-Milk's weekly architectural posts and Apartment Therapy's Unplggd daily technology posts.