Okay we’re back in Japan for our next review. But we’re going to look at something a little different. It’s not live action, it’s a CGI kaiju “movie”. I used quotes because it’s not movie length it’s more of a short film, seriously it’s under a half hour. It was released in 2008 and was made as a homage to the Showa era Kaiju movies, trying to capture the look and feel of those films. While I will expand on that later it does show that the guy who created it is a fan of these films. Always a plus in my book.

 

So without further ado let’s jump into Negadon.

 

 

Things start with a narrator saying the population of the Earth had grown so great that Earth’s natural resources have been depleted. And a plan to terraform Mars had been put in effect. Later we learn they’re also mining the resources they need from Mars that Earth needs now. Nothing quite like getting a head start on bleeding a planet dry. There’s an opening credit montage showing them pulling a huge rock out of the ground. We get back to Earth where our main character’s, Dr. Narasaki, mood matches the gloomy and rainy day that’s outside. He’s being visited by his former lab assistant, now in the military, and tries to convince him that he should try and get his giant robot project going again as the world needs machines like that now. Narasaki refuses and his former assistant is disappointed that he let his dream die and tells him to call him in case he changes his mind. After he leaves Narasaki says after ten years dreams don’t die they fade away. We go to a flashback to those ten years a where a much younger looking Narasaki is explaining to his young daughter Emi that this robot has been his dream since he was her age, wanting it to build bases and colonies in outer space and under the ocean. Emi get’s excited and asks if he’s read the letter she put into his coat yet and slightly disappointed when he hasn’t yet. His former assistant, well it’s a flashback so current assistant and future military man, say they’re getting an abnormal power reading. Narasaki says as long as it remains stable it should be fine. Anybody wanna take a bet on that being the wrong thing to say? Any way there’s a surge or something that cause a pretty good size hose to shots out of it’s socket and crashing into the observation platform Narasaki and Emi are standing in. Emi died that day and Narasaki has been slowly dying on the inside ever since, and apparently he never opened that letter.

 

Back in the now the resource ship that’s been hauling those resources from Mars to Earth has something suddenly go wrong with the big rock they took out of the ground as it explodes crashing into the city below. From the breakage a strange creature emerges  and it lower portions emits an Independence Day like Death ray that causes a massive explosion. Watching thing on the news and hearing where the creature, this is Negadon by the way, is heading Narasaki speculates that the creature had been waiting for something to find it and monologues about how humankind usually causes destruction by it’s own hands and why can’t that see that. Apparently ready to do exactly nothing memories of Emi and her letter spurs him to action. Going to the hanger the robot is still in he gets it ready and uses a ramp from under the ocean to launch it into flight and land in the creatures path. His old assistant see this and contacts Narasaki to try and get him to stop. And he does this on a rotary phone no less, hate to see the charges are to all a giant robot. Negadon shots a beam at him, that he stops with a drill hand. Not exactly sure how a drill can parry an energy beam but oh well. There’s a brief fight, with an small assist from the air fore who actually manages to hurt the creature by shooting off the arm tentacle looking thing that shoots the beam. Latching on to what’s left of the arm thing with a capture claw Narasaki shoots up into space dragging Negadon with him while telling his old assistant to never give up on his dreams. One in space the fight resumes and Narasaki sets the robot to self destruct. After using the drill to get past an energy ball of doom, seriously how do you do that with a drill???, he impales Negadon and the robot explodes. Back on Earth Narasaki’s former assistant looks out at the city as debry falls from the sky.

 

And that was it, I told you it was short. The story in and of itself is rather basic, and not a whole lot of room for exposition here to be totally honest. I can’t really comment on the human actors sine this was CG. But the CG itself was very well done in my humble opinion. I thought Narasaki motivation, or lack of in the beginning, were nicely done.And granted he was the only one who really got any type of development. He even goes as far as to speculate that this creature was the thing he’s been waiting for these past ten years. And he had a picture of Emi stuk on the ontrol panel to remind himself who he’s fighting for. There was this  one rather silly scene where his former assistant, all while the alien was attacking, was apparently calmly eating some dinner. Yeah that seemed a bit out of place. There also this bit earlier in the film where the camera focuses on this funky looking moth for almost a minute for no apparent reason. Butr on Emi’s letter we see a moth like thing printed on the envelope. I’m assuming there’s a connetion there I’m just not seeing it

 

On to the giant fellows. Starting with Negadon, our titled creature is about as alien looking as you an get. For one it doesn’t have a humanoid shape, it has an outer shell his eyes can peak over and lower to hide behind. It as those arms I mentioned before with a bit of a segmented look to them with claws at the end of them that an shoot beams. One beams has this Darksied Omega Beam effect as it an seem to move slightly. These, the only way I an describe them, star fish looking limbs, but more alien looking, an open up for for even more energy blast, the aforementioned Omega Beam looking thing and the energy ball. All in all an very interesting looking creature. The giant Robot, called Miroku, looks like something that would come out of the sixties, all steal plates and rivets. It has two main weapon, the drill that can stop laser beams, still have no idea how that works exactly, and the two prong capture claw and chain rope. It also has a jet pack that allows it to fly, either straight up or from the launch ramp.

 

As I mention earlier this was a homage to the old Showa era kaiju movies and it shows in the designs. There some similar shots you would see in those moves. And the tech looks similar too. I was halfway expeting to see a Mazer Cannon to show up at one point. So bonus points for getting the feel right. But it’s shortness might be a turn off to some people. I would give it a 3 out of 5.