Gamera is a fictional monster, or kaiju, originating from a series of Japanese films. Debuting in the 1965 film Gamera, the Giant Monster, the character and the first film were intended to compete with the success of Toho's Godzilla film series. Since then, Gamera has become a Japanese icon in his own right, appearing in a total of 12 films produced by Daiei Film and later by Tokuma Shoten and Kadokawa Daiei Studio respectively, and various other media such as novelizations, manga, video games, and so on.
Daimajin is a Japanese tokusatsu series centering on an eponymous fictitious giant warrior god. It initially consisted of a film trilogy shot simultaneously and released in 1966 with three different directors and predominantly the same crew. The series was produced by Daiei Film and contained similar plot structures involving villages being overthrown by warlords, leading to the villagers attempting to reach out to Daimajin, the great demon god, to save them.
Shinji Higuchi is a Japanese filmmaker. Known for his tokusatsu blockbusters, Higuchi is considered one of Japan's leading filmmakers of the 21st century.
Kuniko Ishigami, better known by her stage name Satomi Ishihara, is a Japanese actress.
Masami Nagasawa is a Japanese actress. She has had a prolific film career since her teenage years and has starred in various blockbusters, receiving multiple accolades, including five Japan Academy Film Prizes and four Blue Ribbon Awards.
Kei Tanaka is a Japanese actor.
Satoshi Furuya, known professionally as Bin Furuya, is a Japanese actor best known for his portrayal of the title character in the 1966 series Ultraman. Furuya would later portray the character Amagi in the sequel series Ultraseven. Furuya has also made appearances in Mothra (1961), Gorath (1962), High and Low (1963), Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Ultraman Zearth (1996), Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy (2009), and Shin Ultraman (2022).
Masahiro Higashide is a Japanese actor and model. In 2012, he debuted as an actor in The Kirishima Thing.
Mei Nagano is a Japanese actress. Amongst her film and television credits are Rinko in the film My Love Story!, Suzume Yosano in the film Daytime Shooting Star, and Suzume Nireno in the 98th NHK asadora Hanbun, Aoi.
Takumi Kitamura is a Japanese actor, singer, and model. He is represented by Stardust Promotion's Section 3. He is the leader of Stardust's music collective Ebidan unit Dish. As a member of Dish, he is nicknamed Takumi, stylized as TAKUMI.
Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo is a 2012 Japanese kaiju short film directed by Shinji Higuchi. A live-action prequel and spin-off of Hayao Miyazaki's 1984 anime film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the film is a co-production between Studio Ghibli, Special Effects Laboratory Co., Ltd, and Khara, Inc. In the film, a woman from Tokyo recounts how her city was obliterated within hours by giant divine warriors.
Kanta Sato is a Japanese actor, he is a member of EXILE's theater company. He is best known for his role as Naoki Irie in the 2016 film Itazura no Kiss the Movie: High School.
Gordon Maeda is a Japanese actor. He is the son of actor and martial artist Sonny Chiba. Maeda is best known for portraying Takashi Mitsuya in live action movie adaptation of Tokyo Revengers and Hyakunosuke Ogata in Golden Kamuy series.
Sakurako Konishi is a Japanese actress from Saitama.
Nezura 1964 is a 2020 Japanese crowdfunded kaiju biopic film directed by Hiroto Yokokawa. The film was based on Daiei Film's unfinished 1964 Gamera precursor Giant Horde Beast Nezura and stars Yukijirō Hotaru as a character based on the president of Daiei, Mai Saito, Mach Fumiake, and Shirō Sano. Yokokawa later reused its props for a 2021 short film Yatsuashi, which was based on Giant Sea Demon Dagora, a scrapped Daiei film before Giant Horde Beast Nezura.
Monster Seafood Wars is a 2020 Japanese kaiju film directed by Minoru Kawasaki. The film is loosely based on an unmade film featuring a giant octopus proposed by Eiji Tsuburaya prior to production of the original 1954 Godzilla film.
The Great Buddha Arrival is a 2018 Japanese kaiju film directed by Hiroto Yokokawa. The film was based on the lost 1934 film of the same name, made with the cooperation of director Yoshiro Edamasa's grandson. Additional footage with new actors was shot to extend the film's run time for international distribution. Still more footage was shot for a Japanese theatrical release, termed the Final Edition. This last release occurred on September 4, 2020.
Eiji Tsuburaya (1901–1970) was a Japanese special effects director and filmmaker who worked on roughly 250 films throughout his five-decade career. Having pioneered and popularized the special effects sector of the Japanese film industry, he is popularly known as the "Father of Tokusatsu". Tsuburaya started his career in the Japanese film industry as a cinematographer for several successful dramas and jidaigeki films in the early 1920s. His directorial debut was the propaganda documentary film Three Thousand Miles Across the Equator, which he filmed in the Pacific Ocean on the Asama for most of 1935. Following the completion of photography on this film, he worked as the cinematographer and had his debut as special effects director on Princess Kaguya (1935). It was one of Japan's first major productions to feature special effects. The next year, Tsuburaya made his dramatic directorial debut with the release of Folk Song Collection: Oichi of Torioi Village and had substantial success staging the special effects for Arnold Fanck's The Daughter of the Samurai.
Laid-Back Camp Movie, also known as Yuru Camp Movie, is a 2022 Japanese animated film based on the manga series Laid-Back Camp by Afro. Produced by C-Station and distributed by Shochiku, the film is directed by Yoshiaki Kyogoku from an original story written by Jin Tanaka and Mutsumi Ito. In the film, a grown-up Nadeshiko Kagamihara, Rin Shima, Chiaki Ōgaki, Aoi Inuyama, and Ena Saitō reunite to build a campsite.
