Kaiju

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Kaiju (怪獣（かいじゅう）, kaijū; lit. 'strange beast') is a term used in film and media for a subgenre of monster films produced in Japan known as kaiju eiga (monster films), also serving as a subgenre of tokusatsu (special effects filmmaking). Similar to its Western counterpart, kaiju eiga usually depict creatures of varying origins and sizes attacking cities or towns, usually in Japan, and battling the Japan Self-Defense Forces, other monsters, or both. Unlike Western monster films, kaiju eiga have often incorporated social and political commentary that reflected the times. While not the first monster film or character, the 1954 film Godzilla is often credited for pioneering the kaiju subgenre, and establishing the template, largely thanks to effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, for tokusatsu that would go on to affect Japan's film industry. Historically, giant movie monsters were known in Japanese as daikaijū (大怪獣 lit. 'giant monster'); however, the broader term of "kaiju" has largely replaced this. The term can also either refer to the monsters themselves or the movie genre in which they appear. In contrast to "giant movie monster", the term "kaiju" is generally used to specifically refer to the Japanese style of giant monster media, which traditionally uses actors in monster suits and scale model sets. Its widespread contemporary use is credited to tokusatsu (special effects) director Eiji Tsuburaya and filmmaker Ishirō Honda, who popularized the Japanese kaiju film genre by creating the Godzilla franchise and its spin-offs. The first "giant monster movie" is debatable. The 1921 animated short film The Pet (1921) features a giant monster attacking a city, and the 1925 silent feature film The Lost World famously features a dinosaur being brought to the streets of London, subsequently inspiring the creators to make the 1933 movie King Kong.