As you may recall, every year my wife and I treat each other to one Christmas splurge. In years past this has been an expensive book or a set of expensive books, but this year I decided on something else: an 8-disc set of the Showa-era Godzilla films.

This was an indulgence to my inner child. When I was growing up there was nothing I enjoyed more than watching Godzilla films on a Saturday morning. When I tried collecting them on DVD a couple of years ago, though, I learned that many of them were out-of-print and consequently very expensive. This made Criterion's set too appealing too pass up, so when my wife asked me what I wanted this year I asked for it.

Normally I would have had to wait another couple of months before enjoying it. But when my wife's gift ⁠(a set of Powerbeat Pros) arrived, she decided she didn't want to wait until December. So once the DVDs showed up we wrapped them and exchanged gifts.

And the set was even better than I expected:

To accompany the DVDs, they provided a short essay on each movie, which they accompanied with some fantastic artwork:

Of course, it's all about the DVDs:

Now I'm spending the weekend indulging in a nostalgic immersion into two decades' worth of classic Japanese kaiju movies. I'm alternating between my favorites and ones I missed seeing when I was young, and it's been fascinating seeing them again after all these decades.

This makes it all worth while. Stomp Zilla into the dirt, Goji.

Terrific monster movie that is both fun and funny, with a pleasing cast of characters and an effective interpretation of Godzilla. Panned by critics -- most famously by Roger Ebert, who is lampooned in the film -- many of whom saw too many similarities to Jurassic Park in its effects and probably didn't want to offend Spielberg by enjoying it. Matthew Broderick is very good as a happy man in not always happy circumstances and Jean Reno plays the surprising role of a French agent with amusing aplomb. Action-packed and exciting, with a clever twist in the middle that keeps Godzilla himself from becoming boring. Simply one of the best.

*Book source ~ A review copy was provided by NetGalley & IDW in exchange for an honest review.

It’s been years since monsters destroyed Earth. There are pockets of human survivors who scavenge for supplies and try to stay alive. Hiroshi is one of the few left who remembers the time before. Many call them gods, but Hiroshi knows they are just monsters and one day they will be back.

This Godzilla tale is a bit weak. It follows Hiroshi and his grandson as well as a few others as they scramble to find a safe place when the monsters come back. Hiroshi’s story is slowly revealed and how he is connected to the monsters, Godzilla in particular. I’m not a huge fan of Godzilla, but my son is and I enjoyed the newest movie incarnation, so I thought this might be a good read. I can’t say I was all that excited about it. Although I did enjoy seeing all the various monsters shown in this book.

The artwork is very detailed and beautifully drawn. However, it was a bit too dismal and dreary for me with the few bright colors given to the monster fighting. Yes, I know this is a post-apocalyptic story and I will say the colors are perfect for it. However, I have to judge on what I like and it wasn’t my mug o’tea. Fans of Godzilla will most likely enjoy it though.

I saw a couple of the old Godzilla movies in my more movie watching years (back when I saw at least one movie a day) and honestly I never saw the charm with them. I have also seen the one with Jean Reno and half of the new one (got bored).

So actually this is probably the best experience I had with Godzilla (although I like Jean Reno the movie was not that good). The art was good, the story, not that bad, Godzilla, Mothra and many other monsters fighting each other, and of course the humans caught in between,

3 stars

Thank you Diamond Book Distributors and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!