Today we learned that each of Japan’s 47 prefectures has a designated monster representative. That’s right, they’ve got official local kaiju, which is so awesome! Collectively they’re known as “Gotouchi Kaiju” (”Local Monsters”) and they were created as part of a multimedia project organized by Professor Hiroshi Sagae.
Each kaiju embodies unique or otherwise noteworthy aspects of their respective prefecture and has a comprehensive backstory, artwork, figurines, and even videos showing how they do battle with local problems that often pertain to the loss of nature and green spaces. Kagawa Prefecture, famous for its Sanuki Udon, has a towering monster made of Udon noodles with chopstick eyestalks. Nara Prefecture is known for its park full of tame Sika Deer and so its monster is a giant angry deer-beast called Shinrock who uses his “Horn Thunder” attack to combat traffic.
The shopping districts of Osaka Prefecture are renown for ladies known as Osaka obachan, “a distinctive type of middle-aged woman common in the area and identified by her love of leopard print and loud, gregarious nature.” So the Osaka kaiju is a fabulous giant lizard lady who stuns enemies with her powerful voice:
A special Gotouchi Kaiju crowdfunding campaign was recently launched to enourage people to help the monsters in their battles to protect nature.
Head over to RocketNews24 to learn more about these do-gooding regional monsters and their efforts to protect and improve their prefectures.
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