Negadon: The Monster from Mars (2005)

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Negadon: The Monster from Mars
The Japanese poster for Negadon: The Monster from Mars
Alternate titles
Flagicon Japan.png Great Planet Monster Negadon

Directed by Jun Awazu
Producer Kazuki Sunami
Written by Jun Awazu
Music by Shingo Terasawa
Distributor CoMix WaveJP
Central Park MediaUS
Running time 26 minutes
Aspect ratio 2.35:1
Rate this film!
4.14
(7 votes)

Negadon: The Monster from Mars (惑星大怪獣ネガドン,   Wakusei Daikaijū Negadon, lit. Giant Planet Monster Negadon) is a 2005 computer-animated Japanese short kaiju film, written and directed by Jun Awazu and distributed by CoMix Wave Inc. It premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 16, 2005. Styled after the kaiju films of the 1950s and 1960s, Negadon depicts a scientist piloting a giant robot to save Tokyo from a space monster 10 years after an accident involving the same machine led to the death of his daughter.

Plot

In the year 2025, Earth's population has reached 10 billion, and its resources are at a breaking point. As a result, humanity is in the process of terraforming Mars with nuclear weapons to make it more hospitable. One such blast exposes a strange cocoon, which is retrieved by the spaceship Izanami. At the home of retired scientist Ryuichi Narasaki, a TV anchor explains that the Izanami will soon be returning to Fuji.

Narasaki is visited by Seiji Yoshizawa, a JSDF officer and his former assistant, who implores him to reconsider the military's recent offer to rejoin Japan's heavy-labor robotics program. He again refuses, stating that he no longer has any interest in science and technology. When Yoshizawa presses the issue, Narasaki asks him to leave.

As Narasaki watches a moth fly around the room, he thinks back to the accident 10 years ago at the Narasaki Walking Machine Laboratory that changed his life. His daughter, Emi, had come with him to work that day, and listened attentively as he explained his dream to invent robots capable of working on land, in the sea, and in outer space. She asks him if he read her letter, and he replies that he left it in his coat pocket. Just then, a systems malfunction causes a massive tube attached to the robot, MI-6, to detach and crash through the protective glass between them and the hanger, killing Emi and blinding Narasaki in one eye.

As the Izanami approaches Earth, the cocoon in its cargo hold suddenly spikes in temperature, destroying the ship as it falls towards Tokyo and causes immense destruction as it lands. A news helicopter broadcasts footage of a monster, Negadon, floating out of the cocoon, only to be destroyed when it fires an electrical blast at the ground. The JSDF deploys fighter jets, missile launchers, and tanks, but Negadon shrugs their weapons off by shifting into a defensive stance, then destroys the tanks with another energy blast from one of its appendages.

Watching at home, Narasaki muses that "man always brings about disaster by his own hand," thinking of MI-6 as well as the accidental awakening of Negadon. As he looks at Emi's letter, a new determination fills him. Returning to the Narasaki Walking Machine Laboratory, he climbs into the rebuilt MI-6 2's cockpit and launches it, landing before Negadon. Yoshizawa calls Narasaki after seeing MI-6 2 on TV, imploring him to see reason; his 10-year-old prototype is no match for a space monster. Narasaki scoffs, and asks only that Yoshizawa evacuate with his family before hanging up.

Negadon begins the fight with an energy blast, but MI-6 2 reflects it with its drill arm, badly damaging the appendage which fired it and causes Negadon to topple. The monster then unleashes an energy whip which MI-6 2 leaps over, allowing it to deliver a flying kick. However, Negadon rapidly burrows underground and emerges behind MI-6 2, who turns around just in time to take a devastating beam to the chest. Narasaki switches to MI-6 2's rocket-powered grappling hook. As Negadon prepares to shoot it down, the JSDF's jets return, firing on the weak point in its appendage with their missiles. MI-6 2 blasts off, and Negadon has no choice but to follow.

Now floating in space, monster and robot regard each other before letting loose their final attacks. MI-6 2 charges with its drill arm extended; Negadon answers with a massive energy ball. The drill intercepts it, then, as Narasaki pushes the robot's thrusters to their limit, disintegrates it and impales Negadon. The monster goes limp and explodes, taking MI-6 2 with it. Narasaki's last thought is, This will do, right, Emi? The robot's drill, still intact, sails through space.

Yoshizawa watches the sun set as Tokyo begins to rebuild.

Staff

Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.

  • Directed by   Jun Awazu
  • Written by   Jun Awazu
  • Produced by   Kazuki Sunami
  • Music by   Shingo Terasawa
  • Theme song "Dream in True Color: The Sky in 2015" performed by   Akane Yumoto
  • Cinematography by   Jun Awazu
  • Edited by   Jun Awazu

Cast

Actor's name on the left, character played on the right.

  • Dai Shimizu   as   Ryuichi Narasaki (voice)
  • Takuma Sasahara   as   Seiji Yoshizawa (voice)
  • Akane Yumoto   as   Emi Narasaki (voice)
  • Masafumi Kishi   as   Narrator / TV announcer (voice)

English dub

  • Sean Schemmel   as   Ryuichi Narasaki
  • Dan Green   as   Seiji Yoshizawa
  • Annice Moriarty   as   Emi Narasaki
  • Marc Thompson   as   TV announcer
  • Tom Wayland, Tim Werenko   as   Other voices

Appearances

Monsters

Weapons, vehicles, and races

Development

After directing two short CG kaiju films in college (Magara: The Giant Monster and Magara: The Final Showdown), Jun Awazu embarked on a more ambitious project. Negadon: The Monster from Mars was to be an elaborate homage to Showa-era tokusatsu films, from the production design to the qualities of the film stock. He would come to call the latter, which took two years to develop, the "Awazu Filter."

Awazu began writing the script in March or early April 2003, and completed the storyboards in June.[1] The appearance of Tokyo in the film was largely based on his childhood memories of his hometown, Nagoya.

Production

Negadon: The Monster from Mars was animated in 3D Studio Max and After Effects, almost entirely by Awazu himself.[2] The film's cast and crew totaled only 11 people.

Gallery

Main article: Negadon: The Monster from Mars/Gallery.

Alternate titles

  • Giant Planet Monster Negadon (literal Japanese title)
  • Negadon: Le Monstre de Mars (French Canadian title)

U.S. release

Central Park Media acquired the rights to Negadon: The Monster from Mars in January 2005, and commissioned an English dub from TripWire Productions. The film was screened at several conventions and theaters throughout the year; in theaters, it was part of a triple feature with two other anime shorts, Cat Soup and Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek. A partial list of U.S. screenings is below:

  • Anime Syracuse (Syracuse, NY) - March 25, 2006
  • ImaginAsian Theater (New York City, NY) - May 9-18, 2006
  • Egyptian Theatre (Hollywood, CA) - June 30, 2006
  • G-Fest (Rosemont, IL) - July 8, 2006
  • Alamo Mason Park Cinema (Houston, TX) - opened July 12, 2006

The film was released on DVD by U.S. Manga Corps on July 11, 2006.[3]

Reception

Writing for The New York Times, Neil Genzlinger remarked that Negadon: The Monster from Mars "looks great and even has a respectable dose of the character development and back story that anime sometimes spurns...The setup is lovely, but the film seems in a hurry to get to the big clash, as if desperate not to violate some anime time limit. Too bad; it might have worked at feature length."[4] Carl Kimlinger of Anime News Network gave a more muted endorsement: "Negadon is, at heart, a distillation of everything that Jun Awazu loves about the kaiju eiga. At only 25 minutes, there isn't time for anything else. Of necessity, this means jettisoning much of what gives the best kaiju movies their resonance; character depth and interaction, social commentary, and (as silly as it sounds) any depiction of the human cost of fighting a giant monster are all excised, inherently limiting the scope of the intended audience. This isn't a movie for everyone; Negadon is instead aimed squarely at those of you who stand up and cheer when a giant robot breaks out its drill arm."[5]

Awards

  • 20th Digital Contents Grand Prix - Outstanding Production Award
  • 9th Japan Media Arts Festival - Jury Recommended Work

Video releases

CoMix Wave DVD (2005)

  • Region: 2
  • Discs: 1
  • Audio: Japanese (2.0)
  • Subtitles: Japanese
  • Special features: Interview with director Jun Awazu (18 minutes), making-of featurette (14 minutes), trailers
  • Notes: Out of print.

U.S. Manga Corps DVD (2006)

  • Region: 1
  • Discs: 1
  • Audio: Japanese, English (2.0)
  • Subtitles: English
  • Special features: Interview with director Jun Awazu (18 minutes), two of Awazu's student films (Magara: The Giant Monster and Magara: The Final Showdown, 2 and 5 minutes), making-of featurette (14 minutes), digital liner notes, Kaiju A-Go-Go (fan-submitted original monsters), trailers, previews of other Central Park Media titles, still from the film (1:28)
  • Notes: Out of print. The creations of several prominent kaiju fans appear in the Kaiju-A-Go-Go special feature: artists Matt Frank and Raf Gonzalez, and Kaijusaurus Podcast co-host Steven Sloss.

Videos

Japanese Negadon: The Monster from Mars trailer #1
Japanese Negadon: The Monster from Mars trailer #2
Japanese Negadon: The Monster from Mars trailer #3
Japanese Negadon: The Monster from Mars trailer #4

Trivia

  • Negadon: The Monster from Mars refers to the year 2025 as "Showa 100," suggesting that the Japanese Emperor of that era, Hirohito, lived to be 124 years old (in real life, he lived to be 87 years old and died in 1989).
  • According to Central Park Media's press release, Negadon: The Monster from Mars is the first fully computer-animated monster film.[6]
  • The MI-6 robot in Negadon: The Monster from Mars is the second in its series; the first appeared in Awazu's earlier short Magara: The Final Showdown. However, the two films do not share continuity.
  • The transport ship Izanami is named after a Japanese goddess of creation and death, Izanami-no-Mikoto. Her last child was the fire god Kagu-tsuchi, whose birth led to her death. Likewise, the Izanami is destroyed by Negadon as it carries it to Earth.
  • Negadon's design was inspired by the camel cricket.[citation needed]
  • "Miroku", the pronunciation of MI-6, is the Japanese name for Maitreya, the Buddha prophesied to appear on Earth when the teachings of the original Buddha, Shakyamuni, have been forgotten.
  • Pausing the film at just the right moment shows that the three-letter password to MI-6 2 is "Emi."

External links

References

This is a list of references for Negadon: The Monster from Mars. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

Comments

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