Agon: Atomic Dragon

Agon: Atomic Dragon Air date January 2, 1968 - January 5, 1968 Produced by Jo Shiragami, Go Hiroshi Distributed by Nippon Television Channel(s) Fuji TV Genre(s) Kaiju Episodes 4

Agon (アゴン), also released under the titles Phantom Monster Agon (幻の怪獣アゴン,   Maboroshi no Kaijū Agon) and Giant Phantom Monster Agon (幻の大怪獣アゴン,   Maboroshi no Daikaijū Agon) and known internationally as Agon: Atomic Dragon, is a Japanese tokusatsu miniseries produced by Nippon Television that aired from January 2, 1968 to January 5, 1968 on Fuji TV. Created by prolific Toho screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa, it featured a monster suit designed by Fuminori Ohashi, who was instrumental in the creation of the first Godzilla suit. In the 1980's, Toho Video edited its four episodes into a 96-minute film, which it released on VHS.

Plot

To be added.

Episodes

1. "Agon Appears: Part One"
2. "Agon Appears: Part Two"
3. "Precarious Situation: Part One"
4. "Precarious Situation: Part Two"

Staff

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

• Directed by   Norio Mine (episodes 1-2), Fuminori Ohashi (episodes 3-4)
• Written by   Shinichi Sekizawa (episodes 1-2), Kozo Uchida (episodes 3-4)
• Produced by   Go Hiroshi
• Executive Producing by   Jo Shiragami
• Music by   Wataru Saito
• Cinematography by   Takao Kawarazaki
• Special Effects by   Fuminori Ohashi

Cast

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

• Shinji Hirota   as   Goro Sumoto
• Asao Matsumoto   as   Detective Yamato
• Yasuhiko Shima   as   Dr. Ukyo
• Akemi Sawa   as   Satsuki Shizukawa
• Yoshihiro Kobayashi   as   Monta
• Etsuji Azuma   as   Agon

Appearances

Monsters Agon

Weapons, Vehicles, and Races TBA

Video Releases

King Records DVD (2005)

• Region: 2
• Discs: 2
• Audio: Japanese
• Subtitles: None
• Special Features: Audio commentary, interviews

TC Entertainment Blu-Ray (2017)

• Region: A/1
• Discs: 1
• Audio: Japanese
• Subtitles: None
• Special Features: None
• Notes: Cropped to 1.78:1.

Trivia

• Although four episodes of Agon: Atomic Dragon were complete by 1964, Toho used the no-compete clause in creator Shinichi Sekizawa's contract to prevent them from being broadcast for four years, citing Agon's resemblance to Godzilla.

References

This is a list of references for Agon: Atomic Dragon. 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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Petexera

18 months ago

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The series is called Giant Phantom Monster Agon, Agon: Atomic Dragon is just an alternative title.

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Green Blob Thing

18 months ago

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Destroy All Monsters is called Monster Total Advancement. Destroy All Monsters is just an alternative title.

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Toa Hydros

26 months ago

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My Thoughts: Agon

Agon is a bit lackluster, but enjoyable in its own right.

As far as the suit and effects are concerned, though somewhat inferior to the Toho films of the time, they're decent enough for a TV series from the 60's. Agon's design is cool in a simplistic sort of way, though I find it hard to believe the creators of the show didn't intentionally draw SOME inspiration from Godzilla, in both suit design and character origin. There's just too many similarities going on there.

My main complaint, however, is the "musical score" which seems to dominate most of the runtime of each episode, especially the monster rampage scenes. When Agon stomps a building you'll expect s satisfying "CRASH!", but instead you'll just hear the soundtrack's incessant "bloop, bop, blong..." I understand there's two or three versions/releases of the series, so I'm not sure if it is just the copy I own, or if this is common to all versions. All I know is it gets really old, really fast.

The story isn't that engaging, and the human characters didn't leave much of an impression, though the same could be said of many of the Godzilla/Gamera films of the time.

In the end, Agon is serviceable as far as kaiju stories go. If you can tolerate it's more frustrating aspects, you'll like it fine.

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