Who wants to learn about the oldest kaiju story—which doubles as the oldest story we know? Get comfortable—have a seat, pour yourself a drink, light ‘em if you got ‘em. We’re going back several millennia on this thread. (Also getting political in the last third of the thread, sorry). 1/39 - ThreadSky

jessnevins.bsky.social • 453 days ago

Who wants to learn about the oldest kaiju story—which doubles as the oldest story we know?

Get comfortable—have a seat, pour yourself a drink, light ‘em if you got ‘em. We’re going back several millennia on this thread.

(Also getting political in the last third of the thread, sorry).

1/39

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gigdrain.bsky.social•453 days ago

Great thread about kaiju

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

Thank you!

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

1st tho, the required definition: a “kaiju” (lit. “strange beast”) is a giant monster. Its original appearance was in the 4th century BCE Chinese collection Classic of Mountains & Seas, but it was later adopted by the Japanese in the 19th century to mean creatures from ancient Japanese legends.

2/

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

In the 19th century, when Japan was forced to open to the West, “kaiju” began to be applied to dinosaurs and any kind of enormous legendary creature. With the debut of GOJIRA (1954) and its follow-ups and imitators, “kaiju” was used to specifically mean giant movie monsters like Godzilla.

3/

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

In the 21st century the term has reverted to its 19th century meaning. But when I use “kaiju” in this thread I’m using it in the broadest sense, divorced from its Japanese orientation.

Most of the examples people think of when they imagine kaiju are from the 20th & 21st centuries.

However!

4/

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

The history of kaiju goes farther back than that. The first English-language novel with kaiju was Lord Bulwer-Lytton’s THE COMING RACE (1873), where giant monsters are a part of the novel's subterranean Hollow Earth setting.

(No doubt there are French kaiju predecessors to Bulwer-Lytton).

5/

warcabbitmwm.bsky.social•453 days ago

Well, I mean the historical tarasque... It's interesting how much the description of Godzilla in the original novella seems to fit it.

warcabbitmwm.bsky.social•453 days ago

Did you pick it up, btw? I haven't gotten to Godzilla Raids Again, saving it.

amfisher.bsky.social•453 days ago

Oh no, here come the Vril.

rtsastro2023.bsky.social•452 days ago

I sang that out to "Here come da judge!"

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

They're Vrilicious!

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

As we go back in time, we find a lot of kaiju in various cultures’ folklore, legends, and myths. Dragons, the Biblical Behemoth & Leviathan, Tiamat (9th century BCE), the enormous Bull of Heaven in the “Epic of Gilgamesh” (c. 2,500 BCE), the Jolly Green Giant (c. 3,000 BCE)—all kaiju.

6/

pksullivan.bsky.social•453 days ago

Wait, Jolly Green Giant is 3000 BCE?

madbastard-v2.bsky.social•453 days ago

The Jolly Green Giant??

queenofnopants.bsky.social•453 days ago

I was going to nominate Scylla and Charybdis from the Odyssey.

elizajoku.bsky.social•453 days ago

Clarifying question: would Paul Bunyan qualify?

jessnevins.bsky.social•453 days ago

But to find our starter kaiju, we have to go farther back still, into the dawn of Western culture—to the Indo-Europeans (IE) of circa 4,000 BCE.

The IEs weren’t one people; they were a loose network of clans and tribes inhabiting the Eurasian steppes.

7/

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