With the first of of Gou Tanabe’s HP Lovecraft manga adaptations, The Hound & Other Stories, fresh on US bookstore shelves, it seems like a good time to get a crash course on the impact of Lovecraft on Japanese genre fiction, and, of course, kaiju. Justin previously wrote the articles “The Cthulhu Mythos in Japan” and “Robot Lords of Tokyo: Lovecraftian Anime” for the Lovecraft ezine, so we sat down for a chat… which wound up taking eight hours! It sounds like folks prefer bite-sized recordings, so that’s been split up into four chapters for convenience.
Covered in Part 1:
- Who was HP Lovecraft? What is Cthulhu Mythos?
- When was the mythos introduced to Japan, and why would it resonate?
- Footsteps of the Underground
- Matango
- Yokai Hunter
- Eko Eko Azarak
- Iczer 1
- The Challenger to Great Old Ones
- Megami Tensei
Check out a whole series of Lovecraft-inspired ukyoe prints here!
Maser Patrol 