Category Archives: Articles

Welcome to Maser Patrol, a weblog that covers Japanese genre fiction. But, it being April Fool’s Day, imagine if we did something crazy, like punking readers by instead talking about, say, SOUTH KOREAN genre movies. Haha; that would be ridiculous. … Continue reading →

It’s now 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the 2nd Kaiju Boom, also known as the Henshin Boom, a period when Japanese television was flooded with transforming superhero characters. No doubt a lot of fandom is ecstatic … Continue reading →

I recently sat down for a conversation with Media Blasters to discuss the past and future of the Tokyo Shock line. The brand has been particularly active lately, with Zeiram 2, Zebraman, Devilman, and Gappa getting Blu-ray releases, plus Hakaider, … Continue reading →

As December winds to a close, I find myself reflecting back…. back on how many podcasts, blogs, and YouTubers seem to have already done their decades in review, yet we haven’t gotten around to it here yet. But seriously, the … Continue reading →

I was racking my brain trying to think of what to do for this year’s Halloween Hijinks, since we’ve already discussed Japanese media depictions of most of the staples: vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, yokai, and Lovecraft creations, plus horror anime. … Continue reading →

Last night, ten AMC theaters did free advance screenings for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, a full nine days ahead of its official US release date. This was nominally for the cinema chain’s Stubs Premier members and press, though at … Continue reading →

By now, everyone is aware of the upcoming Ultraman anime series hitting Netflix at the start of next month. The show is based on Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi’s manga, also simply titled Ultraman (available in the US from Viz), … Continue reading →

As a tokusatsu junkie and a manga fiend, people sometimes ask me – “Who’s your favorite mangaka for henshin heroes?” They’ll usually accompany that with some suggestions: Shotaro Ishinomori (the King of Manga and creator of Kamen Rider), Go Nagai … Continue reading →

So far, the Halloween Hijinks articles on this blog have focused on western monsters showing up in Japanese media: vampires, witches, zombies, werewolves, Frankensteins. And thus, until now we’ve avoided the topic of yokai, the traditional Japanese spirits, first of … Continue reading →

Ever since Michael Dougherty teased that there might be some unannounced monsters yet to appear in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, fandom has been ablaze with hypotheses, rampantly speculating about their favorites that they’d like to see show up, such as Gigan, Bagan, … Continue reading →

Amanda wasn’t able to make it to G-Fest this year, so she did the next best thing: Went to check out the “Godzilla at the Museum” exhibit in Nagoya! Here’s her report: It took me about an hour and a … Continue reading →

Oh, hey, it’s almost October, and the month-long celebration of the spooky… granted, that’s really more around Obon in Japan, but American pop-culture is starting to give cosplayers an extra excuse around Halloween there as well. Anyway, we’ve already talked … Continue reading →

As of this writing, it appears that IDW’s rights to print Godzilla comics have lapsed. While a lot of great things came out of the IDW run, there were always two things that I really hoped they’d do that never … Continue reading →

As you likely know, Kaiju Transmissions is a remarkable podcast that regularly brings us detailed discussions of frequently under-represented topics related to kaiju and tokusatsu filmmaking (and if if you didn’t know, check it out; you’re about to have a new favorite … Continue reading →

As you likely know, Kaiju Transmissions is a remarkable podcast that regularly brings us detailed discussions of frequently under-represented topics related to kaiju and tokusatsu filmmaking (and if if you didn’t know, check it out; you’re about to have a new favorite … Continue reading →

As you likely know, Kaiju Transmissions is a remarkable podcast that regularly brings us detailed discussions of frequently under-represented topics related to kaiju and tokusatsu filmmaking (and if if you didn’t know, check it out; you’re about to have a … Continue reading →

2017 is a great year for fans of Hollywood cinema who also happen to be Japanese pop culture junkies, as the two industries intersect quite a lot. There are plenty of obvious crossover points (Rings, Ghost in the Shell, Death … Continue reading →

While we may be in a new kaiju boom, it’s dwarfed by the one half a century ago. 1967 was the zenith, with the televised conclusions of the original Ultraman, Space Giants, Akuma-kun, and Booska, with the debuts of Ultraseven, … Continue reading →

Along with the Japanese home video release of Shin Godzilla came news of the title for the next film in the franchise (the Polygon Pictures anime release due out this year): Godzilla – 怪獣惑星, (“Godzilla – Kaiju Wakusei”) or “Godzilla … Continue reading →

Like any number of loan words, “kaiju” (怪獣 , or “kaijū” if you want to be more accurate, literally “strange beast”) has permeated the English lexicon, to the point where many official subtitles don’t bother to use “monster” anymore when … Continue reading →

Kevin and Amanda will be off on a whirlwind tour of Japan soon, so updates to this ‘blog will be unlikely until after Christmas. In the meantime, our list of recommended yuletide viewing still stands, along with a couple others: … Continue reading →

It’s Halloween season, which means mandatory viewings of at least two seasonal classics: John Carpenter’s Halloween and Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘R Treat. How are these two films connected? Well, if you’re an obsessive kaiju nerd (and I suspect you are), … Continue reading →

Any dedicated fan of Japanese pop culture knows that every medium does not get equal representation internationally: Most anime get official English-language releases, a good portion of video games do, a less proportionate handful of manga, and relatively few tokusatsu … Continue reading →

Somewhat shockingly, it’s our general consensus that the best new “anime” of the season is a puppet show: Thunderbolt Fantasy. With its rocking soundtrack, bombastic characters, Yoshitaka Amano-ish (emphasis on “ish”) design aesthetics, and exaggerated action, it makes for a … Continue reading →

In honor of this year’s G-Fest being Ultraman-themed (because of the 50th anniversary), I’ve been putting together an appropriate playlist for the drive to Chicago. While the various show’s themes and insert songs are fun in their own right, I … Continue reading →

A big part of the Christmas tradition is getting into the spirit of the season by putting on classic Christmas movies, like Gremlins, Die Hard, and Batman Returns. Japanese media is no stranger to yuletide festivities, though they practice the holiday … Continue reading →

by Justin Mullis, in collaboration with Maser Patrol This week the world of Japanese pop-culture lost one of its most influential and powerful voices; Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015). While Mizuki may still not be a household name for many American fans of … Continue reading →

Maser Patrol’s mission statement is to elucidate genre fiction of a manner both Japanese and “Japanese-ish”, which is why there’s frequent coverage of western-yet-anime/manga/tokusatsu-inspired media ranging from Pacific Rim to Miraculous Ladybug to Fujiyama Ichiban. And yet, there’s that pesky … Continue reading →

Hey, there’s a Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival up on Kickstarter now! In addition to being pretty dang funny, the series has done a lot for raising awareness of cult films which might have otherwise fallen into utter obscurity. In … Continue reading →

When it comes to classifying kaiju pictures, I’ve noticed that guide books and merchandise lines tend to split things into more-or-less three buckets: Toho (with its Godzilla, Mothra, et al.), Tsuburaya (with Ultraman and associated creations), and everyone else. “Everyone … Continue reading →

It’s time for the conclusion of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s insane space odyssey, A Space Godzilla. I think we covered most of the backstory last time, so this time we’ll just leap directly into the text itself, supplemented by speculative translation notes for … Continue reading →

A while back Anime Nation posted a great master list of anime that are only available on VHS in the US, outside of the non-commercial/unofficial avenues of fansubs, rips, bootlegs, imports, etc. This got me thinking: how does tokusatsu stack … Continue reading →

The history of Godzilla, like any other major film franchise, is full of interesting “what if”s. What if the crossover between Godzilla and the Adam West Batman series hadn’t fallen through? What if Jan de Bont had actually made the … Continue reading →

Last year, we put out an article discussing (okay, wildly speculating about) over 30 potentially interesting tokusatsu films that were (as far as we know) unavailable with any sort of English translation, either on official home video or fansub. Since … Continue reading →

Have you heard of Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (AKA The Man Who Saves the World)? It’s a relatively mediocre Turkish movie most notorious for having major special effects sequences lifted from Star Wars. In reality, the film is a curiosity, an … Continue reading →

November 3 is a significant anniversary for fans of Japanese science fiction and fantasy media: it’s the birthday of both Osamu Tezuka, the God of Manga, and Godzilla, King of the Monsters. The history of Godzilla is intertwined with the … Continue reading →

With seemingly everyone gearing up for Halloween, a blog dedicated to monster media really ought to join the celebration, shouldn’t it? To that end, we’ll be having a series of articles posted during the weeks leading up to Halloween focusing on … Continue reading →