The Kaiju Connection: Giant Monsters and Ourselves

"What makes a kaiju a kaiju? What makes a large ape a large ape, and why do we sympathize with some, such as King Kong, and not with others, such as Konga? And what makes a giant person become a "monster"? This book provides a new and updated perspective on the kaiju genre and reveals that our boundaries for the kaiju film are perhaps not as solid as we think. These critical commentaries focus primarily on newer kaiju works, ranging from Colossal to Shin Godzilla to Godzilla vs. Kong, but also touches on classics such as King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Godzilla Raids Again, and even lesser-known works such as What to Do With the Dead Kaiju? and Agon. From the Conclusion: "Like our ancestors from centuries ago, we have collectively incorporated and adopted giants and giant monsters into our culture and, more importantly, into our pop culture. Within these new realms and domains where giant monsters walk the Earth, we experience the rigidity of our moral structures, the fleeting borders of our definitions of humanity. Within the kaiju film genre, and all of the films inspired by the kaiju film, rest our own assumptions about what makes a monster a monster, and, more importantly, what makes a human a human"--