The often untold story of cleaning up dead kaiju finally coming to theaters next year

♫Where do daikaiju go when they dieeeee?♪

The tokusatsu genre in which giant monsters of “kaiju” do battle and cause widespread destruction in the process, has been undergoing a bit of a Renaissance recently, with fun and interesting reboots springing up both in Japan and the US.

And coming 4 February, 2022, a truly bold experiment in the genre is set to take place. Daikaiju No Atoshimatsu (lit. “The Great Monster’s Remains“, tentative English title: Kaiju Cleanup) marks the first time veteran film studios Shochiku and Toei have teamed up on a single feature. Perhaps the reason two companies were needed is that this movie boasts the largest monster in Japanese movie history.

However, it’s dead for pretty much the whole film.

▼ The trailer for Daikaiju No Atoshimatsu

That’s because Daikaiju No Atoshimatsu picks up where most tokusatsu films leave off. The evil kaiju collapses in defeat, the hero walks off into the sunset, and credits roll, but also those poor extras who have already been through so much, now have a gigantic rotting corpse to dispose of.

The film is written and directed by Satoshi Miki and stars Hey! Say! JUMP’s Ryosuke Yamada and Tao Tsuchiya who played Makimachi Misao in the Rurouni Kenshin live action movies.

Yamada plays a member of a special forces unit along with demolitions expert Bruce (played by Joe Odagiri), each tasked with conflicting missions on how to dispose of the 350-meter (1,150-foot) long corpse, which is about the size of one-and-a-half Tokyo Domes, and some fear may explode if not dealt with soon.

▼ Details aren’t clear yet, but it looks as if Yamada’s character might be playing by his own rules

On the other end of the situation, Tsuchiya stars as a secretary to the Minister of the Environment and is overseeing the disposal while her husband (played by Gaku Hamada), who’s also a secretary for the Prime Minister of Japan, becomes increasingly frustrated with his office being kept out of the loop.

Meanwhile, acclaimed actor Toshiyuki Nishida, known for his roles in the Outrage and Tsuribaka Nisshi (“Fishing Fool’s Chronicles”) movies, plays the exhausted Prime Minister who struggles to hold the country together in the chaotic aftermath of the kaiju battle.

▼ I always affectionately think of Nishida as the Japanese Jack Lemmon

The movie was announced a while ago, but production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, with a firm release date and first look at the monster, tokusatsu fans online are finally getting geared up for its release.

“I wanted to see this one ever since the poster came out!”
“It looks alright.”
“I thought it was a Fishing Fool’s Chronicles spin-off at first.”
“This is important work, because if they don’t clean it up in a week, the next monster will have already arrived.”
“I always wondered how they got rid of the corpse. It looks pretty tough.”
“It’s great to see Joe Odagiri in a tokusatsu movie.”
“I wonder if it’s like how beached whales sometimes explode because of all the methane in them, only much bigger.”
“Kaiju No. 8 already did it.”

While the manga Kaiju No. 8 did beat Daikaiju No Atoshimatsu to the punch by introducing the concept of kaiju cleanup crews, that series kind of glossed over the initial challenges of the process and instead moved on to become a regular action adventure series.

Daikaiju No Atsohimatsu, however, looks like it will take a more in-depth and fun look at dealing with a dead kaiju, both on a technical and societal level.

Source: Daikaiju No Atoshimatsu, Eiga.com, Otaku.com
Images: YouTube/松竹チャンネル/SHOCHIKUch
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