Invasion of the Astro-Monster Behind the Scenes

Toho Godzilla Suit 5

Daisenso (1965)

It went unobserved by the astronauts, but ... the most gigantic monster explosion of the space age now being blasted into film!
This suit can be seen in these movies:

The Daisenso-Godzilla featured a head slightly larger than that of the Mosugoji, with a round face and jaw.

The body was thin and had no defined shape, appearing sack-like and unnatural. The fingers were not held apart like the Mosugoji but were grouped together, with the claws becoming less menacing; all following Godzilla suits until the 84 Godzilla would have this feature. On the plus side, the dorsal plates and the tail of the Daisenso-Godzilla were nicely detailed and the eyes were movable.
Play Video

Monster Zero 30 second Trailer

Invasion of the Astro-Monster

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The Daisenso-Goji, was built for this film, but its design is certainly the weakest of all Godzillas up to this point.

It has a roundish head with wide eyes and a broad, frog-like mouth, and the body of the suit is rather baggy, with an underdefined musculature — from certain angles, it looks as though Haruo Nakajima is wearing a potato sack. Godzilla is also more fleet-footed in this film than before; in addition to the aforementioned dance (known as the Godzilla “Shie,” and reportedly adopted from a Japanese comic-book character that was popular at the time), Godzilla also hits King Ghidorah with a flying body slam during the first battle, and during the second fight he shuffles his feet a la Muhammad Ali. These silly monster mannerisms were introduced by Tsuburaya, whose power at the studio was at an all-time high, and who was increasingly conscious that the movies should appeal to small children, despite protests from his staff and colleagues. “When Tsuburaya-san talked about Godzilla doing the ‘Shie’ pose, I was totally against it,” said SFX cameraman Teisho Arikawa. “But Mr. Tsuburaya said, ‘Never mind, it will make children happy.’ … I shot the scene real reluctantly. The actor in the Godzilla suit [Haruo Nakjima] didn’t want to do it either….

Daisenso Suit Reference Images

The images below were captured from the newest Criterion Blu-ray, found online, and scanned in from books. Some of the images may have been modified to see the textures more easily.

Becoming Godzilla

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