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Approaching an entire nation’s cinema can be a daunting challenge. Especially when that nation’s movie history is a hodgepodge of genres and styles like Japan’s is. In the last 100 years or so, Japanese cinema has produced works of great beauty, greater weirdness, and in the process has influenced scores of filmmakers around the world. [...]

While no doubt vampires, werewolves, and psychotic killers make great movie monsters, as a kid I always enjoyed the big, non-human beasties the best—especially the ones that had a penchant for destroying whole cities or otherwise terrifying a clueless population with their wanton destruction. They also appeared to be indestructible—or, at least they were until [...]