Updates To The Website, New "Kollectors" Page

As you can probably tell if you've gone to our homepage, we're making some changes. It is my goal to have our website be your one stop shop for Kaiju news and entertainment, and frankly it's been ridiculous of me to have been excluding collectibles up until now. So, along with our podcast and news, we now have a "Kollectibles" page (Kaiju+collectibles=Kollectibles). I've also created a new home page that is a lot friendlier to browse all of our latest content, right from the landing page.

I hope you all are enjoying our posts and continue to comment and email us about what you'd like to see us do in the future. Stay tuned for our latest podcast episode which should drop in the next couple of days and I can't wait for you to find out what we'll be doing next with adding new and exciting content in the very, very near future.

Thank you all for the support!

Tokyo Lives Giant Monster Apparel Now Available

Big news for the site and podcast as our Merch Store is now open for business! This is a part of the site that I've been working on for the last few months since I've gotten a lot of emails from our podcast listeners asking how they can support the show and our website. This is a way that makes the most sense to me, since you actually get something cool out of it, instead of just donating money. Check out the designs below or click on the shop link at the top of the page to get yours today and help support everyone who makes Tokyo Lives the fastest growing giant monster news and entertainment website on the internet!

Here are the first three designs ready for purchase. I'd like to design new products fairly regularly, so check back or subscribe to our RSS feed for updates in the near future. 

This one of a kind t-shirt brazenly displays the Tokyo Lives: A Giant Monsters Podcast logo across the chest. Whether you're a long time fan or a first time listener, kaiju fans will go crazy when they see you walking down the street in this comfortable, fitted mark of your allegiance.

I went to Monster Island and all I got was this stupid t-shirt... Bring home this one of a kind greeting card from the famed mystical island where giant monsters roam free. Every card comes with a unique radioactive signature, guaranteed!

They did things differently back in the 30's. Where you and I might strap on our virtual reality headsets and drive around in our flying cars, people back then were just hoping to not get stomped on or kidnapped by strangely aroused giant apes. I think this t-shirt really captures that era.

I hope you all think the designs are rad and I can't wait to show you the others I have in mind. If there are any that you'd like to see in the future, send your ideas to tokyolivescast@gmail.com and we'll see what we can do. Thank you for supporting the site and the podcast, we'll have even bigger updates to Tokyo Lives coming soon, so make sure you've subscribed to our twitter and facebook to keep up to date with all the latest giant monster news.

Introducing A New Contributing Writer To Tokyo Lives: James Arledge

How do you start an article about yourself? The answer: horribly. So let's get right to the fun bit and I'll bore you with my credentials later on in my bio page.

My introduction to the world of Kaiju starts, like a lot of you, with Godzilla. Me and good ol' Gojira go way back, and that is all thanks to my parents. You see, when I was younger, my parents bought us a brand new VCR. (Did I lose anyone there?) Only this VCR had something our old one didn't: a record button. Today, everything has a record button, but back then it was a big deal. My parents went crazy with the recorded VHS's; I had somewhere in the ball park of thirty episodes of the 80's 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,' 'Animaniacs,' and various other cartoons that I can't recall at the moment. All of them recorded straight from TV. Watching those tapes over and over, half-cut commercials and all, are some of my favorite memories as a child. But, nothing quite held a candle to my hand recorded Godzilla VHSs. I had several tapes, each with one to two movies. I don't remember exactly but to my knowledge I had 'Godzilla vs The Sea Monster,' 'Son of Godzilla,' 'Godzilla vs Mothra,' 'Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster,' and 'Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla.' I would watch a different tape every night as I fell asleep and wake up the next morning to a fuzzy screen and a blaring static sound. I didn't fully understand what I was watching and I didn't get the story. All I knew was that the mouths didn't match the voices and eventually Godzilla would fight another monster and it would be awesome! Like all children, I eventually moved on to the next thing and Godzilla moved to the back of my mind and the tapes moved to the back of the VHS shelf.

Years later, my cousin brings over a brand new game that he has been playing like crazy. He puts in the disc, gives the power button a push and the title pops up on my screen: "Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee!" The moment the game started, the memories began rushing back to me. The character, the sights and the sounds (oh God, the sounds), all of it flooded into my head. We played for hours and I was in love all over again. I needed more.

I dug those old tapes out and started watching them over and over, catching things I had missed as a child. I remember watching them so much that eventually I wore the tapes out completely. Whenever a Godzilla movie would come on TV I would be there with the VCR and a blank VHS ready to record. I recorded a few of the Mechagodzilla movies and another one with Mothra (I don't recall which one). I was a kid in a giant monster candy store and I'm still eating that candy today.

It didn't mean much to me then, but looking back the Showa Era made a gigantic impact on me as a Godzilla fan, thus it will always be my favorite era. Just like Ghidorah will always be my favorite Toho Kaiju.

I want to thank you all for reading my little intro and I look forward to bringing you the latest and greatest news from the world of Kaiju.

(Editor's Note: We're extremely excited to have James come on board and can't wait to have you check out his first article for the site coming later this week)