Past Misdeeds: Agon (1964)

aka Giant Phantom Monster Agon

aka Agon: Atomic Dragon

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only  basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.


Agon is a series consisting of four twenty-five minute episodes that make up two storylines which are distinctive enough in tone and substance to not treat the short series as a traditional four part mini series, but rather as an aborted attempt at a continuing kaiju show.

In the series' first half, atom bomb explosions awaken and mutate a prehistoric monster and hobby Godzilla impersonator soon to be dubbed Agon (that's a Japanese English short form for "Atomic Dragon"). Agon has the munchies, so it soon attacks an important nuclear research facility that comes complete with its own nuclear reactor to get at all that tasty, tasty uranium. While its at it, Agon also causes a nuclear explosion, but thanks to this being the 60s, there are no repercussions to that at all.

Anyhoo, Professor of SCIENCE(!) Ukyo (Nobuhiko Shima), shaving-impaired cop Yamato (Asao Matsumoto), roving reporter Goro (Shinji Hirota) and professional professorial assistant Satsuki (Akemi Sawa) are taking on the case of the hungry kaiju. Well, actually, after an unsuccessful fight between Agon and library footage of the JDF, they just lure Agon back into the sea with more tasty morsels of uranium. The End.

Of course, Agon returns in the second storyline to walk into a plotline about two yakuza and a suitcase full of drugs that soon finds the still hungry monster walking around with a small fishing boat and a little boy in its mouth, while vaguely stomping on a small industrial town. Fortunately, our heroes contrive to poison Agon with the suitcase full of drugs, a fantastic plan that at least drives the monster back into the sea. The End again.

Agon surely is not one of the high points of kaiju film making, but at least the show has an interesting story behind it. I have to admit to certain doubts about how the official story explains why the Fuji TV series was only broadcast in 1968, four years after it was made. Officially, Toho complained that the film's monster was resembling their very own Godzilla too closely, seemingly not knowing that the monster was designed by an apprentice of their very own Godzilla-creator Eiji Tsuburaya and the much superior first two episodes were written by the frequent Toho kaiju writer Shinichi Sekizawa. Supposedly, when Toho learned of that fact four years later, they suddenly had a change of heart and allowed Fuji TV to go ahead with the broadcasting.

I can't say that story makes much sense to me, especially when we have the much easier explanation of the utter crapness of its last two episodes for Agon's absence from the screen. The Sekizawa episodes, both directed by Norio Mine (says Wikipedia), are actually pretty decent stuff as far as ultra-generic kaiju romps go. There's nothing about it anyone hadn't seen in the genre by 1968, but it's decently enough paced, and rather cleverly written around the problems of a TV budget.

It also helps the series' starting case that Mine does some quite decent work, too, using clever editing and well-chosen camera angles to let the few extras he has look as much as panicking crowds as possible, and using shots of modernist buildings and models of modernist buildings to get the proper pop art city-smashing mood going even though he doesn't actually have a city for his monster to smash. The slightly pop art-y mood is further enhanced by the strange sepia-toned black and white stock the series is shot on, which, I assume, is the best way to colour-code things when you can't afford to actually colour-code your sets. Then there's Wataru Saito's strange little score that consists of some jazzy beats and a lot of weird synthesizer warbling that suggest a Japanese version of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop and really help to pull the first two episodes into the realm of the cheap yet formally interesting.

The special effects themselves are all over the place; there are some very fine model shots, but there are also horrible moments like the one where a very bad Agon doll just stands in a pool of water standing in for the monster appearing out of the sea: The Agon suit itself does look good enough from a certain angle, but there's a lack of detail in its face and an immobility about its whole head - especially the eyes - that's never convincing, but is survivable as long as Mine shoots around it.

Unfortunately, Fuminori Ohashi, the director of the final two episodes does not keep up with these minor aesthetic achievements at all. The director instead opts for a bland point and shoot style that seems ready-made to show off all the worst sides of the series' effects work, with Agon walking around with a boat model crammed into its mouth for about twenty minutes being one of the most embarrassing - though of course pretty funny - things I've ever seen in a kaiju picture; and I've watched all of the original Gamera movies by now. For some reason, Saito's music isn't put to any decent use at all anymore, either, warbling around ineffectively and utterly divorced from what's going on on screen. It's difficult to watch these final two episodes and not think nobody involved in the production actually gave a damn about what they were doing.

Apart from Agon's boating trip, the so crap it's funny part of the later episodes also includes long shots of the monster standing around not moving a muscle (one suspects the suit actor was on holiday), and one of the more undignified methods of getting rid of a kaiju I've ever had the dubious luck to witness. Don't do drugs, giant monsters, okay?

The rapid decrease in quality is a bit sad, really, for while the script of the show's first storyline doesn't have an original bone in its body, its execution speaks of enthusiasm and creativity behind the camera, and it's not difficult to imagine the show the first two episodes promise to be a lot of fun to watch.