Sunday, November 15, 2009

Yuke, Zone!

This has been kind of a lazy weekend, not helped by the fact that I've completely destroyed one of my toes and am finding it hard to walk. This is probably one of the first times since I've been here that I've just spent time by myself at home, and it's given me a chance to catch up on some various things.

One thing I'm really happy to have completed this weekend is my series guide for ZONE FIGHTER (Ryuusei Ningen Zoon), the short-lived 1973 TV series produced by Toho featuring Godzilla, Gigan and King Ghidorah, which is now live on SciFi Japan:

http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2009/11/14/zone-fighter-series-guide/

I began writing this sometime back in November 2008, so I've been working on this for over a year now. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and think I managed to dig up a lot of interesting information and present something that I don't think has ever really been seen in English before, at least not to this degree.

Of course, there is always more I wish I could have done (including an interview with the lead actor Aoyama that I would have liked to have translated), but for me it was really a question of "How much longer is this going to take, and how much is it really going to add to the piece?" If you wait until something is perfect it will never be finished. Even as I read it now I can see lots of phrasing that I don't like, but for me it's reached the point where I just have to say "It's done", because I've already been working on it for a year.

Now I will force myself to leave home for the first time this weekend!

1 comment:

Guardian7 said...

Hello Mr. Ballard.

I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated this article and the depth and scope of it.
This is such a lost piece of (what I consider to be Godzilla's history that I honestly felt it would be a long time before I got what I could consider the best "skinny" on it.
Just an absolutely fantastic job on this piece (along with awesome images - some of the best of ZF's foes I have ever seen. For once they can actually be seen with clairty).
I did write a response to your article over in Kaijugalaxy that is similar to this.

Again you did an amazing job. I for one deeply appreicate it.

G7/Les