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Scene and Heard

Kaiju Big Battel at Webster Hall, Manhattan NY

Photos by Rachel Paige Katz » Christmas (and by Christmas I mean Power Rangers nostalgia night) came early to Webster Hall, in the form of Kaiju Big Battel, a Bostonian import sprung from the single greatest idea anybody has ever had, ever, or will ever have, ever: get people to dress up as Japanese movie monsters. Have them beat the shit out of each other.

Text by Armin Rosen
Posted on February 14, 2008

Again, the night was less Godzilla camp than early-90s Power Ranger camp. Just pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about--every week the Rangers would tangle with a different chainsmoking ex-con dressed in a gigantic rubber monster suit, and every week it would be the coolest thing an entire nation of grubby little eight-year-old fucks had ever cast eyes upon. Speaking as one of the eight-year-olds, let me tell you that the Kaiju folks do the comic fantasy monster battle thing about as well as it’s ever been done. Webster Hall is one of the last places in New York you’d expect to find cos-playing manga-reading nerds, and it’s a tribute to the Kaiju fighting spirit that there were none to be found: the yuppie West Village set was out in force, thus proving the perceived coolness of even the most niche anime convention activity. Fans of irony, rejoice! And fans of Japanese monster kitsch... you missed the greatest night of your life. Relive it below:

Behold, the charred battleground of the opening fighto. The mighty Swede Slo Feng has been incapacitated by D.W. Cycloptopuss’s blistering tentacle attack. But Never fear, heroes!: a cartwheeling lass in a fairy costume is here to save the planet! Note the ruined skyscraper littering the desolate Kaiju landscape.

Sun Buster interviewed by Louden Noxious; as the name suggests, this spiky-haired individual (whether you associate his hair with Cloud Strife or Dragon Ball Z depends on how deprived a childhood you had) is the John Madden of Kaiju. Note that Sun Blaster has an NES controller for an arm--not much in the way of utility as far as killing monsters goes, but his heart’s clearly in the right place.

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