Friday, October 13, 2023

Ichizo Kobayashi's 150 Anniversary!

Signage for Godzilla Minus One and the Ichizo Kobayashi exhibit. Photo by Brett Homenick.

Another exhibit I attended was the gallery called Ichizo Kobayashi's 150th anniversary. Kobayashi, who was born on January 3, 1873, was the founder of the Takarazuka Revue, as well as a certain movie studio you may have heard of called Toho. Of course, even those massive accomplishments don't begin to scratch the surface of the other things he did, but that's what's relevant to this blog. 

The exhibit will be held from October 7 through November 5 on the third floor of Hibiya Chanter, and it features two notable displays: a '54 Godzilla statue (standing next to a life-size cutout of Kobayashi), as well as a Takarazuka mini stage. Best of all, the gallery is free to enter! The Godzilla statue looks like the one I've seen a few times at other exhibits, so (for me, at least) it wasn't much of a big deal.

Actually, there isn't much else here related to the Godzilla series. But what it does have are reproductions of the final draft of the Godzilla (1954) shooting script and the screenplay for Godzilla Raids Again (1955). In fact, the exhibit states that, following the massive success of the original Godzilla, Kobayashi immediately approved the making of the sequel that eventually became Raids Again. Other than that, though, there isn't much of interest to most kaiju fans. 

And that's about all. Here's what I saw. Enjoy!











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