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| The street corner from which the Seatopian agents flee after having kidnapped Rokuro. Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Today, Friday, January 19, I paid another visit to Suzukakedai Station in Machida, Tokyo, after last having been there less than a year ago. As I posted about at the time, this area was used as a Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) filming location. The specific place was Yanagi Park (Willow Park in English), which is about a five-minute walk from the station.
This is where Rokuro (Hiroyuki Kawase) is kidnapped by the Seatopian agents while riding his Baby Rider. The location can also be seen when Hiroshi Jinkawa (Yutaka Hayashi) tries to catch up with the kidnapped brothers Goro Ibuki (Katsuhiko Sasaki) and Rokuro in his car, just before getting chased by other Seatopian agents.
When I visited the spot last year, it was pretty easy to find the general area where certain scenes were shot. One thing I didn't identify until after I got home, however, was the Spirit of Willow (Yanagi no Sei) monument. This monument can be seen very briefly when Rokuro is kidnapped, but it is much clearer when Hiroshi Jinkawa is driving past it after escaping his Seatopian captor. Photos of the monument are below. (It's the tall, narrow structure with two points at the top.)
As a result, one of my goals was to pay more attention to the monument, which looks exactly as it does in the movie. (It's just interesting that I never noticed it until comparing photos of the present-day park with what we see in the flick.)
There's not much else to say, except that it was a lot of fun to walk around a Megalon filming location, which still thankfully is still quite recognizable. Anyway, let's get on to the good stuff!
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