"Battel
Damaged",
by Robert Bricken
Anime Invasion, No. 2, Spring 2002
Kaiju Big Battel Weds Giant Monsters and Pro Wrestlin'
Giant green lizards. A couple of cyborgs. A mad scientist. A giant can of chicken soup wielding a cleaver.
This is the world of Kaiju Big Battel (misspelling intentional), a celebration of weird Japanese pop culture-specifically kaiju (those big monsters like in Godzilla and Ultraman), bad Japanese-to-English translations and wrasslin'.
"It's a world of good versus evil, where the score is often settled in the wrestling ring," says David Borden, who runs KBB with his brother Rand.
After creating giant monster suits for an ill-fated short film in 1995, Borden created Kaiju Big Battel as a performance art piece. Now it's a hot draw in its native Boston, consistently selling out 1,000-seat arenas over the past two years.
There are four main teams: The Dr. Cube Posse, led by evil scientist Dr. Cube; Team Space Bug, led by Uchu Chu; the Heroes, mostly led by the Silver Potato; and then the Rouges (pronounced "Rogues") of independent kaiju. The kaiju commissioner sets up the fights in an attempt to protect the innocent and preserve cities around the world.
Don't think its just guys in suits. "These are bonafide, real monsters," stresses Borden. "They always have reasons to fight each other." The action is real, too. If you've never seen a gigantic Mexican stringbean jump off the top of a steel cage, then you haven't lived.
Check out http://www.kaiju.com for more info, merchandise and details about their appearance at Wizard World East in Philadelphia this May.