Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Garigari vs Berobero (Nippon Television, 1971)

I’m freaking done with wikis! All of them!

I am done with these blasted information ports, where it's either impossible to contribute, or some ‘veteran member’ deletes your work, without any consideration. Especially since my additions to sites like Wikipedia and Wikizilla were far from fanciful non-sense.
And my own attempts at creating an original Kaiju wiki, was constantly undermined by hackers, spam-text, viruses, and similar digital vandalism. This seems to be a problem for a lot of other people's better made wikis. Anime ones in particular.

So screw it! And happily so I might add!

All the amazing Kaiju information and images that I've collected since I was nine-years old(!) will be shared here, and here alone!

Long live my rarely visited blog!



Had you frequented giant monster-related ‘image dump sites' like Tumblr or Pinterest, than you might have come across the humorous rivals shown above.

Garigari vs. Berobero was a segment (or series of segments) from “Machaaki Maetake Hajimaru Yo” (literally “Begins Only with Machaakimae”); a 1971 Japanese comedy series which aired on Nippon Television (or NTV for short).

Garigari is the three-legged bird monster, while his more colorful opponent is Berobero, who's an overweight (fat) Chinese Dragon.

And that’s all I really know about these two rather obscure TV monsters,  though if more information comes my way, I’ll be sure to post a follow-up.

Until such a day arrives (if ever), here’s some more images for your viewing pleasure. Including vinyl toys of Garigari and Berobero, done for contemporary hobby collectors.



Special thanks to Famicomblog, Astro Monsters, and Nerd One at Flickr for these images.

3 comments:

  1. Hey, I'm KaijuCake, nicknamed "The Ultimate Kaiju Guru" and I arrived to give you some more input about this mysterious show. And no, I have never seen it in my life.

    This show has no proper English translation, however the show's Japanese name is マチャアキ・前武_始まるヨ!

    It was a variety show that aired on Nippon Television on April 3 1971, and ended on September 25 of the same year. It went for 56 minutes on Saturdays, and in each corner, a fight scene with the two monsters would be inserted.

    The Performers:

    Masaaki Sakai: Was a member is the band "The Spiders" until it disbanded and he became a broadcasting writer.

    Maeda Takehiko: An actor and a writer, however info is scarce.

    The Monsters:

    Machaaki Monster Garigari: The blue bird-type kaiju. The fact that it is called "Machaaki Monster" leads me to believe that Masaaki Sakai himself played it.

    Maetake Monster Berobero: The dragon-like kaiju. Since no performers of any name similar to "Maetake" were in this show, I'm not quite sure who played it.

    From what I learned about the actual show;

    Sakai teaches Japanese through calligraphy and moral chorus to foreign students or sometimes talks to the audience before Maeda is on the phone from the studio.

    The soft-vinyl dolls of the two monsters are made by Bullmark and were released on September 4, 2011.

    For more images, http://dagasiyakamimono.web.fc2.com/bero.html

    And sadly, I remain unable to find more info, videos, and definitely released episodes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello, I am KaijuCake or The Ultimate Kaiju Guru. After years of research on this show, I am more than happy to shed some light on this mysterious show.

    No proper English translation for the show's name, "マチャアキ・前武 始まるヨ!" has been documented yet. It was a variety show that aired on "Nippon Television", on April 3, 1971 and ended on September 25 of the same year. It would run on Saturdays for 56 minutes.

    Performers:

    Sakai Masaaki: A member of the band "The Spiders" until it disbanded and he became a broadcasting writer.

    Maeda Takehiko: An actor and a writer, more info is scarce.

    The Monsters:

    Machaaki Monster Garigari: The blue bird monster. Given that "Machaaki" is remarkable similar to "Masaaki", it leads to to believe that Sakai Masaaki himself played this one.

    Maetake Monster Berobero: The dragon-esque monster. Not sure who played this one. Could have been Takehiko Maeda.

    From what I researched about the show itself:

    Sakai teaches Japanese through calligraphy and moral chorus to foreign students, or he would talk to the audience before Takehiko was put on the phone with the studio. In between each corner, a fighting scene with the two monsters would be inserted.

    The soft-vinyl dolls of the two monsters were made by Bullmark and released on September 4, 2011.

    For more images, http://dagasiyakamimono.web.fc2.com/bero.html

    Sadly, until any episodes of the show are found and are released for public the full contents of this show will probably remain a mystery.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, got even more info!

    Machaaki is Masaaki Sakai's business nickname, while Maetake is the same thing for Takehiko Maeda.

    I also found out what the purpose of the fight-scenes of Berobero against Garigari were. They were short segments in random parts of the show that were meant to parody Tokusatsu shows.

    The article that I got info off of about this show mentions someone of the name "Takeshi", but I have yet to find who that is.

    I also figured out that this show has two names and I have a theory as into what they translate to. The original name, "マチャアキ・前武_始まるヨ!" ("Machaaki zen Takeshi_Hajimaru Yo!") may (non-conclusive) translate to "Machaaki before Takeshi_Start Yo!". While, what most people nowadays call it "Machaaki Maetake Hajimaru Yo!" ("マチャアキ・まえたけ 始まるヨ") might mean "Machaaki - Maetake Begin Yo!". Again, these are just theories.

    I find it interesting that I have collected enough information to make a conclusive kaiju wiki article on it.

    ReplyDelete