I don’t know how or why it’s escaped me for so long, but An Eternal Thought In The Mind Of Godzilla is my new favourite blog. The most recent post showcases three renditions of Godzilla by various manga artists, which is appropriate considering tonight my Macho Movie Review co-host Billy is coming over for a double bill of kaiju fury.

Other notable posts include excerpts from the Pink Lady colouring book, some scans from a 30-year old copy of Animage, and a fashion shoot with yesterday’s subject, Bunta Sugawara. And that’s just scraping the surface. Dig in!

My time in Japan is unfortunately coming to a close. Now that I have only a few days left, I’m getting more and more excited about things that I simply can’t get over here.

CEREAL!

Captain Crunch, Life, and especially my good pal, Count Chocula. Japan’s a tough place to live for lovers of these crunchy morning delights. Here, I basically have the choice of either frosted flakes or chocolate frosted flakes. Sure there’s granola stuff sometimes, but it’s damn expensive. Oh Count…

POPTARTS!

I feel this breakfast treat is a different enough animal to warrant it’s own place here. I really fucking miss pop tarts which is strange since I rarely bought them while in Canada.

PIZZA!

Sure, they have pizza here, but it’s just not the same. While very delicious, you’re looking to pay around $35 for something that equals to about one medium sized pizza back home. What I really miss are those giant cheap-ass slices. Oh, and to eat pizza again without corn and mayonnaise on it! I don’t know why, but most pizza here has corn on every slice. Not that it tastes bad, but the un-corned pizza is missed.

WILLY WONKA’S STASH!

Nerds, Punky’s and every other kind of tooth rotting candy I can possibly get.

SPEAKING ENGLISH!

How novel it will be to finally go to a store and not go through the process of using my crap Japanese.  Not that it’s really a big problem to tell you the truth. Japanese is tough to learn, but not as tough as people think. There’s actually rules that make sense unlike our bastard tongues. Still, the idea of speaking English on a regular basis sounds like good fun.

Hmm… so most of what I miss seems to be food based. To tell you the truth, Japan’s a really great place to live! It’s got tons of fun things to do and I find new things every time I go for a walk here. I’d highly recommend hoofing it over here. Bansai!

I was all set to review Secret Invasion or Punisher: War Zone today, but a very special request must be answered first. I’ve known Teresa since my first stint in comic blogging, and she’s good people. Teresa was upset that I cut short my look back at She Devils of the SS, which is funny considering she’s the person responsible for my efforts in maintaining a relatively safe for work blog. Years ago she complained about my use of nudie pictures during the lead up to International Read A Comic Book Naked Day, which prompted me to replace all of said pictures with photos of kitties. She was right, of course, but now because of her plea I present to you the finest in Naziclownsploitation. Please keep in mind that most of the subsequent links lead to NOT SAFE FOR WORK images.

She Devils of the SS is set in Southern California standing in for Germany during WW II, with a squad of American soldiers storming a brothel for high-ranking Nazis officers and partaking of the services of the women there after their victory. Unfortunately for them the prostitutes are also highly-trained commandos, and the softcore shenanigans end with nearly everyone getting killed.

The reason it took me so long to track down She-Devils of the SS was because that isn’t it’s original title. In fact, there’s another movie with the same title, and this particular movie has also been released as The Cut-Throats, Cut-Throat Kommandos, and SS Cutthroats. The collective memory of my friends offer up very little, but what is remembered is shared by all very vividly; the title, the Nazi clown and the sound of a timpani whenever she shows her ass, and a woman fucking a fat guy’s foot. Nearly everyone I know who has heard about that last part cringes in disgust when it’s brought up. We don’t remember much because She Devils of the SS was enjoyed the way almost all cheapjack sexploitation films should be approached; in the background while you’re doing something else, like playing cards, and only noticed when someone points out some absurd piece of business. So you’ll have to forgive me for initially forgetting about the bedroom decor and naked dude fights.

The most surprising thing I found out about She Devils of the SS was its age. Watching it recently, with more than a decade of exploitation films under my belt, it’s easy to tell that this is from the late 60s, early 70s, but for years now I was under the impression that it was from the mid 70s, around the time of Ilsa, She-Devil of the SS and the greatest concentration of Naziploitation. In fact, She Devils of the SS predates Ilsa by at least 6 years, and may be the very first Nazi sexploitation film, or at least tied with Love Camp 7. It’s downright innovative!

Tears of joy…tears of pure joy.

I was skipping along merry ol’ Osaka when I came across this… TATSUNOKO (I think…my katakana’s rusty) vs CAPCOM: CROSS GENERATION OF HEROES!!!!

I did indeed pick up a flyer here too. I’ll try and put it up when I can swipe the camera from the ol’ lady.

Also…

I helped out on a friend’s movie tonight. We were reshooting a scene where the lead actress had to have two black eyes. The last time they shot it I was dying to crack out my injury stack and get to work, but we didn’t have the time for me to run home and get it. Tonight I finally got my chance.

I tested it out on myself first, and unfortunately my skin is dark enough that the bruising was barely noticeable. The actress was very fair-skinned, though, and it popped nicely. For my efforts I was promoted from “Boom Guy” to “Make-Up Guy”.

I’ll never be Sutan, but I’m glad I can fake a half-decent bruise.