Daimajin

Daimajin
Nicknames	Arakatsuma, Majin, Giant Majin, Bujin-SamaDK
Species	Spirit-animated Statue
Place(s) of emergence	Earth
Height	5 - 20 meters
Weight	6 - 250 metric tons
Forms	Dormant statue form, active form, spirit form
First appearance	Daimajin
Latest appearance	Daimajin Kanon
Allies	Hanabusa, Chigusa, Nagoshi
Enemies	Humanity, IpadadaDK
Portrayed by	Chikara Hashimoto

Daimajin  (大魔神,   Daimajin^?, lit. Giant Demon God) or Arakatsuma  (阿羅羯磨,   Arakatsuma^?) is a stone warrior yokai created by Daiei that first appeared in the 1966 film, Daimajin. The exact nature of the Daimajin is unknown, but it is worshiped as a god and protector by the Hanabusa, Chigusa, and Nagoshi peoples, in addition to an unnamed people in Daimajin Strikes Again. It is unclear if the films share continuity, the four groups worship at three separate statues of a warrior that awakens in their time of need. Given that the Daimajin is a spirit inhabiting the statue, it could be surmised that the same god is worshipped by multiple groups at around the same time, through three different stone effigies.

Design

Daimajin is a giant stone statue that comes to life. He has an angry scowl on his face, green skin, red eyeballs with yellow irises and wears Samurai armour. He also carries a massive dagger, which hangs around his waist in a sheath. When Daimajin isn't active, he resembles a massive statue which is either embedded in a rock face or the ground and has a smoother face which is either stone-coloured or bright red. In Daimajin Kanon, Daimajin's inactive form looked more like a rock formation than a statue. His active form was far more muscular and had no upper body armour. His face was also drastically different. His overall expression was more neutral, and his eyes had no irises or pupils, instead of being a solid red colour. His mouth was also covered by ornate carvings fashioned into a 'scarf.'

Origins

A kind warrior named Shino fought Daimajin some years ago and won. He trapped the spirit of Daimajin inside a stone statue. From that day forward, Daimajin could be summoned by people who needed his help but only by waking the spirit from its slumber within the statue.

Development

Daimajin was inspired by Czechoslovakia's film Le Golem in 1936.

Daimajin was originally designed to be Gamera's first foe during the development of 1966 film Gamera vs. Barugon as Uchū Hyōjin (宇宙氷人 Uchuu Hyōjin^?, lit. Space Iceman). Later, the idea was utilized to create Daimajin.

History

Showa era

Daimajin

The movie opens with a household of peasants cowering during a series of earth tremors that are interpreted as the escape attempts of Daimajin, a spirit trapped within a nearby geological formation. The entire village gathers at their shrine to pray that Majin's spirit will remain imprisoned. This torchlit parade is observed by local Feudal Lord Hanabasa, a good and just ruler. Also observing is his chamberlain, Samanosuke (Yutaro Gomi), who harbors ill intentions and has been waiting for just such a diversion to stage a coup d'état.

As the villagers pray, Samanosuke and his henchmen strike, slaughtering Hanabasa and his wife, but their son and daughter, aided by the heroic samurai Kogenta (Jun Fujimaki) escape. Concurrently, at the shrine, more of Samanosuke's men break up the prayer meeting and forbid any such gatherings by the town's people in the future. The priestess Shinobu issues a dire warning against forbidding the prayers, but the men ignore her. Discouraged, Shinobu, goes home.

Upon arriving, Shinobu discovers that she has unwittingly become the last hope of survival for Hanabasa's orphans, and their protector, Kogenta. She takes them up the side of the mountain, into forbidden territory, where the stone idol Daimajin, stands half-buried. Near this idol is an ancient temple - the only safe place for the children, as only Shinobu knows of its existence.

Ten years pass, and the children grow to adulthood. The son, Tadafumi (Yoshihiko Aoyama) reaches his 18th birthday, and high time to reclaim his throne, to his thinking. In fact, the last ten years have been pretty hard on the villagers: Samanosuke is the ideal tyrant, and is currently using every man in the starving village as slave labor to build his fortress. The place is ripe for revolution, and surviving Hanabasa retainers are starting to filter in on the tenth anniversary of the coup.

Kogenta journeys to the village to try to gather the old retainers, but gets himself captured. A boy gets word to Tadafumi and his sister, Kozasa (Miwa Takada) that their friend is a prisoner. Tadafumi, being a brave young samurai, tries to rescue him, only to discover it's all a trap laid by Samanosuke. With both the men under arrest and awaiting execution, Shinobu tries to talk some sense into the tyrant, who is drinking way too much and becomes incensed at all this talk of the god of the mountain; he murders the priestess and orders the idol demolished, to all the more thoroughly demoralize the villagers.

The crew that travels up the mountain to smash Daimajin accidentally discovers Kozasa, and forces her to take them to the idol. When repeated beatings with sledgehammers do no good, the soldiers break out an enormous chisel and proceed to hammer it into Majin's head; they are soon forced to stop when blood begins dripping from around the chisel. Horrified, the men flee, but to no avail - the ground cracks open and swallows them.

Seeing the god suddenly get so proactive, Kozasa falls to her knees before it, begging Daimajin to save her brother and punish the wicked Samanosuke. Meanwhile, at the fortress, Tadafumi and Kogenta are tied to large crosses, awaiting their fates. Kozasa, sensing no reaction from the idol, offers her life to Daimajin and attempts to throw herself over the nearby waterfall, stopped only by the Boy. This is apparently good enough, as the rock and earth covering the lower half of the idol fall away, and the fifty-foot statue walks out into the clearing. Kozasa prostrates herself before it, and the idol gestures before its face: the stone mask disappears, revealing the true face of the Daimajin, a vengeful spirit resembling that of a grotesque shogun.

The Daimajin makes its way to Samonosuke's stronghold, which it proceeds to destroy. The idol now turns its wrath upon the villagers. Only Kozasa, once more offering her life and letting her teardrops fall on his stone feet, stops Daimajin's rampage. The Daimajin spirit leaves the statue, flying away in a ball of fire. Without the spirit to animate the statue, it collapses into a heap of rubble.

Return of Daimajin

In the second film in the original Daimajin trilogy, Daimajin has taken residence on the island in the middle of a lake, which is surrounded by three villages. The third village is home to an evil warlord who frequently threatens the other villages. Villagers from the first village, Chigusa, try to get Daimajin's help, but the statue is detonated with explosives. Nevertheless, Daimajin is successfully summoned, and destroys the warlord's forces, and kills the warlord himself. Afterwards, Daimajin reverts back into his spirit form and departs.

Wrath of Daimajin

In the third and final film, the same statue from the first two movies is on top of a mountain rather than on the side. The fathers of some of the local children have been captured by an evil warlord and forced to work in their labor camps. When the four sons decide to go out and save their fathers, they have to cross the Majin Mountain, where the stone god lays sleeping, a notoriously dangerous area full of treacherous terrain, evil samurai, and the angry Daimajin. The four boys are smart enough to pay their respects to the statue when they pass it so that they don't incur the monsters wrath.

Eventually, the warlord's men anger the statue, who once again comes to life and destroys all those who haven't been paying respect to him. The children and their fathers are spared while the work camp is destroyed.

This film is different, politically, from the first two in that Majin is awakened by the pleas of a poor, rural boy rather than by someone of rank, and fights to rescue and avenge common people. None of the heroes in this film are of noble rank, unlike the first two, in which the main protagonists were members of deposed noble families. That Majin is on the side of the common man in this film is made clear when he kills castle retainers who, though unaffiliated with the villains, are indifferent to the commoners' peril.

Daimajin Kanon

Daimajin later went on to have his own television show taking place in modern Japan. The series premiered on April 2, 2010.

The Great Yōkai War: Guardians

Daimajin appears as a guest character for the film.

Abilities

Daimajin's stone body cannot be hurt by any kind of human weapon. He can put fear into his enemy by filling their head with visions of ghosts and demons. His footsteps can cause Earthquakes.

Fighting Style

Although he never engaged in combat with any other kaiju, Daimajin is almost invincible. He attacks mercilessly and punishes the evildoer with a violent and horrible death. He cannot be stopped unless there is a kind act. Then he will leave. Daimajin, when attacking buildings, tends to simply walk through them, but if enemies are in the buildings, he actively destroys them by punching or kicking. Daimajin also appears to be able to calculate and take advantage of any situation he is placed into. For example, a group of soldiers attempted to slow him down by using grappling hooks on his arms, and Daimajin simply continued forward, tearing the building that the soldiers were in down by the ropes' strength.

Transformation

In order to transform, Daimajin must first be awakened, either by driving an object into his head when in statue form, or by the pleas for help from someone in need. When Daimajin transforms, he crosses his forearms over his face, and then moves them apart, revealing his true form. After he has accomplished his task, and witnesses a kind act, Daimajin can revert back into his spirit form by repeating the same arm motions.

Divine Powers and Elemental Attacks

Daimajin can turn into a white sphere and fly at high speed to cover a huge amount of ground very quickly.

He also appears to have telekinetic abilities, as shown when he parted the lake in Return of Daimajin to reach the warlord's village. His chopping with hands can instantly extinguish fire. When submerged, he can cause strong water currents at will.

He can also shoot out fire balls, or fire blasts from hands and legs. He can also cause thunderstorm, or to emit electricity from headdress.

Trivia

• In 1998 during the production of Heisei Gamera Trilogy, there was a plan to remake Daimajin with casting Steven Frederick Seagal as the main hero where Seagal is the father of Ayako Fujitani.
• Art depicting Daimajin's anatomy reveals that while his active form is almost entirely made of rock, it has a complex system of nerves which allow for movement.
• Daimajin is also partially a basis for the famous super robot Mazinger Z, who in turn was a possible inspiration for Jet Jaguar.
• Daimajin is the nickname of Kazuhiro Sasaki, a former pitcher for the Seattle Mariners.
• The activation of Daimajin--namely, driving an object into its forehead--may be a reference to the golem, a creature in Jewish mysticism. The golem is a clay creature that requires the word "Emet" (truth) to be written on its forehead to be activated.
• Daimajin is the name of one of the Jovian robots on Martian Successor Nadesico.
• All three of Daimajin's original trilogy of films were released in the same year, 1966. It is possible that they were all in production at the same time, then given a staggered release into cinemas.
• Like Gamera in the Showa series, all of Daimajin's films used the same suit for Daimajin. However, due to the fact that the suit was used far less and over a short period of time, it generally didn't degrade over the course of the trilogy's releases.
• Daimajin was one of the inspirations for the kaiju Take-Majin from the 2008 Shochiku Company Ltd. film, The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit.
• Two statues of Daimajin are located outside of the entrance of Kadokawa Daiei Studio in Tokyo.
• Daimajin's design for the Great Yokai War: Guardians was designed by Takashi Miike who was originally planned to direct a remake of Daimajin in 2007.

References