In 1966 chaos and upheaval swept the world. A year after the Gulf of Tonkin “incident”, the United States of America was already well on its way to dropping its first million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, despite a recession at home. The Soviet Union found itself smack in the middle of what’s now called the Brezhnev Stagnation, with social and political reform firmly placed back on the shelf marked “Bourgeoisie Pipe Dreams.” Between the two powers, Japan soldiered on, dreaming of its monsters.

In spite of the impression these movies give us here in the twenty-first century (more on this later) Japan’s scars were, at the time, still visible in hospitals across the country…nowhere more so than in the city of Hiroshima. {More}