The original story that hatched Mothra, one of the most beloved monsters in the “kaijuverse”—available in English for the first time

Mystical and benevolent, the colossal lepidopteran Mothra has been one of the most beloved kaiju since 1961, when The Luminous Fairies and Mothra was originally published in Japanese. Commissioned by Toho Studios from three of Japan’s most prominent postwar literary writers (Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta), the novella formed the basis for the now-classic monster film Mothra, with a protagonist second only to Godzilla in number of film appearances by a kaiju. Finally available in its first official English translation, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra will captivate ardent, longtime fans of the films as well as newcomers.

Written just months after the largest political demonstrations Japan had ever seen, The Luminous Fairies and Mothra reflects the rebellious spirit of the time. In this original story, explorers visit a South Pacific island and capture a group of fairies, inciting the fury of the goddess Mothra, who sets out for Japan on a mission of rescue and revenge. Expressing a powerful social stance about Japan’s need to chart its own foreign policy during the Cold War, the novella’s political message was ultimately toned down in the Toho Studios film. Through this translation, Anglophone audiences will discover Mothra as a figure of protest fiction intricately reflecting the complex geopolitical situation in early 1960s Japan.

The Luminous Fairies and Mothra is translated into lively prose by Jeffrey Angles, who also wrote an extensive afterword about the novella’s cultural context, the unusual story of its composition, and the development of the 1961 film. Following Angles’s best-selling translation of the original Godzilla novellas, this new work will once again delight kaiju fans everywhere.

I will confess that Mothra is one of my favorite kaiju, in some ways even more so than Godzilla, so having found the previous book, Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again, both interesting and informative I was looking forward to reading this one.

The first part of this slim book is the novella origin story of Mothra while the majority of the book is the afterword which delves in to the political atmosphere in Japan during the period,  how it was reflected in the novella, and, of course, how the studio toned things down to make sure the movie was marketable as well as the influence of the Doctor Doolittle books on aspects of the story.  The story portion is very bare bones, as is to be expected of what was very much written with two purposes, as a rough outline for the film, and, as a novella, advance publicity for the 1961 movie, Mothra. There are three distinct sections, each one written by a different author so it can be a bit disjointed as a story.

As noted, the majority of the book is the afterword which dives quite deeply into the political climate in Japan which most Western viewers will be unfamiliar with. While the political anti-nuclear warnings of Godzilla were obvious even to those unfamiliar with Japanese society and politics, the political messages shaping much of the Mothra novella will be unfamiliar to Western readers and certainly were not, at least in my memory,  as apparent in the movie. The afterword also covers the similarities between many of the choices the authors made and the Doctor Dolittle books. I do need to go watch the film again to refresh my memory and, honestly, to see how its message is viewed differently now that I have a brief grounding in the political message the authors were trying to convey as well as the influence of the Dolittle stories.  The afterword here was not as easy a read as in Godzilla but it showed me a slice of Japanese history I was pretty much unaware of and, to be honest, a link to British children’s literature I’d not have considered if it had not been pointed out to me. The hard core kaiju fan will want this book as an integral part of their collection but even the casual fan will find it of interest. Recommended ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

For more titles by Jeffrey Angles click here