Agon: Atomic Dragon [Maboroshi no Daikaiju Agon] [Japan] [1968/DVDRIP/x264]
Quote:Agon: Atomic Dragon (1968)
"not a Godzilla movie but it is a lot of fun to watch if you can find it."
Its in Japanese with English subs. Sourced from the 47CWY upload
https://whatimg.com/i/f7Y5Iw.jpg
My Synopsis Mutated by atom bombs and grown to monstrous size from feeding on radioactive waste, its Agon, the Atomic Dragon. Can the Dr. Ukyo (Nobuhiko Shima), Goro (Shinji Hirota), Detective Yamato (Asao Matsumoto), and the Defense Force save Japan from this rampaging monster? Grab his one of a kind English Subbed version to find out.
First of all, I didn't learn Japanese to do these subs. The various episodes of Agon are on Youtube. I typed the translations to text files, then used them to make the subs for this encode. It was quite a job and some gaps needed to be filled in, but I'm very happy with the finished product.
Second, although in his description 47CWY states "Also, this is the version that was edited into a film by Toho, not the TV series version.", there was no editing done at all. It was just four episodes all with beginnings and endings. I thought it was important to leave only the beginning of episode one and the ending of episode four so I edited out the rest to make it flow as a movie.
Finally, I really have my doubts as to whether TOHO had anything to do with the DVD this is sourced from. The whole thing seems a lot more like a bootleg than something a company the size of TOHO would put out. This is a very rough and unpolished video with a weird field sequence. Hence the variable frame rate of this encode.
I really liked Agon. I don't see it as a Godzilla rip off, but just an alternate monster. You have to figure that almost every monster from the 50s and 60s came from radiation. Many were also supposed to be dinosaurs in suspended animation that were enlarged by the radiation. So Agon was just another attempt at a cautionary tale of the times. The inclusion of a little kid actually made it more like Daia's Gamera. Wonder why they didn't complain. The movie tries to send more messages than just being cautious about atomic energy. It also has a criminal subplot that eventually winds up leading to another cautionary tale of how crime doesn't pay. Along with discouraging the bad, it sets Goro "Suppon" as a good example. His hard work and never give up attitude eventually pays off with success. In the end you are getting what is probably the first ever Agon that is subbed in English and edited into a flowing movie. I really put some work into this one so I hope it gets a lot of action and that you enjoy it.