The Human Instrumentality Podcast Ian Cory & Joseph Schafer

At last, The Human Instrumentality Podcast’s coverage of the Heisei Gamera trilogy comes to its oh-so-edgy conclusion with 1999’s Gamera III: Revenge of Iris. In this film, director Shusuke Kaneko returns to his horror film roots for one of the darkest kaiju films in existence. This time the titular terrapin (now fully in his grimdark phase) meets his match in the vampiric Iris — the kaiju with a psychic link to Ayana Hirasaka, a troubled teen whose parents he squashed in the first film. If Gamera II was the giant monster New Testament, then Gamera III is the genre’s Book of Revelation, so expect plenty of morbid spectacles, but no happy endings.


While discussing the film, Ian and Joseph gleefully unpack Ayana’s story and the intimate small-town setting that is the ironic focus of the unusually apocalyptic film. Of course, talking about Ayana means discussing the tentacle-filled innuendo that is her kaiju counterpart — then again, the hentai-ness of it all does add something to this already unique film. Listeners who’ve been waiting for a live-action Evangelion take note: this might be as close as we ever get.

The second film in the Heisei Gamera trilogy reunites director Shusuke Kaneko, SFX specialist Shinji Higuchi, and writer Kazunori Ito for an ambitious alien invasion film. This time, the titanic turtle’s opponent is the creepy-crawly colony of space bugs, the Symbiotic Legion; a kaiju that brings the biblical barbarism from Neon Genesis Evangelion front-and-center to the Gamera experience.


Legion’s got Ian asking, “What’s up with bugs in the ‘90s?” He and Joseph go on an exciting excursion through the canon of great pre-millennium insect critters – the Zerg from Starcraft, the Arachnids from Paul Verhoeven’s now-beloved but then-derided Starship Troopers, and so on. Later, Joseph drops another cortex-crushing take on the psychological subtext to Gamera’s triumphant return to the screen. All that plus a solid discussion of post-apocalypses in film and video games and why we could use fewer of them.


Notes: ‘Video Games Are Giving Up On The Idea that We Can Save The World’ by Michael Lee, via Kotaku

Human Instrumentality Podcast listeners are probably familiar with Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the massive atomic dinosaur that remains Japan’s foremost Kaiju (giant monster) ambassador to the rest of the world. They may be less familiar with his lesser-known commercial rival, a flying, fire-breathing turtle (seriously) named Gamera, who once upon a time had a little cameo on Mad Men.


Gamera sounds silly on paper, but the titanic terrapin’s trilogy of 90’s films might be the best giant monster movies ever made, thanks in large part to staff members from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell. Know this: there is no Shin Godzilla without 1995’s Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.


Joseph takes Ian on a tour through Gamera’s truly bizarre history before both hosts begin their survey of his Heisei trilogy. Along the way, they discuss under-appreciated horror auteur turned wunderkind director Shusuke Kaneko, who mined the vein of 90s anime-cool to give the goofiest monster you could imagine both serious edge, and still-biting environmentalist themes.

This unlocked bonus episode is a conceptual outtake from our second season. After we agreed to focus on Satoshi Kon's filmography for season two we then had to draw lines about exactly what qualified for that discussion. We settled on covering just the projects that Kon directed at the expense of the projects that he merely wrote. The last item that we cut was "Magnetic Rose", a short film written by Kon and directed by Koji Morimoto included in the anthology film Memories.


Now ubiquitous on streaming services, Memories was concieved by Katsuhiro Otomo as the follow-up to his ubiquitous debut, Akira. This episode only covers "Magnetic Rose," the first and most well-regarded of its three segments.


"Magnetic Rose" features some elements that would appear in Kon's directorial work, but it is also clearly distinct from the rest of his filmography for reasons that we enumerate in the episode. We also talk about "Solaris", "Alien", the A24 grief movie phenomenon, the pros and cons of anthologies, and more!

As promised, here is the now unlocked first bonus episode of our podcast. Building on our conversation earlier in Season 2 about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and Shonen Anime in general, we decided to cover all of the parts of Stardust Crusaders that we didn't get to touch on in that episode. So if you were anxious to hear us talk about your favorite JoBro or a particular stand battle, now's your chance. At one point Ian starts talking about Moby Dick for a while too.


These unlocked bonus episodes are looser and less scripted than our "in season" episodes. We're not going to bother with re-caps at the start of episodes and our research is going to be more off the cuff. We hope that this more laid back approach will show you another side of our friendship and that you'll find the conversations no less stimulating for lack of presentational flair.

Today, we have an update on the future of the podcast. Some of you have already subscribed to our Patreon in the past few months. If you have, thank you. However, Ian and Joseph’s obligations outside of the podcast have increased since it launched require their full attention right now. For that reason, we’re going to close our Patreon down at the end of this month.


The Patreon episodes which we’ve recorded are going to be uploaded to our main feed, including the follow-up to our episode on JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, and a trio of episodes on the Gamera film trilogy from the 90’s. Our third season is in the early stages of development — tune in for a hint at our subject.


Thanks!
Ian & Joseph