Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > You can see
> > where giant youkai and Godzilla legends originate from the sheer
> > devastation left...
>
>   AFAIK, the concept that Godzilla (Gojira) and other kaiju originate
> from ancient Japanese folklore seems to be just a misconception.
>
>   Youkai are part of ancient folklore and mythology, but they consist
> mostly of supernatural creatures taking various forms of small animals
> such as raccoon dogs, foxes, cats and wolves, or sometimes even humans.
> The closest youkai is probably a mountain ogre (but I don't know how
> large the mythology says they are, but from the description it probably
> wasn't deemed anywhere even close to gigantic; I'd guess human-sized or
> slightly larger.)
>
>   Godzilla and other kaiju were most probably a pure invention of the
> 1950's Japanese movie industry, mostly inspired by King Kong. (In other
> words, gigantic monstrous animals as a movie plot were actually invented
> in the US before they were in Japan. This is not to say that there were
> not pieces of fiction, mostly literature, that had gigantic animals even
> earlier. However, none of them were probably based on Japanese folklore.)
>
>   I suppose that the closest you could get in ancient oriental folklore
> is dragon myths (which were probably inspired by dinosaur bone fossils).
> In a way this could ostensibly be a source because Japanese dragons were
> most often associated with rainfall and bodies of water. (I wouldn't be
> surprised if some myths associated tsunamis with dragons for this reason.)

You're probably right in all accounts.  I was probably mislead by current mangas
retelling of youkai which were probably inspired by kaiju in turn, not folklore.

Though I believe it wouldn't be hard for ignorant peasants in past ages to
attribute such massive destructions by nature to gods or giant monsters.

The giant bones of dinosaurs are thought to have influenced legends, including
giants and dragons.

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