The Gunkanjima Kaiju

“Bitu­mi­nous minor” aka “The GUNKANJIMA Kaiju”
copy­right 2010 Bob Conge

All projects begin at the point of INSPIRATION and this one is inspired by a real place, “Hashima” aka “Gunkan­jima”, a nick­name trans­lated to Eng­lish mean­ing “Bat­tle­ship Island”. This tiny (1.2 sq km) island when viewed from the coast of Japan does in fact look like a bat­tle­ship set­ting 19 km off shore.

Described today as a rot­ting Metrop­o­lis, Gunkan­jima was from 1887 until 1974 a self con­tained coal
min­ing facil­ity that fed the iron and steel indus­try and con­tributed to Japans mod­ern­iza­tion. At its peak in 1959 Gunkan­jima was the most densely pop­u­lated place on earth, pack­ing 139,000 peo­ple into one square kilo­me­ter of its 50 res­i­den­tial high ris­ers. Min­ing coal from beneath the the sea floor with waves and typhoons rag­ing above.

Then 36 years ago the entire pop­u­la­tion van­ished almost overnight leav­ing behind most of their pos­ses­sions. The offi­cial line said they returned to the main­land, but of course we know better .….….….….….….….….…..

And this is where MY story begins. “A great storm raged from the sea that black night in 1974 break­ing loose the moor­ings of all ships docked at the island send­ing them crash­ing into the tow­er­ing break water that sur­rounds Hashima. Any hope of escape was at the bot­tom of this tor­mented ocean when a crea­ture of revenge was awak­ened in the deep­est of the mine shafts as a hand full of men broke through into the cav­ity before them. This was the first taste of flesh in over 2000 years for “Bitu­mi­nous minor” aka “The GUNKANJIMA Kaiju”. He made his way up through the dark wind­ing shafts to the city above and by morn­ing had con­sumed all those liv­ing on this doomed island. Where will he feed next ?”