Giant Octopus

Name Toho's official name for the creature is read Ōdako (alternatively spelled Oodako), which simply means "Giant Octopus."[8] "Daidako" is a mistranslated nickname as the 大 kanji in the Giant Octopus' Japanese name of 大ダコ is sometimes read dai, though in this instance it's read as ō which nevertheless translates to "giant octopus."

Development Shinichi Sekizawa added a scene featuring a giant octopus into his King Kong vs. Godzilla screenplay without warning, but Eiji Tsuburaya and his team liked the idea.[9]

Several live octopi were used to portray the monster onscreen. Assistant special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano recalled that getting them to move was difficult, saying: "We threw the octopus on the table and poked him with a stick, threw water on him, and blew air on him, but it wouldn't move. No matter how hard we did it, it wouldn't move. We even tried to use cigarettes!"[10] Finally, someone came up with the idea of using lighting equipment and a pin filter to shoot the octopus with a beam of light. Once the shots were finished, the crew released some of the animals and ate the rest.

For the scenes where King Kong suit actor Shoichi Hirose was required to tussle with the octopus, a rubber puppet was instead used. Several full-sized tentacle props also flail around during the battle with the Faro Islanders. All of the molded objects were created by Eizo Kaimai, who used latex casts of real octopi.[6] Finally, a stop-motion tentacle appears during the Giant Octopus' siege, picking up a Faro Island warrior and throwing him.

Keizo Murase and brothers Kanju and Yasuei Yagi built a larger Giant Octopus puppet for the would-be American ending to Frankenstein vs. Baragon. According to Murase, the prop consisted of a wire-mesh frame covered in foam (the frame later removed), which was then coated with sawdust and latex.[6] The film was a co-production with UPA, led by Henry G. Saperstein. During post-production, he requested that Ishiro Honda and Tsuburaya shoot a new ending involving a giant octopus, impressed by the creature's portrayal in King Kong vs. Godzilla. Of the scene, Honda thought that "putting the octopus in a lake in the mountains was very awkward."[11] Famous Monsters of Filmland initially reported the title as "Frankenstein vs. the Giant Devilfish" and published photos of the artificial human dueling the cephalopod. However, when AIP distributed the film as Frankenstein Conquers the World, they used the original ending where Frankenstein plummets into a fissure. Saperstein said the new octopus "wasn't that good," and the ending remained unreleased until it accidentally aired on Japanese television on April 8, 1971.[12][11] Both Toho and Tokyo Shock have since made it available on home video.

Saperstein managed to get the same octopus prop in the next UPA co-production, The War of the Gargantuas, with its scene remaining in both the Japanese and American versions this time. The prop had lights installed in its eyes, which were controlled using a variable autotransformer.[6] More full-sized tentacles allowed it to menace the sailors. Around the same time, Tsuburaya Productions used the prop to depict Sudar in episode 23 of Ultra Q, accompanied by stock footage from King Kong vs. Godzilla. Tsuburaya brought it back again two years later for episode 14 of "Fight! Mighty Jack."