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BOOSKA

Courtesy of Tsuburaya Productions Everyone knows Godzilla. Ultraman has hit screens around the world. Kamen Rider is making a big comeback... but who the heck is Booska? The big, orange, bucktoothed Booska is one of Japan's kaiju (giant monsters), who first appeared in a self-titled 1960's science fiction TV series. While the show hasn't had the lasting appeal of, say, Ultraman, the character still evokes nostalgic memories with Japanese baby boomers, and repeats have recently been shown on TV Tokyo on Saturday mornings. Booska is the creation of the series' child hero Daisuke, a precocious ten-year-old with a flair for odd scientific experiments that invariably go wrong. In the first episode Daisuke attempts to mutate a baby iguana into a huge Godzilla-like kaiju by giving it a homemade food he calls "kuropara." The experiment fails, creating instead the cute, two-meter tall Booska. The crown on top of Booska's head is called the "boo-kan" and is filled with "booskanium," the animal's source of energy. His powers include super strength, the ability to fly, super-sensitive hearing and eyesight, and invisibility. Booska's other notable feature is a voracious appetite for ramen. He has been known to eat thirty bowls of the stuff at one sitting, often leading to trouble in Daisuke's household. When hungry, the bucktoothed beast loses his strength and mournfully cries "shio shio no pa" (no energy). Other notable Booska-speak heard in the series is "sarasa barasa" when happy, "puri puri no kiririnko" (when angry) and "nai nai no pa" (when becoming invisible). Tsuburaya Productions produced the series for NTV and it ran continually from November 1966 to September 1967. It ran for 47 episodes. 26.4% was its ratings peak... So some night back in 1966, over 1/4 of the entire japanese TV viewing audience was watching Booska. In the series, Booska was the protector of Daisuke and his friends and family. Romping through wobbly cardboard sets with cheesy special effects that made the original TV Star Trek look like The Matrix, he battled creatures from space and unfriendly kaiju such as the fearsome Imora from jigoku dani (hell valley) or the villainous Mechatoro, who wanted to capture and exploit Booska for his own purposes. In every episode Booska and Daisuke went on adventures, mostly of the science fiction variety: monsters and aliens and stuff. Booska uses his various super powers, saving the day. Eventually Booska got lonely, so he and Daisuke built this machine thingie in their backyard. Some passersbye gave Booska this chipmunk they were carrying, it got fed into the machine and.... Out popped Chamegon! Booska was last seen boarding a rocket to take him to the planet R-Star, ten light years from Earth, in search of the mysterious "Z-Energy" and promising to return one day. Perhaps one day the ramen-munching monster will find fame and fortune like his cuddly compatriots. Until that day, "sarasa barasa" and indeed, "nai nai no pa."

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