Eiji Tsuburaya emerged from the horrors of WWII believing that kaiju stories could help restore hope to traumatized children. His pioneering work laid the architecture for a six-decade tokusatsu movement in which monsters offer cultural mirrors and spiritual architecture. This session will cross space and time to explore the complexity and beauty of monsters as storytellers. Perhaps their tales can give us courage and hope to face some creatures raging in our own tumultuous era.