Monster Maker: The Strange Creatures of Mark Nagata

Lion Head charges into Melted Candle Man! GAOO! Chicken Head swoops down and thrashes Lion Head! GUCHYA! The monster battle rages on! GASHAN! These kaiju, Japanese creatures delivered as toys to a nine-year-old boy one Christmas day from relatives in Japan, became the catalyst for artist and toymaker Mark Nagata's career. This is the story of his journey from budding artist to world-renowned Japanese toymaker! When Mark Nagata was nine years old, he received a Christmas package in his California home all the way from relatives in Japan. Inside the package, Mark found brightly colored plastic toys. What amazed Mark about these toys was how different they were from his own action figures, being so brightly colored with shimmering, unrecognizable writing on the boxes. It didn't matter that Mark didn't understand the writing. After conjuring up names for each figure, it was clear that it was love at first sight! Monster Maker: The Strange Creatures of Mark Nagata is a biographical account of toy designer, painter, illustrator, and collector Mark Nagata. From a very young age, Mark was a fan of many classic comic book series, movies and toys. It was the introduction to classic Japanese television shows that truly sparked his creativity, which ultimately led to his success as a toymaker, most specifically kaiju toys. Kaiju translates to strange creature but has since come to mean large monster in Japanese. Mark bases his toy design and artwork on this type of creature and his work has flourished into an important and well-recognized art form in the United States and around the world. Author Debbi Michiko Florence provides a note at the end of the story explaining her connection to Mark Nagata's work, a connection that stems from a visit to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where she experienced the exhibit Kaiju vs. Heroes: Mark Nagata's Journey Through the World of Toys. She became so enthralled with the exhibit and Mark Nagata's process of creating the toys that she was even invited to his home to see the process firsthand. This additional information on the process by which the toys are created complements the story very well for the reader.