In 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. A year later at Operation Crossroads, the U.S. tested two further atomic devices (at sea) on decommissioned ships and a variety of animals. In 1954 a Japanese fishing boat called Lucky Dragon No. 5 was accidentally doused in radioactive fallout, following a U.S. hydrogen bomb test near Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. That same year, director Ishirō Honda’s Gojira depicted the unstoppable rampage of a giant radioactive kaiju (strange beast) awakened from a deep-sea slumber by underwater nuclear testing. Farmyard Kaiju Playset combines two popular children’s toys - Schleich animal figures from Germany and Bakugan Battle Brawlers from Japan - as a tribute to the original Japanese kaiju, and the allegorical manifestations of a (now global) nuclear fear.
