Kaiju. What is Kaiju? Does it strike fear in your heart when you hear this name? It should.

KAIJU, or strange beast, is as the name suggests, a monster - an extraordinary creature of unimaginable power, capable of wanton destruction. The origin of the word kaiju comes from Chinese text that refers to the monsters themselves. It's also an extremely popular form of art in Japanese culture, pitting these giant beasts against us or each other in films, manga and anime.

Perhaps the most popular Kaiju in culture is Godzilla. There's tons of others too, that you might have encountered in a movie or a comic, for instance, King Ghidorah, King Kong and Gamera.

Godzilla, released in 1954, is regarded as the first Kaiju film to have ever existed.

There's sub-categories/types of Kaiju as well - for all you nerds. There's Daikaiju, where the "Dai" denotes greatness of the kaiju in terms of power, strength, status and/or size. Then there's MechaKaiju, basically a Kaiju with cybernetic enhancements or robotic/mechanical in nature.

MechaGodzilla or Mogera would be two good examples!

There's also Kaijin, or Seijin, that are monster-people/people with supernatural abilities and extraterrestials.

The Kaijus in general aren't protagonists or antagonists - they're more like "hurt me, and I'll destroy you." OR "yo you're another kaiju in my territory, sorry bruv you gotta die." Magnificent as they are, extremely difficult to kill and exterminate.

Great, now you've got the basics of Kaiju.

Are you ready to meet one irl? How, you ask? Yes, they're fictional, fantasy creatures.

But here at Iced Tea, we got them, alive and ready to meet you. Don't believe me? Check this out then!