Luck Dragon

Who hasn’t had that dream of chasing down their enemies while riding on a Luck Dragon? That’s one fantasy that is truly timeless. However, the famous Luck Dragon in the Neverending Story isn’t the only entity who has ever carried this name. It was also the name of an old Japanese fishing boat. When the Americans blew the crap out of an island in the Pacific 1954, the Daigo Fukuryuu Maru or 'Luck Dragon 5’ was fishing for tuna in the area, presumably because there weren’t any whales around. The crew was exposed to the radiation and the captain died. America then attempted to cover up the incident.

That isn’t lucky, you say. Well, in the long term, the understandable paranoia felt by the Japanese over nuclear weapons and contaminated fish led to the eventual creation of the genre of Japanese gaiju or radiation-monster films, such as Godzilla, Mothra and Gamera. Without wanting to sounding flippant, if all it takes for films of such greatness to be made is for thousands of miles of ocean wildlife to be contaminated with radiation and for an innocent man to die a slow painful death, maybe it isn’t all bad. I’m sure many of us would volunteer for a similar death if we knew that eventually, such utter greatness would come of it.

So luck dragons might not have been that lucky for the Japanese in 1954, but it all turned out okay in the end. Maybe they can be lucky for you too when you wear this Luck Dragon t-shirt.

Hopefully, that luck won’t involve any form of radiation.