A chapter written for the catalog of a special retrospective of Japanese science fiction and fantasy films, titled Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures and Fantasies in Japanese Cinema, that Mark Schilling curated for the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. Directed at a general audience, the chapter surveys examples of efforts to produce science fiction or fantasy films in prewar Japan, focusing on early monster films and examples of movie robots—even in samurai films. I argue how most such films were mostly shunted to the margins of the industry with the exception of Toho starting in the late 1930s.