Yoshimitsu Banno

Cruel Famine Continent documents the Great Sahelian drought in West Africa and its effect on the people. The production was an attempt to pivot Toei's output from yakuza films and Toei Porn towards "global issues" and "whatever makes money", as stated by then-Toei president Shigeru Okada. Theatrical proceeds were to be shared as relief funds through the Japanese Red Cross, though the box office returns are unknown. Footage shot for the documentary by Yoshimitsu Banno would later be reused in the 1974 Toho production Prophecies of Nostradamus.

One day, a shrimp fisherman catches a large tadpole. Dr. Yano discovers that the captured animal is not a tadpole, but a life form that originated in some chemical way in the polluted water of the bay. During experiments, the tadpole grows very rapidly and escapes, returning to the polluted water of the bay and growing into a monster. There happens to be another monster in the bay: Godzilla, in which the tadpole Hedra engages in a fight with.

An ever evolving alien life-form arrives on a comet from the Dark Gaseous Nebula and proceeds to consume pollution. Spewing mists of sulfuric acid and corrosive sludge, neither humanity nor Godzilla may be able to defeat this toxic menace.