Urban Renewal Expert
You may have seen hard-hatted Anthony Salbino sweeping up crushed cities in between Kaiju Battels. But don't be fooled by the looks of his broom: Anthony Salbino is no mere janitor. He's actually a gumptious entrepreneur, an independent contractor, and an all-around hardworking dude whose Kaiju involvement began before his birth.
Anthony Salbino's grandfather Geseppi made millions by reconstructing Japan after World War II with his building business, Salbino Industries. But before his reign as the construction king of Japan, Geseppi Salbino ("Pop-pop," as baby Anthony nicknamed him) designed a hulking point-and-shoot camera that would later be known as Atomic Cannon, Kaiju's most photogenic creature. When Geseppi Salbino died in 1951, the remaining members of the Salbino family relocated to Chicago, where Salbino Industries burgeoned in the midst of America's post-war building boom.
Growing up in the Windy City, Anthony Salbino was the eldest of 14 children, 6 brothers and 7 sisters. At the behest of big bro Anthony, the Salbino siblings frequently played make-believe, pretending that their backyard was a top-secret stomping-ground of city-crushing monsters: the boys would knock over each other's Lego structures; the girls would kick down each other's Barbie dream houses; together they would stampede the manicured hedges of their snooty neighbors.
The Salbino siblings' imaginative games were all in good fun, but for rambunctious Anthony, monsters became more than a pastime. Late one Friday night, when Anthony's father was entertaining guests in the living room, Anthony snuck downstairs to watch after-hours Cable and stumbled upon his glassy-eyed dad recounting swaggering tales of Grandpa Geseppi's "Japan years." Hearing his slurring father describe the strange, magical, war-time world of Kaiju, Anthony immediately decided that his dream was a live a life that revolved around city-crushing monsters, Japanese culture, and the veneration of Grandpa Geseppi's memory.
At first, Anthony didn't know how to do what misty-eyed adults called "honor someone's memory," so he simply acted like the bellicose beasts that inhabited Geseppi's world: at school, he shoved classmates when the teacher wasn't looking; he remorselessly destroyed his playmates' art-and-crafts projects on the school bus; he buried Tonka trucks in the sandbox during recess. But as Anthony matured, his frenzied fantasy life developed into a healthy sense of respect for the mysteriously troubled beasts of Big Battel; this compassion, reverence, and fearlessness would serve Anthony well later in life.
When his own father died, Anthony Salbino inherited the family construction company and defined its business plan to be "the pursuit of making Pop-pop proud." Soonafter, Anthony found out that Kaiju Big Battel was hiring a re-construction crew; he pitched his involvement with the project so earnestly that the Kaiju Commissioner signed him on the spot. Arguably one of the most coveted urban-renewal deals in the history of civilization, the Kaiju Big Battel clean-up contract has allowed Anthony Salbino's childhood dream to become a reality: within the last five years, Anthony Salbino has rebuilt every single city destroyed by Kaiju Big Battel.
Being so close to the monster action isn't all glamour. Sure, Anthony can sneak off with Sky Deviler's Blue-Ribbon cans, buy contraband cases of Uchu Chu's Space Jelly for wholesale costs, and get his construction-worker pals lipstick-kissed photos of Mung Wan. But savvy Salbino knows that an occasional brush with death is not uncommon in the Kaiju Big Battel reconstruction industry. In addition to rebuilding crumbled cities, Salbino volunteers as Kaiju's "safety worker", which means that he restrains hysterical fans from entering the Kaiju Danger Zone during live Battels. More than one hyperactive fan has been saved from public humiliation, nevermind senseless injury and untimely death, thanks to the protective arm of Anthony Salbino.
