This Week in Anime

Kaiju King

Sylvia
Hey, Jairus! Just want to say I'm happy to finally get to do a column with you! Here's to many more to come. And since it's only your second "This Week in Anime" ever, I thought we could ease you into the swing of things with a nice, easy, and small topic we can cover quickly and comprehensively:

Godzilla.

Indeed! I would also hardly consider myself a Godzilla Guru, but he's a difficult figure to lose sight of. Everyone knows who Godzilla is, even if it's just through osmosis. Plus, this is an apt time for us to highlight this big angry radioactive lizard, what with Godzilla Minus Zero smashing records this past weekend.

I have yet to catch a showing myself as of the time of writing, but I'm planning to see the big guy in IMAX before he saunters off those screens here. I want him to loom as large as possible, after all.

Why not?? This is a fun example our editor Rebecca let us know about, and it's exactly what it looks like: Godzilla using his big steppers to ruin a bunch of classic fairy tales. Officially sanctioned by TOHO and everything!

That is one of the really fun and interesting qualities of Godzilla. That he can be both a gigantic monster/metaphor as well as a universally beloved pop culture figure. Godzilla is both an avatar of wanton destruction and a big blorbo whom I buy merchandise of to gift to my Godzilla-obsessed friends. He contains multitudes, and I'm not just talking about the people he eats.

There are many worse reasons to hit the movies. And honestly, now that the dust is settling on the 2010s' cinematic universe obsession, Legendary's "Monsterverse" has ended up being one of the better examples, if you ask me. 2014's Godzilla was a solid Hollywood blockbuster. I actually thought King of the Monsters was a lot of fun. And I just found out that next year's entry is going to be titled Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, which might be the best film name of all time.

I know these American 'Zillas don't tend to be as highly regarded as their Japanese counterparts, especially in our weeb-saturated circles, but they nevertheless have their defenders—many of them! And I think that's cool that they can go toe-to-toe with the "original" in some ways.

Right? It occurred to me as we were planning this column that we never really covered Minus One on TWIA back when it came out (mostly because it's hard to screenshot a movie theater screen). And since many people, including the two of us, have revisited it recently, I think it's worth delving a little deeper into its contents.

Incidentally, I used this opportunity to watch the "minus color" version for extra retro vibes. It works pretty well! And I think it makes the special effects look and feel even more impressive, under this veneer of an "older" film.

He is the movie's Little Beepo, and his misery is increasing constantly. And yes, the narrative's extremely direct tackling of Japan's immediate post-war era is what gives Minus One a lot of its flavor. In the West, we tend to forget that Tokyo was firebombed basically to hell, which was not that far removed from the destructiveness of the atomic bombings. Here, though, the firebombed ruins of Tokyo show up well before Godzilla wreaks any metropolitan havoc. And of course, Shikishima's shame at being a "failed" kamikaze pilot hangs over his head and his interactions with the other characters throughout the film.

In both cases—the background ruins and the foreground anger/depression—they act as mirrors for the pain many Japanese citizens were feeling after World War II.

The war is very much "the monster" that continues to trample on people's lives well past its end date. Which goes part and parcel with Godzilla's common thematic purpose as a consequence of the war, nurtured on radiation and ready to attack the species responsible for it. And like many of the more "serious" takes on Godzilla, Minus One keeps an acerbic sense of humor about this. Godzilla takes literal bites out of warships. Fragile international relations get in the way of an effective response. And the people on the ground find their bravado quickly humbled by Godzilla's awful spectacle.

In the end, what's interesting is how the human drama crashes against Godzilla's massive toes. Because we can't completely divorce Godzilla's existence from our own, or from our choices. In Minus One, Godzilla gives the disgraced war veterans of Japan a chance at a "do-over" that can protect their homeland instead of endangering it, and without needlessly sacrificing their lives. This does, however, present a drastically simplified version of Japan's role in WWII that never fully wrestles with its own wartime atrocities. As somebody who likes the film, this is a criticism of its themes I can agree with, but it's also certainly not a blind spot unique to this film. I'd feel pretty hypocritical as an American if I didn't at least mention that.

Yeah, the third act of the movie is immaculate, buoyed by Naoki Satō's ascendant soundtrack. Seriously, hearing this in a theater was spine-tingling.

Admittedly, on rewatch, I did have a brief guffaw at Shikishima seeing his little Dead Wife Vision (with the flowing white sheets and everything) right before slamming his plane into Godzilla's gaping maw (especially considering their reunion soon after). But aside from that hiccup, the action and drama of taking Godzilla down hit their marks.

Indeed! I'm eager to see how Minus Zero follows this act, now that it is laden with Minus One's accolades and expectations. Making a sequel to a surprise hit is never easy.

For my money, though, my favorite 21st-century iteration on the 'Zilla formula remains Shin Godzilla. And at least 80% of that favor is due to the existence of this little fella.

And his stomping grounds aren't limited to the silver screen! Given Godzilla's Japanese origins, it's no surprise that he's graced the realm of anime more than once. I mean, if we want, we can even count Shin Godzilla as anime, since it's directed by Hideaki Anno and includes a bunch of visual and musical cues from Evangelion.

My weeb ass has watched it at least five times, including twice in theaters, and I will continue to do so. Meanwhile, I wouldn't blame people for forgetting these, but we also got a trio of Godzilla movies on Netflix from the twisted mind of Gen Urobuchi and the 3DCG wizards at Polygon Pictures. While I have not watched them myself, I'd encourage all of you to take a trip down memory lane and read these TWIA columns of yesteryear.

The title does not lie, because it is absolutely one of the most singular takes on the franchise. Which is not at all surprising given the identity of its writer, Toh Enjoe. He's a gonzo sci-fi author whose book Self-Reference Engine remains one of the most unique reads I've ever done. He also penned the two weirdest Space Dandy episodes and recently worked on Science SARU's adaptation of The Ghost in the Shell. And I think it's really cool when a long-running franchise like this takes a chance on something experimental. Especially when the protagonist's character design is this good.

But before we close out, I think it's only appropriate to cast our glance backwards in time to where it all began. The original stomping grounds. Because if you've never seen the 1954 Godzilla, or if you haven't seen it recently, you ought to.

Yeah, for over 70 years and counting, the original Godzilla has stood the test of time and changed the world. A guy in a rubber suit and a metaphor as blunt and satirical as the "Oxygen Destroyer" still hit hard today. We may be further temporally removed from the atrocities that gave birth to Godzilla, but we're no closer to properly reckoning with our own capacity for self-annihilation. Until that day comes, we might as well band together with our mutual love for this ferocious fellow.