Junji Ito's Gyo Manga Review (2024)

Here's what you need to know; Kaori's overly sensitive nose is causing conflict between her and her boyfriend, Tadashi while on vacation in Okinawa. However, the source of the troublesome smell turns out to be far worse than the couple could have imagined, as an army of undead fish begins to rise from the deep and swarm the land, bringing with them not just a terrible smell, but something far more evil. 

A long time ago, like eight years ago, I wrote about this manga and what I thought about it. At the time though, I wasn't very familiar with manga or with Junji Ito, and I was not a very good writer, not that I am now, but trust me, I was worse then. It was about eight years ago that I was first introduced to Junji Ito and to Gyo while watching an episode of the Rooster Teeth Podcast, in which they discussed a short horror story called The Enigma of Amigara Fault. Their discussion of the story intrigued me and that night, I tracked it down and gave it a read, and then I didn't sleep. It was my first real introduction to horror manga, to manga in general, and it messed with me real good. That was eight years ago and since then, I've had a lot more experience with manga, scooping up and reading Battle Angel Alita, All You Need Is Kill, Kaiju No.8, and perhaps most prominently, the works of Junji Ito, a horror mangaka known for his freaky, insane, occasionally comedic and often nightmare inducing stories, and I think it's safe to say I'm a fan of his, given that my collection of his works takes up an entire shelf on my bookshelf. It all started with The Enigma of Amigara Fault though, and by extension, with Gyo, a story that's equal parts horror, science fiction, and acid trip that was the first book of Ito's I ever bought, and after recently picking up PTSD Radio and getting back into reading manga, I thought it would be fun to go back to Ito and his zombie fish, and to look a bit closer at this bizarre and disgustingly unique apocalypse, and I will be going into some detail about the story of the manga, so be warned if you don't want spoilers. 

Gyo opens with our main character, Tadashi diving near a shipwreck and narrowly avoiding sharks, taking the chance to taunt the sharks for not being able to catch him, which is quite cool. But before being chased by sharks, Tadashi has a mysterious encounter with another thing on the ocean floor, an impossibly fast object that flies right past him like a torpedo, a peculiar encounter which I'm sure won't become relevant later. Once back on the boat, we meet his girlfriend, Kaori, who's not too happy about being on a boat and wants to go home. It turns out that Kaori has a sensitive nose, and is upset by the smell of the sea and particularly of fish which, again, I'm sure won't be relevant later. But we quickly learn that her sensitive nose is not your average cute quirk; her intolerance of bad smells is a major point of contention for the couple that blows up when they get back to the house, where Tadashi is infuriated by her demand that he brush his teeth ten times a day just so he can kiss her. When I first read this, I was a lot more sympathetic to Tadashi, having just got out of a relationship with an equally clingy and unreasonable girl. But reading it now, and when looking at it in hindsight with how the story goes, I find myself feeling sympathy for both of our main characters, and I'm surprised by how well done parts of their story are. 

Typically, Ito's characters are not so much characters as they are vehicles for us; our guide through the weird and twisted world Ito has drawn for us, and usually vehicles for whatever commentary or horror Ito has in mind for the story, and Gyo is no exception, but even within his style of character writing, Tadashi and Kaori are surprisingly well written. Other the course of the story, we learn that Kaori comes from a broken family, and that Tadashi puts up with her neuroticism because he wants to take care of her and thinks no one else will if he doesn't, while Kaori clings to Tadashi like a bad smell, demanding he protect her and get rid of the problems around her. The toxicity of this relationship doesn't get the pay off you'd expect it to either, in fact, it's payoff is surprisingly melancholic and understated, certainly surprising for Ito. Kaori is an interesting case in this story because of what happens to her, as Gyo quickly drops the pseudo-science fiction and leans hard into body horror, which is undoubtedly where it's at it's scariest and most fucked up. The body horror aspect is really well done here too, as the Walking Fish, while starting out too outlandish and otherworldly to really be scary, slowly and quietly shift into a far more pernicious threat that our heroes are powerless to fight, being forced to watch as it corrupts and deforms their bodies to suit it's needs. 

This corruption is where Ito really shines as an author and it's on full display in Gyo, as well as a few of his other defining traits. One thing that isn't as big an issue in his short stories, but that does become more noticeable in his longer stories is that his characters are not the most complex and, in a lot of cases, not the most likable. I've mellowed on Kaori over the years since I first read this story, but her demanding, neurotic and clingy personality doesn't make her the most likable character, though her fate is made no less twisted and darkly poetic by her just being a bit of a bitch to Tadashi, who puts up with it and stays loyal and protective, even as the world rots around them. Other characters include Tadashi's uncle, a mad scientist who devotes himself to studying and understanding the Walking Fish, and probably knows more about them than he should, he also makes some very crazy decisions over the course of the story. The uncle's payoff is also just plain ridiculous, and had Gyo not already literally jumped the shark several chapters prior, it certainly would have then. But before things get really fucked up, the initial premise is, to put it bluntly, bonkers; as the southern islands of Japan are swarmed by rotting fish, scuttling up onto land on mechanical spider legs. 

In addition to the chaos and confusion, some of these fish pose a more serious threat, as Tadashi and Kaori learn when the house they're staying in is attacked by a walking shark, and all of them bring with them a terrible smell, like the smell of a rotting corpse, which is sometimes referred to as the 'Death Stench' over the course of the story. But what I really like about the Walking Fish is how the threat they pose to our characters changes over the course of the story, going from a bizarre, absurd and almost comedic threat that our characters can fight, to an apocalyptic, existential threat that they are powerless against, and the true horror of the Walking Fish unfolds slowly, as the fish rot and melt away and their mechanical legs start to look for new hosts, and this being a manga from Junji Ito, you know that means things are going to get gnarly, and how many pieces of media are there that blend fears of sharks, spiders, germs and violation of the human body, let alone do it as well as Gyo, getting out of the water will not save you here. Another strength of his that's on full display is his ability to take the most outlandish, nonsensical vision and put it on a page, his art is mesmerising and his work in Gyo sells the sheer grossness of the subject matter flawlessly. 

It's in the latter half of the story that the really disturbing imagery starts to pop up, and that the body horror aspect of Gyo comes into full effect, and the best word I can use to describe it is gross, it's a dirty, nasty and uncomfortable kind of horror that takes the creepy Walking Fish and ramps it up to eleven. This is when Ito is at his absolute best, when he's presenting you with an insane story, art that is horrible to look at in the best possible way, and imagery and payoffs that leave you feeling violated and anxious. But a problem that comes up in a few of his longer stories, or at least the ones I've read, is that Ito can sometimes go a bit too far in some areas. For example, Tadashi's uncle is a genius scientist and inventor who figures out the Walking Fish before anyone else, but who recalls a war story from his father that is presented as a likely origin for the Death Stench, and deduces that it is, in fact, an Imperial Japanese bioweapon. So far, so sensible, but it's when it takes a turn for the supernatural that things start to go off the rails, as Ito implies that the gas is alive and self aware in his expectedly unsubtle style. And at the point in the story that Tadashi comes across a circus where the performers are all infected, things go completely nuts and the story loses a lot of it's scariness. The circus sequence is among other moments in the manga that come across more funny and silly than scary. 

Part of the infection is that the infected produce obscene amounts of gas, which escapes through their orifices, which sounds horrible until you see a dog tied to a table, literally farting and burping itself to death, or more dogs charging an American position while also farting and burping themselves to death. Probably the worst offender of this is a scene where one of the characters attempts to hang themselves after becoming infected, a moment that should be dark and horrific, and that should hit like a freight train, but is kind of ruined when the person in question is farting so hard that they're spinning around on the makeshift noose. There's a lot of tonal inconsistency in Gyo. There are moments that are horrific, there are intense sequences that play on the mind and imagery that burns itself into your brain, and as this apocalypse slowly winds up and becomes more horrific, things only get darker and nastier, but then there are sequences so ridiculous and outlandish that they completely muddle the manga's tone, and I don't know if these moments are supposed to be funny or not, more than anything, they just leave me confused and frustrated. Another issue I have with Gyo is how the first and second halves of the story are split up with a time jump, and how Tadashi is basically told that in the month he was gone, the entire world ended, an apocalypse that would have been really interesting to see unfold, rather than having our main character sleep through it. 

Gyo has a lot of great things going on; it has revolting imagery, a bonkers premise and, for most of the story, a genuinely terrifying threat that grows more and more horrific as the story progresses, but there are aspects of the story that are underwhelming or that go a bit too hard into the absurd, and these things, while not out of the ordinary for Ito, sometimes muddle the tone of the manga and hold it back from being truly terrifying. That being said, when Gyo hits, it really hits, with some fantastic body horror and a unique and compelling story that, while not populated with the most likable or complex characters, keeps the action moving forward and keeps the nastiness coming. While it's not Ito's scariest work, or his most insane, Gyo is an incredibly enjoyable and fun read, and had it been released on it's own, it would still be more than worth a read. But Gyo comes with two bonus stories, and it's here where the bang for your buck really comes from. The first of the bonus stories is The Sad Tale of the Principal Post, a little vignette that's only four pages long, yet gives us a depressing and curious mystery of the patriarch of a newly built house getting stuck somewhere he couldn't possibly get stuck, dying before he can tell his family how he got there. The second bonus story however, that's the big one. The Enigma of Amigara Fault was the first of Ito's works I read, it was probably the first of his works that a lot of people read, and that's not a bad thing by any means, because it's probably Ito's best work. The premise of the story is expertly simple; an earthquake opens a fault in a mountain, along which are thousands of holes, perfectly shaped like human silhouettes. 

Thousands of people flock to the fault to see the strange holes, including our main characters, Owaki and Yoshida, but as more people come, one by one, they start finding holes that they believe are their silhouettes, they are their holes, made for them and one by one, these people are overcome by a compulsion to enter their holes. This story plays on a lot of common phobias; darkness, entrapment, isolation, claustrophobia, compulsion and a loss of identity, and mixing in some body horror here an there for good measure, all with a premise so elegantly simple and uncomplicated; not bothering to explain what the holes are or why they're there, just presenting the phenomenon to the reader and letting it mess with their minds. It's a story that masterfully burrows it's way into your subconscious and would have left you feeling uncomfortable, even without it's ending. But after playing on your subconscious for a bit, the story jumps ahead a few months to a team of researchers finding the other side of the fault and finding that it also has holes. I'm actually not going to go any further than this because the ending is genuinely something you need to see for yourself, but if it hasn't already been said a thousand times, the ending of The Enigma of Amigara Fault is terrifying, it's honestly one of, if not the scariest thing I've ever read, and even all these years later, I still squirm a little bit when I remember that final panel. Needless to say, it was one hell of a first impression and ever since, I've adored Ito's work.

Drr... Drr... Drr...

Gyo and it's two bonus stories are certainly interesting reads that, for better and for worse, perfectly exemplify Ito's strengths and weaknesses as an artist and storyteller. While the longer story of Gyo goes a bit off the rails as it goes along, and is driven by not especially likable or compelling characters, it is the premise and the art that keeps the reader moving forward, in equal parts excited for and dreading whatever abomination awaits them on the next page. And while Gyo goes a bit too insane for it's own good, it remains a fun, bonkers, disgusting and sometimes frightening little read that I always enjoy coming back to. But it's with The Enigma of Amigara Fault that Ito fires on all cylinders, giving us a short, simple tale that ends on a gut punch that leaves you confused and terrified, without outstaying it's welcome or undermining what makes it so enigmatic and unpleasant with exposition. If nothing else, I can't insist enough that you track down The Enigma of Amigara Fault, it's more than worth it, but if you're ever in a book shop and come across Gyo, it's certainly worth picking up.

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire Movie Review

Here's what you need to know; in the years following their victory over Mechagodzilla, Godzilla and Kong are living their own lives in their own separate domains, with Godzilla patrolling the surface world and keeping the Titans in line, while Kong ventures deeper and deeper into the unknowns of the Hollow Earth in search of more of his kind. But hidden within the Hollow Earth are secrets best left buried, and as Monarch begins to detect a mysterious signal and Jia begins to have strange visions, an ancient evil trapped in the Hollow Earth readies to make it's move on the surface world, leaving Kong and Godzilla with no choice but to join forces to stop it before it can spread it's empire across the entire globe. 

Godzilla vs Kong was released almost exactly three years ago, and I'd have normally been really excited for it and would have gone to see it on opening weekend. However, every cinema in my country was closed down when the film released, meaning I had to rent it on digital and make do with my own shoddily put together home cinema. I always felt that Godzilla vs Kong lacked some of the spark of the previous two Godzilla entries of the Monsterverse, though I still found the film to be very enjoyable and did a lot of things right. I sometimes wonder if not seeing it in a cinema was part of the problem, and so going into it's sequel, I was optimistic that I'd find that spark I was looking for before. I was still in little doubt that I'd enjoy the film however, my question going in was; is it good or is it great, and having seen it twice on it's opening weekend, I at least feel that I've found my answer.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which I'll be referring to as GXK for most of the review for all our conveniences, starts just as strong as its predecessor, giving us another day-in-the-life sequence with Kong as he is chased by some Hollow Earth wolf monsters. Meanwhile, on the surface, Dr. Andrews, Rebecca Hall's character from the last film, is doing talks and making TV appearances talking about Kong and Godzilla, who we then see turn Scylla from King of the Monsters into crab meat before taking a nap in the Roman Colosseum. This film really doesn't waste any time at all, giving us some strikingly violent and gruesome monster action in the first few minutes, setting the tone for the rest of the film. Godzilla vs Kong knew full well that it's main selling point was Godzilla and Kong fighting, and GXK takes this to a whole new extreme, having the biggest focus on the monsters of any film in this series which, as I'll get to, is a good thing, albeit with a catch. But whereas GVK followed two teams on separate adventures that come together in the end, GXK wisely narrows the human cast down to a single team; Andrews, Jia, Bernie and newcomer Trapper, who go down into the Hollow Earth to investigate the mystery signal. There's not much going on with our humans, but this is Godzilla so there doesn't need to be. 

Andrews and Jia still have their cute mother-daughter thing going on, which gets complicated in this film when they discover the Iwi tribe in the Hollow Earth and Andrews worries that Jia will decide to stay with them. Bernie is every bit as entertaining as he was in GVK, equal parts excited, overgrown child and crazed conspiracy nut who has Playmates GVK toys in his studio and still hosts his Titan Truth Podcast, only now with sponsors. GXK gives him someone to bounce off of in Trapper, a new character to this series who is by far the film's most entertaining human character. He is introduced through having him pull out one of Kong's teeth to the soundtrack of I Got'cha by Greenflow, sporting sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt while dangling precariously over Kong's gaping mouth. The character gives off strong Ace Ventura vibes for the entire film, even being mockingly called Ace Ventura at one point, and there are countless moments with him that just make you smile and chuckle, he's just fun, and he fits like a glove into this film's whacky, stylish tone. Like in most of the films in the Monsterverse, the human characters are not key players, but this film strips back their screen time more than any other in the series, focusing far more heavily on Kong's adventure into the Hollow Earth and his battle with the Scar King. GXK rarely goes more than a few minutes before catching back up with either Godzilla or Kong, and the Kong sequences in the film often continue uninterrupted for several minutes. 

What's really pleasantly surprising about this is that even without human characters to provide context or exposition, the story is very well told and easy to understand, the monsters have conversations with each other and while they're just growling and snarling, their conversations are clear enough, and these moments in the film are by far the most charming moments, even occasionally being funny. Where this is at it's strongest is with the three main apes of the film; Kong, Suko and the Scar King. Suko has a very funny and cute relationship with Kong in the film, starting out antagonistic before slowly becoming more trusting and loyal, and even coming to Kong's aid at several points. On the complete opposite end is the film's villain, the Scar King, who is a fantastic villain. like Kong, Scar King is an intelligent and highly skilled combatant, packing a gnarly bone whip as his main weapon, but where the two differ is in just about every other area. Kong is a hulking, imposing figure, but is calm, compassionate and righteous, he treats his fellow apes with respect and decency, even if they try to kill him, while Scar King is a lanky bastard that gleefully mistreats his subjects, he's cruel and sadistic and keeps himself on top through fear, grinning and laughing as he controls and tortures his underlings, he is everything Kong is not, a dark reflection that makes for a fascinating and deliciously evil foil. 

And on top of being a sadistic arsehole with an army of giant apes under his command, he has a secret weapon; Shimo. Like Scar King, Shimo is a new monster to this series, and as Scar King is our anti-Kong, Shimo is our anti-Godzilla in a lot of ways. A massive, albino dragon with dazzling blue crystals jutting out of her head and back, and an ice beam attack that can freeze everything it touches completely solid. While nowhere near as intelligent as Kong or even Godzilla, she makes up for it in two key areas; one, having all of Godzilla's physical strengths, near invulnerability and an unstoppable beam attack, and two, she is completely under Scar King's control. Like the apes of his tribe, Shimo is shown to be just another victim of Scar King, a benevolent Titan that he keeps as a pet, forcing her to do his bidding using a magic crystal. The conflict between Kong and the Scar King is clearly where the thought and effort in this film went, and is undeniably very well done, but I said earlier that there was a catch, and unfortunately, it's not a small catch for me. Despite being on the poster and having his name in the title, Godzilla is very much in the back seat in this film, being less of a key player and more of a supporting character. And for as brilliant as everything to do with Kong is, Godzilla feels like an afterthought in comparison, with the film only cutting back to him every now and again when it remembers he's supposed to be in it. That's not to say there aren't cool moments with Godzilla, there's a scene where he attacks a nuclear power plant that is very reminiscent of classic Toho Godzilla. 

There's also an adorable moment early on when he scares away a news helicopter that's flying too close to him, which comes immediately after the equally adorable moment of him waking up from his nap in the Colosseum. From the moment that him and Kong meet up again, the film is none stop kaiju carnage with Godzilla kicking all kinds of ass, but it's disappointing to me, as a Godzilla fan, to see how small of a presence he has in this film, and I wish they did more with him. Godzilla essentially spends the first two thirds of the film bulking up in the background, and this soured my first viewing, though it was less of an issue on my second viewing, having already had my expectations checked on the first viewing. On the plus side, his new design works quite well, the bright pink is certainly a unique look that fits nicely into the film's colourful and whimsical visual style. But once Godzilla and Kong meet back up, I can almost forgive how little they use Godzilla as from that point on, the Big Guy is finally side by side with Kong, and the film delivers the promised team-up in spades. We'll get to the fights later, but there are a few more monsters in this film that need addressing. Scylla returns from King of the Monsters, but is immediately killed, Final Wars style by Godzilla in the film's intro, and Tiamat, a monster from the Monsterverse comics makes an equally brief appearance, also getting a Final Wars style execution before Godzilla steals her power and becomes Pinkzilla. 

But the Monster I was most surprised by in GXK was Mothra, a monster who had been rumoured to be in the film for months, and I was worried about how she would be used in the story. Well the rumours were true, Mothra makes her grand return to this series and to my pleasant surprise, she is as glorious as she was in King of the Monsters, an angelic and benevolent Titan who is positioned in this film as a guardian monster to the Iwi and the Hollow Earth portals, and her design and colours really get a chance to pop in this film, as does her personality and her relationship to Godzilla. There is a great scene in this film that's very reminiscent of a scene in Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, where Mothra shows up and breaks up Godzilla and Kong's fight, calling on Godzilla to join them in fighting the Scar King, and just like earlier in the film with Kong and the Scar King, no words need to be said for us to understand what's going on, and it's kind of funny to think that Godzilla basically gets a telling off from Mothra before being convinced to join them. That, of course, is our entry point into the film's finale, where everything goes completely insane and the film becomes an almost completely uninterrupted kaiju wrestling match. And the final battle of this film, in addition to being insane, does things that no Godzilla film has done before, and is dazzlingly choreographed and stylishly directed, making for what's almost certainly the most entertaining monster battle in this series. 

If you wanted to see Godzilla and Kong in a tag team battle, this film definitely delivers in it's finale, as the two kings throw their opponents around and get thrown around in kind. And to have the first round of the fight take place in zero gravity is not only ridiculous, but completely awesome, and I never expected to see Godzilla hopping around in zero gravity, getting assists from Mothra as he floats angrily in the direction of his foe. GXK is very much a monster driven film, and in that regard, it's a contender for best in the series with how inventive and fun its fights and storytelling are. It's been said a lot already, but it really is true, that this film feels like a Showa Godzilla film; it's a stylish, inventive and way over the top monster movie where fun comes before everything else, and the film is undeniably a lot of fun. Like those Showa films, GXK's monsters are dripping with personality and charm and get to do some crazy shit, to hell with collateral damage. In that, if you go in expecting Godzilla Minus One, and come out disappointed that you got Godzilla vs Megalon instead, you're the problem, not the film, and that's the one time I'm mentioning Godzilla Minus One in this review. But like all Monsterverse films, GXK is not perfect; I've already mentioned how the film disappoints with how it uses Godzilla, but there are other issues that hold the film back. 

While criticising the story in a kaiju film is like criticising a porno for the same reason, there are a hand full of conveniences and contrivances in the film, and like with all the Monsterverse films, these issues are exclusively human issues. For example, it's mighty convenient that the power glove they need to help Kong just happens to be stored at the outpost right next to the Iwi settlement, in it's conveniently not destroyed secret armoury, and it's mighty convenient that it fits the hand that it needs to fit. Or how about another, the Iwi need to summon Mothra, but no one in their settlement can do it, it needs to be an Iwi from Skull Island, and there conveniently happens to be one left, and she just so happens to be in our party, and the telepathic Iwi knew about her and were sending psychic signals to her so she could come down and wake up Mothra. The Godzilla franchise is no stranger to these kinds of contrivances, and like with those other films, how much it bothers you depends on how much you let it, and in a film where big monkeys kick the shit out of each other in zero gravity and a big dinosaur has a nap in the Colosseum, aspects of the story being contrived seems rather insignificant, the absurdity is clearly a feature, not a bug. There is a bigger issue I have with GXK, and its an issue I also had with GVK. 

Like Kong: Skull Island and GVK before it, GXK's music choices are consistently on point, with bangers such as Turn Me Loose by Loverboy, Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, and I Was Made For Lovin' You by Kiss, but unfortunately, like those two films, its soundtrack leaves something to be desired. After Alexandre Desplat and Bear McCreary's god tier soundtracks for the first two Godzilla films, Junkie XL's scores for GVK and this film feel kind of bland and unremarkable, though the film's inclusion of Mothra without the inclusion of Mothra's song really highlights this issue. There is a hint of Mothra's song in Junkie XL's score for her, but when put up against McCreary's version of the song, it's pathetic. Like his score for GVK, Junkie XL's music just isn't as thematically rich as McCreary's or as intense as Desplat's, and doesn't compliment the action as well, which isn't even to say it's bad, it's just a soundtrack that does its job, whereas Desplat's and McCreary's soundtracks were beasts all their own, they were part of the magic. And like GVK before it, GXK strips back the thematic elements that the Monsterverse started with, we are now a long way away from a living God awakening to humble humanity and restore balance. Does that really matter in an over the top kaiju film though, or is it enough to just sit back and watch the madness, I'd personally say it is; it's a bonus when Godzilla is deep, heavy and thematic, but a Godzilla film that's completely unchallenging, that exists to just be a big, silly, fun movie is only bad if it fails to be fun, and GXK is really fun. When approaching Godzilla in general, you have to judge the film for what it is and what it does right, rather than criticising it for not being something it never tried to be in the first place, and while there are problems with the film, it's on the viewer as to whether those problems are big enough to spoil the fun, and I honestly don't think they are. 

You Can't Have A Titan With A Tooth Ache

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a fun film, it's big and colourful and stylish, it's silly and occasionally contrived, I have my issues with how the film uses Godzilla and how the film's soundtrack underwhelms, but the question at the end of the day is was it a good time, and that's a definite yes. The film is nothing new for the Godzilla franchise, though it does mix things up with some genuinely unique and creative monster sequences. The film does make the mistake of side-lining one of it's title monsters in favour of telling a very Kong-focused story, but that story is the heart and soul of this film; Kong's journey to find his people and his conflict with the Scar King is fantastic, and the Scar King is a fantastic and wonderfully hateable villain that makes a perfect foil for Kong. The film's other monsters all deliver the goods as well, with Mothra being as wonderful as ever, and newcomers; Suko and Shimo each getting their moments to be charming, tragic and ultimately very lovable. And while I'm disappointed by how little Godzilla there is in this film, he still delivers as he always does in the film's ridiculous finale. The monster story is well complimented by the human story, and Trapper and Bernie have some great moments that keep the human story entertaining until we can get back to the monsters which, just like in Godzilla vs Kong, is where the film hits it's stride. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is an unchallenging monster mash that confidently does what it sets out to do, and never strives to be more than what it is, it's a great time and it's definitely worth watching. 

The Hottest Godzilla Take

In my most recent part of my What is Godzilla series, I mentioned how in the wake of Godzilla Minus One, people have been talking about the Godzilla franchise in ways that are, let's call it, uninformed, having authoritative takes on a series they are unfamiliar with or ignorant of. After Minus One, a small industry of video essays discussing the film popped up on Youtube and a lot of them are made by people who, to put it bluntly, only care about Godzilla now that Minus One has become the hot thing, and yet talk about the franchise like they know what they're talking about when they clearly don't. I already talked about James Rolfe and The Critical Drinker, and alluded to Chris Stuckmann, but while on Youtube the other day, I got recommended a video that might be the worst take on the Godzilla franchise of all time, a take that is so radioactively hot that I almost can't believe it exists. This post will not be very serious, but hopefully it will be fun to see just how wrong someone can get. And the usual is in order, I don't intend to harass the idiot in question and wouldn't encourage anyone else to harass them. 

The video in question is titled; Godzilla Doesn't Work In America... and was uploaded by one Doktor Skipper on the 29th of January 2024, and in the video, Skipper discusses Godzilla in America. Unlike Skipper, I won't claim authority and expertise in an area I am ignorant in, I don't know who Doktor Skipper is and I've never watched any of his videos, I assume that his channel caters to the video essay side of Youtube, as he talks a lot about Hollywood and Disney, often with clickbaity thumbnails and titles, maybe it's also wrong of me to assume that his takes almost always full under the categories of either woefully misinformed or pointlessly inane, maybe I should "research the things I watch." The comment section under the video is a slaughterhouse with basically every commenter calling him out on his nonsense, and criticising and berating him for his complete lack of understanding of this franchise. We Godzilla fans can be an obsessive and overly passionate bunch, so it'd be easy to see the reaction as overblown, until you watch the video and see just how pathetic Doktor Skipper is in his commentary. 

The bulk of the video consists of Skipper's commentaries on the original film, 2014 and Minus One and even here, there are problems that we'll get to, but I suppose we'll give him what little credit he might deserve. His commentary on 1954 and Minus One are, in isolation, not entirely terrible, though they are the most basic, by the numbers takes you've ever heard, so it is ironic of him to say the 2014 film has nothing meaningful to say when his commentaries on the 'good' Godzilla films are so unoriginal and tame. But for someone who admits to learning most of what he's learned about Godzilla from video essays on Youtube, it's hardly surprising that his own commentary on the films is so weak. The 2014 segment of his video is where things get more interesting, though not in a good way, as he claims the film is just US Army propaganda. This isn't a throw away statement either, he goes on a long rant about how the US Army funds Hollywood movies that portray them favourably or heroically to drive up recruitment. And for some reason he frames this as a uniquely American thing, despite talking about how Toho made propaganda for the Imperial Japanese during the War earlier in this video, which isn't the first time he contradicts himself. Then there's his take on the film's monsters, which is just bizarre. According to him, Godzilla is an American Patriot that nuked a Japanese threat that was forced out of hiding and attacked Hawaii, which I'm sure was a super clever take in his head, but one that doesn't even vaguely reflect the events of the film. 

The Mutos are not an allegory for Japan, they're not even Japanese, they were found in the Philippines, and his framing of them as the vilified victims of the film is completely off; yeah, sure, they just wanted to breed, except the film establishes pretty clearly that them breeding would be apocalyptic, Godzilla's fight with them is framed as nature's balance being restored, as in the Mutos are a threat to balance, Ishiro Serizawa literally says this several times in the film. Meanwhile Skipper talks about how the US Army is positively portrayed in the film, and that they side with Godzilla as an American hero, never mind the fact that it's the Army's plan to nuke the three monsters which ends up making everything worse in the third act. Never mind the fact that the US Army tries and fails to stop Godzilla at the Golden Gate Bridge, after which point, and after the loss of a live nuke to the Mutos somewhere downtown, they finally decide to get out of the way and let Godzilla do what he came to do, with the understanding that when the Mutos are gone, Godzilla will leave. But his assessment that the Mutos are an allegory for Japan is what really gets me here. In what possible way are the Mutos representative of Japan, in what possible way is Godzilla representative of America. He harps on about collateral damage in San Fransisco in 2014, while also arguing that Godzilla loves America and isn't depicted attacking America, while showing footage of him standing over the ruins of Boston in King of the Monsters, while also saying that he doesn't care about China because of his battle with Kong in GVK. 

And then, after crafting this beautifully half-baked interpretation that the 2014 film is US propaganda, he then calls it a safe interpretation with nothing to say, contradicting himself yet again. But his explanation of why 2014 doesn't work can be found in his analysis of the 1954 film, which is where we run into another problem. In this segment of the video, he talks about how Godzilla originally represented the horrors of nuclear war, later in the video, he discusses how the Japanese Government and the Imperial Army dragged the Japanese people into the War and brought untold suffering upon them. But then he explains that Godzilla needs the context of the bombings in order to work and when removed from that context, Godzilla loses his meaning. This is an unbelievably reductive line of argument when it comes to Godzilla, going back to my own commentary on Godzilla in my What is Godzilla series, the idea that Godzilla needs to be and can only be a villain is wrong. And the only reason this particular argument is being made now is Minus One, which made Godzilla a villain again, and gave a lot of people who know nothing about Godzilla the idea that he can only be a villain. Skipper is of this opinion too, but he goes a step further, arguing that America is the reason Godzilla became a hero, framing it as America warping and undermining the meaning of the character to sell toys, which is not only wrong, it's in bad faith. 

Legendary Pictures and Tristar didn't make Godzilla a hero, Toho did, and the reason they did isn't to sell the films to America, but to keep up with the market in Japan. He says that Toho "spammed out" Godzilla films to make money, while showing a list of the films and the years they came out in, and since the video is so obnoxiously edited, you might miss that once again, Skipper is contradicting himself. They "Spammed out" Godzilla films, except for the seven year gap after Godzilla Raids Again, the nine year gap after Terror of Mechagodzilla, and the five year gap after The Return of Godzilla, he then follows this up with footage from GMK, a Millennium film, despite never once even mentioning the Heisei or Millennium series. This is not unique to Skipper, by the way, outsiders to the Godzilla series often have this dismissive attitude to the series after 1954, assuming that they were all crap and had nothing to say. But to then use footage from GMK while making the point that the Godzilla series at large is crap and meaningless is at the very least, uninformed. But this dismissal goes a bit further than others, like I said, he never mentions the Heisei or Millennium series', while using footage from them, while also claiming that the Godzilla films are "cheaply made cash-grabs" and "ninety-eight percent of them suck ass." But he refuses to go into any kind of detail about the history of the series between 1954 and 2014, skipping over all of it to get to his bad take on 2014 faster.

Dismissive isn't the word I would use in this case, I'd say he's talking absolute bullshit; in the video, he talks about Japan's habit of historical revisionism in media while not talking about GMK, a film he'll happily use footage from, or when making the point that the other Godzilla films are stupid, he uses a clip from The Return Of Godzilla, a film with very heavy anti-nuclear themes, and another film he just doesn't mention, probably because that would take research and effort and he can't be bothered for that, and while talking about Minus One, he uses clips from Shin Godzilla, another film he just completely fails to mention, and he even uses clips of Shin Godzilla while specifically talking about Minus One's Godzilla. You might think I'm getting a bit carried away with this one, surely a guy on Youtube having a stupid take on Godzilla hurts nobody, so why get so mad. Well here's the reason, "there's a big thing I need to address in this video, I kind of hate Godzilla if we're going to be honest." Doktor Skipper outright says in the video that he hates Godzilla, which completely kills any semblance of good faith, either from him or from the viewers; why should anything he has to say about Godzilla be considered in any way, what can he, an outsider with no respect or appreciation for this franchise, who can't even be bothered to do basic research, possibly say that is in anyway meaningful or worth listening to. And then he says that the reason he's making the video is because of Minus One, well no shit.

The one, single, only thing that Godzilla Minus One did wrong was make it cool to care about Godzilla and have takes on Godzilla, and morons like this guy are jumping on that bandwagon for clicks and clout. They never cared about Godzilla, they in fact hate Godzilla, they think its cheap, stupid rubbish and that the original and Minus One are the only ones that matter, and can't be bothered to do even the most basic research about the films in this franchise. And this makes all the factual errors in this abortion of a video so much more infuriating, with such claims as Godzilla being in the public domain, or Gojira being renamed and rebranded to Godzilla in Japan, or that Americans don't know that Godzilla is Japanese, or that Bernie spilled water on Mechagodzilla's motherboard in GVK, not the Whiskey his dead wife gave him and that he had on him for the entire film, or that Castle bravo destroyed the Lucky Dragon No.5 and killed her entire crew, or that America rebranded Godzilla as a hero instead of Toho. Or even the little things like saying that Oppenheimer came out in 2022, or that Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla was called Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, or that ninety-eight percent of the films "suck ass" when two percent wouldn't even be one film. What about the aforementioned using of footage from films he doesn't even mention; Shin Godzilla, The Return of Godzilla, GMK, King Kong vs Godzilla, Godzilla vs Hedorah, all of these films have something to say, these films completely invalidate his entire argument, and so he just ignores them, even though he claims to have watched the Godzilla films after coming up with the idea for the video, even though he hates Godzilla, you're fucking lying, Skipper. 

And the contradictions, the fucking contradictions; he only knows about Godzilla through its cultural impact, but Godzilla had no cultural impact, Godzilla 2014 is US Army propaganda and an allegory for America's victory in the Pacific War, but has nothing to say, Godzilla flattened Honolulu, San Francisco, Boston and Pensacola, and killed lots and lots of innocent Americans, but loves America and never attacks America, Godzilla's really popular and his identity is intrinsically linked to Japan, but no one knows he's Japanese, and Doktor Skipper has a big appreciation for Godzilla, but also hates Godzilla. And to cap off this turd, Skipper has the balls to tell his viewers to always research what they watch. Are you kidding. Are you seriously going to tell me to do my research after listening to you talk utter nonsense for nearly half an hour, after you claimed that Godzilla is public domain, after you dismissed and talked shit about how meaningless the Godzilla franchise is, while failing to even do the most basic research on any of said films. There is no excuse for not knowing that Godzilla is not public domain, There is no excuse for not knowing about the political themes and cultural impact of Shin Godzilla. There is no excuse for saying that nearly the entirety of the longest running film franchise in history is unimportant trash. There is no excuse for getting Shin Godzilla and Minus One confused with each other. There is no excuse for telling your viewers to do research when you can't even be bothered to do your own and will proudly sit here and make shit up about this franchise that you hate. 

And while we're here, there is no excuse for the level of over-editing in this video, did you hand over editing to a coke addict or are you the kind of idiot that thinks fast talking, snarky attitude, memes and shitty jokes equals good content. It is also rather interesting that the video is so schizophrenically edited that you don't really have time to think about anything he is saying. In a little contradiction of my own, aspects of Skipper's take are really not that hot, the "Japanese Godzilla good, American Godzilla bad" take is one that's been made a hundred times over at this point, and like anything he could say about Minus One or the original film, it doesn't really mean anything anymore. When he makes a throw away joke about how we don't talk about 1998, he is, ironically enough, being safe with his take, repeating the standard line of these kinds of video assays; that the 1998 film is an abomination and that the original is the best one, two comments that don't mean anything to a Godzilla fan that already knows that, especially after you said that you hate Godzilla. If I could offer a different reading of the 2014 film, Godzilla doesn't represent America, but is instead depicted as both an unstoppable force of nature and a living god. Godzilla is a reminder to the human characters that ultimately, despite all their tanks and jets and nukes, they are still only human, they are weak and flawed, and there are things in the world that they will never be fully capable of understanding or controlling. 

Meanwhile the Mutos do not represent Japan, but are instead depicted as the natural consequences of humanity trying to play god, a force woken up by human progress, and that humans thought that they had under control, right up until all their failsafes failed and it escaped, becoming an existential threat to the world that the true god of Earth then had to deal with. It is a film about the humbling of humanity, and if you want to make the case that this more universal message is less effective or more toothless than the original's anti-nuclear message, that's fine, I'm all ears, but Skipper doesn't take the time to really think about what he's saying and whether it makes sense, which would be less bad if he didn't call his motivations for making the video into question by outright saying he hates this franchise, and if his logic and research wasn't so pathetically poor. Meanwhile he outright says that Minus One is the reason he's making the video, and then spouts the safest take on Minus One that we've all heard a thousand times at this point, while also using footage from Shin Godzilla, which makes me wonder if he's even watched Minus One, and isn't simply trying to get a piece of that Minus One hype pie. And the confidence with which he says things that just aren't true,  and the nonchalant way that he completely dismisses the rest of the franchise, GMK, The Return of Godzilla and Shin Godzilla "suck ass" and are "cheaply made cash-grabs." are they? 

His entire premise that Godzilla doesn't work in America is flawed, it was the 2014 film that brought the Godzilla franchise back by being a five-hundred-million dollar hit, and Godzilla is now in the best place he's ever been in, he's more well known, more loved and more accessible than ever, thanks to America, regardless of how you feel about the Monsterverse, we have it to thank for the existence of Minus One. Godzilla fans aren't the kind of audience you can slip this past; they are passionate, obsessive and gatekeep something fierce, so when you, or anyone for that matter, comes along and thinks they know their shit about this franchise, don't be surprised when the fanbase turns on you, especially when you so brazenly out yourself as someone with no respect, no sincerity and nothing worth saying. This is what has happened to Skipper, just look through the comments on the video, the video is slowly racking up as many dislikes as it has likes, and video responses to it are popping up every other day, some of which aren't even proper responses, but just outright mockery of him. In fact the backlash has spilled over onto his newest video about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III which, its worth pointing out, has come out remarkably fast when compared to his usual upload schedule. Now, is it wrong to harass content creators, yes, of course it is, has Skipper received any harassment, I don't know, I don't have Twitter and I'm not getting twitter just to find out, would I be surprised to learn that this harassment he's apparently receiving is just people calling out his shit take and allergy to research, not in the slightest, and would I take his word on anything again, after all the shit he spouted about Godzilla, no. Doktor Skipper is a trend chaser that jumped on the Minus One hype train for clicks and clout, something many others are guilty of, Skipper's only mistake was getting all of it wrong and admitting he doesn't even like Godzilla, though maybe he's not a soulless clout chaser, I guess I should research the things I watch. 

Godzilla Minus One is the reason I made this video

Godzilla Minus One may be one of, if not the greatest Godzilla film ever made, it may have made an entire generation of new Godzilla fans, and I think Minus One's legacy will ultimately be very positive. But through no fault of its own, it appears to have attracted a new kind of fan, one that thinks they understand Godzilla because they watched one film and maybe did a quick google search, though I doubt Skipper even did that. Godzilla fans are a passionate, obsessive and protective lot, and you might say that gatekeeping is bad, who are we to keep out people who love the things we love just because they don't love it as obsessively as us. But I think the Godzilla fandom, and any fandom for that matter, has every right to gatekeep when dealing with fakers, clout chasers, liars and bad actors. And is it any wonder that Godzilla fans in particular are so protective, when it's the very mindset Skipper projects in this video; that Godzilla is worthless and meaningless, that has kept him from being embraced by the very people that are now embracing him only because it's cool now. I guess I'll end on the same note that Skipper ends on, always do your research, and I'll add that when you go kicking a hornets' nest, don't be surprised when you get stung, or perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be don't go tickling the sleeping dragon's tail, you might wake him up.

Godzilla Minus One: What is Godzilla Part Four

Since its North American release at the start of December, Godzilla Minus One has been making the kind of waves that most films of any genre could only dream of making, and much has been made of how the film humiliates Hollywood and western cinema; delivering an enthralling story with lovable characters, as well as spectacular action and rich themes on a budget Hollywood would spend ten times over on a film that wouldn't even be half as good. It's fantastic for me, as a life-long Godzilla fan, to see this film getting such a strong and overwhelmingly positive reaction, and to see it bring more attention to the Godzilla franchise at large, and as a fan of this film specifically, its fantastic to see the kind of love it's getting because it deserves every ounce of it. But something else has come of Godzilla Minus One that I find less fantastic; since the release of the film, a line has once again been drawn by some people between what is deemed to be true and authentic Godzilla and not true and inauthentic Godzilla, and this line highlights a misunderstanding of the kind of franchise and the kind of monster that Godzilla is. 

The notion that Japanese Godzilla, and specifically Minus One's Godzilla in this case, is the only authentic Godzilla and that the Monsterverse's Godzilla is not authentic or true is simply not correct. For as witty and entertaining as The Critical Drinker is, his takes on the Godzilla franchise over the years demonstrate what I'm getting at here. He describes the Monsterverse as films where "massive [children smash] their toys together," in his review of Godzilla Minus One, where he frames the film as a redemption of 2023 in film, a year defined by creative and financial failures. On his Open Bar podcast, he also explained how he hates Godzilla's role in the Monsterverse as an anti-hero, and that he thinks that Godzilla 'should' be a Monster. While his point on 2023 is undeniably true, he lives up to his name in many of his criticisms, and in the case of Godzilla, I just don't think his overly cynical outlook can be fairly applied. His summery of the Monsterverse also doesn't make the point he thinks it makes, nor does it make the point that the Monsterverse is in some way a weaker or less genuine interpretation of this franchise. A more prominent example of this misunderstanding comes from James Rolfe of The Angry Video Game Nerd fame who, while talking about Shin Godzilla in 2016, likened the Godzilla franchise to sparkling wine and champagne; as in sparkling wine can legally only be champagne if it's from Champagne in France, meaning that for Godzilla to be Godzilla, it must fall under a specific criteria, be that being Japanese, from Toho, made with traditional special effects, or all of the above. 

I don't doubt that The Critical Drinker has a great amount of respect for Godzilla Minus One, nor do I doubt that Rolfe is the Godzilla mega-fan he claims to be, I'm sure Chris Stuckmann is the Godzilla fan he claims to be too, but his statement that the Godzilla franchise is defined by and loved for its satire was flat wrong, and I think Rolfe and the Drinker are wrong too. I'll explain why but before we get to the point, I must set the scene. Godzilla is a niche franchise, people that obsess about Godzilla like I do are few in number in the west, and like Lord of the Rings fans who relentlessly champion the Extended Editions and insist that everyone watch them, or Harry Potter fans who visit Dobby's grave on Freshwater West, Godzilla fans are, themselves, a barrier to entry because they can be so off-putting. This kind of bias and fanaticism towards a franchise can and does create an equal and opposite reaction; a perception that, like the people who love it, the franchise itself is weird and not to be taken seriously or given a chance. Godzilla is arguably a worse case in this regard because of what it is; it's a series of relatively low budget, Japanese monster movies where the titular monster has traditionally been created through suit work and miniatures. Like with many of its fellow science fiction franchises of the time, once cutting edge and awe inspiring special effects have long since lost their splendour in the eyes of the audience, who are now used to and have come to expect photo-realistic computer generated effects instead. 

Bolt on a language barrier and a filmography spanning three quarters of a century and dozens of films, and you have a franchise that is not only daunting and intimidating to more casual audiences, but silly and cheap looking and obsessed over by nerds. This is where my issue comes from when people have takes on Godzilla as a franchise or as a character. To suggest that Godzilla is only authentic when he is a villain and to ignore that in the thirty-seven films he's appeared in, he's only been a villain in about a third of them, is either uninformed or dishonest. Godzilla is flexible, while core aspects of his character remain or are changed slightly, his role in a story can and has shifted massively depending on the story itself. Godzilla may have been a cruel and vengeful monster in 1954, but by 1974, he was teaming up with a Lion God to defend the Earth from an evil Alien Robot version of himself. Where the question of what is and isn't authentic Godzilla really begins to pop up is with Tristar's 1998 film, inevitably, which made the mistake of drastically changing several core aspects of Godzilla's character. The film was rightly maligned upon release, but can also be looked at today as a painful but necessary step in the evolution of this franchise, indirectly paving the way for the 2014 film by Legendary Pictures, and while the Monsterverse has drastically shifted in tone and style in the decade since it began, its depiction of Godzilla has not changed anywhere near as drastically. 

What is Godzilla? What he represents can change dramatically from film to film as we've already seen, but literally, physically, what is Godzilla; he's a giant, radioactive dinosaur created by the Atomic Bomb, he has atomic breath, is borderline indestructible, and will pursue his goal, whatever it is, with ruthless and animalistic determination. He's an unstoppable brute that will punch, kick, bite, claw and burn anything that gets in his way, but he's not just a mindless monster, he can solve problems, form alliances, and adapt to new challenges and threats. And most importantly, whoever or whatever that threat is, Godzilla never backs down, he takes the threat head on and doesn't stop until it either submits or stops moving. The 1998 Godzilla didn't just change his physical appearance, it changed who he was as a character, it took away his atomic breath, his dogged fearlessness and determination, and killed him with missiles. Meanwhile, 2014 established that Godzilla is nuke-proof in the first two minutes, gave him back his atomic breath, and had him chase his enemy half way round the world and finish them off in an unrelenting battle to the death. His origins as a mutated reptile may have been changed but in his appearance, abilities and personality, he is absolutely and unquestionably Godzilla. King of the Monsters and GVK pivoted away from 2014's more thoughtful approach in favour of all out Kaiju mayhem for its own sake, but Godzilla and his role in the story have not changed, and even GXK, for as bonkers as it looks to be, and for as strikingly as it changes Godzilla's appearance, still doesn't look to be changing Godzilla's character. 

Listen to me, I'm saying the giant CGI dinosaur has a character, but the thing is that if it wasn't the case, no one would have an issue with the Tristar film, and if Godzilla can only ever be a villain, the Monsterverse Godzilla would be just as despised as '98, instead and somewhat ironically, he's seen by many as the quintessential Godzilla. But something else that's special about Godzilla, and that helped him stand out from the other monsters of the time is that he isn't just a radioactive dinosaur, and while many films in the franchise, especially in the Showa series, forget that, when people remember what Godzilla is and what he is capable of being, that's when this franchise truly becomes the king of the science fiction and kaiju genres. Godzilla is the manifestation of the horrors of war. In 1954, he carved a path of destruction across Japan just as the Americans had in 1944 and 1945, he left flattened cities, thousands dead and the lingering threat of radiation in his wake. In 1984, he was the reality of Nuclear War, an uncontrollable threat to the world that couldn't simply be dealt with using guns and bombs. In 2001, he was the ghost of the Pacific War, a vengeful force come to punish the Japanese for their past crimes. In 2014, he was Nature's answer to Humanity's hubristic attempts to control and contain it, in 2016, he was the creeping, poisonous threat of nuclear contamination and in 2023, he was the guilt and trauma of the War, still torturing those who lived through it. 

This doesn't exclusively apply to Godzilla either, it can apply to any giant monster. The great thing about giant monsters in fiction is that they don't actually exist, they are fantastical and unreal, and can therefore be whatever the storyteller needs them to be. A metaphor is a powerful storytelling tool that can be used to express ideas and messages; through fantasy, you can reflect and interpret aspects of reality and giant monsters are especially good for this, they are what we want them to be and can mean anything we interpret them to mean, whether that's the intention of the storyteller or not. Godzilla maybe the villain of the original film, but you could just as easily argue that he's the victim of the film as well, an animal retaliating against it's perceived enemy after being wounded by a bomb test, a creature that we should have just left alone and maybe if we did, less people would have died. Sure, Godzilla punching other monsters is cool, but it's this that makes Godzilla such an important monster, and why the kids that grew up loving him never grew out of that love. They loved watching him fight baddies and save the world, but as they got bigger and more mature and began to consider more mature ideas and worldviews, they came to appreciate Godzilla's unique and novel way of exploring those deeper, more existential ideas. This is the real power of Godzilla as a character; as Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer of the original film once said; "He is a nightmare created out of the darkness of the human soul, he is the Sacred Beast of the Apocalypse." 

But if Godzilla is at his strongest when he represents something bigger and scarier than himself, why are the Showa films still so loved, why are Godzilla toys flying off the shelves? As I've said previously, it's because they're cool; it's because watching Godzilla fight other monsters is cool. Like other mega-franchises like Star Wars and Marvel, they are toyetic, and they appeal to the heroic idealism of young kids, especially boys, who not only love it when Godzilla, or Luke Skywalker, or Captain America, defeats the baddies and saves the day, but they then get the action figure so that they can go on the next epic adventure with their hero. These characters are heroic idols and with that comes values that appeal to boys, who tend to project themselves onto their heroes and aspire to be like them. And while having The Force or a Vibranium Shield is as impossible as being a radioactive fire-breathing dinosaur, it is the heroism that is appealing; the bravery, the thrill of adventure and the desire to do what's right. For its many, many, many faults, even a film like All Monsters Attack has this aspect of Godzilla nailed down, as its through him and his son, Minilla that the young Ichiro finds the bravery to take on his bullies and be heroic. Then there is the toyetic aspect of Godzilla, because Godzilla and his many friends and enemies make great toys. With a Godzilla toy, some little toy tanks and some bits of cardboard, any kid can act out their own imaginary Godzilla adventure, and make it even cooler with the introduction of a villain monster, maybe a three headed, lightning-shooting golden dragon, or a cyborg chicken with knives for hands and a buzz saw on his chest, and maybe he could team up with Optimus Prime and He-Man to fight them, and maybe Darth Vader can come in to even the odds, imagination is limitless. 

When The Critical Drinker comments that Godzilla films are kids smashing their toys together, the framing is where he's wrong, not the statement itself. Whether it's him being disingenuous or just being his characteristically cynical self, he makes out that Godzilla being as toyetic as it is is a bad thing when it clearly isn't, and when this observation is conveyed in as patronising a way as it is, it just highlights that The Drinker doesn't really understand this franchise. It's almost as if he's criticising the kaiju genre for being the kaiju genre, and determining that films of the kaiju genre can only be good under particular circumstances, which is simply not true. Meanwhile Rolfe's champagne analogy is equally misplaced, as what is or can be defined as true Godzilla doesn't depend on arbitrary factors like country of origin, it depends on the storyteller's understanding and interpretation. And it doesn't depend on whether Godzilla is a hero or a villain because if it did, that would make the Tristar film more authentic than the bulk of Toho's films, a position neither of them would dare take. The mistake both of them make is trying to put Godzilla into boxes that he doesn't fit in, and if he could, we wouldn't even be discussing him because its the limitless possibility and potential of Godzilla, both as a monster and a franchise, that has made this franchise the longest-running in film history.

The King of the Monsters

Godzilla's legacy is one of the most fascinating stories in the history of cinema and the significance he has, not just to the film industry, but to the millions of people across the globe that adore him is immeasurable. But while Tomoyuki Tanaka and and Ishiro Honda originally envisioned him as a terrifying symbol of war and atomic power, it was the monster's ability to grow beyond that that turned what would have been a one-hit-wonder into one of the most beloved franchises in film history. A franchise that's had its highs and lows for sure, but has always come back stronger not in spite of its ability to evolve, but because of it. And at the heart of it all is Godzilla himself, a Post-war mythical God that's as good at tearing apart cities as he is at selling toys, that can appeal to older audiences with the ideas he represents just as well as he appeals to younger audiences with his heroic antics. One does not negate the other, nor are either more or less authentic renditions of this classic monster. Like the best creatures of fiction, Godzilla transcends borders, languages and ideologies and despite that, has managed to retain what makes him so unique and special, and what makes him the undisputed King of the Monsters.