Lake Hamanako in the urban area of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture is now a special Japanese place. The angry sea monster Godzilla recently rose from this still water in the park of a motorway service station with expansive steps. More precisely, the lake was the backdrop for a scene in the latest Godzilla adventure “Godzilla Minus One” – not a Hollywood giant monster film, but once again a domestic production. Director Takashi Yamazaki filmed the images here, into which he later had his version of the monster inserted using the finest digital technology.
That was reason enough for the operators of the highway rest stop to announce a few Godzilla weeks for the traveling public. There are guided tours of filming locations. For a limited time, local restaurants are offering specialty dishes such as fried chicken in “Godzilla breading,” which actually looks as dark gray and unappetizing as Godzilla’s ridged skin. And at Lake Hamanako, a 15.2 meter long, 11.1 meter wide footprint was dug into a green hill to give the impression that Godzilla was actually here.
Japan’s love for Godzilla is great, and perhaps even a little greater these days. Because the monster is in top form. “Godzilla Minus One,” the 37th Godzilla film since the first in 1954, is a critical and box office success. In the USA it had grossed $14.36 million just one week after its theatrical release, setting a new sales record for Japanese action films in North America – for a short time it was even number one in the cinema charts. “Godzilla Minus One” has been running in Japan since the beginning of November and has not yet been pushed out of the schedule. The halls are well attended, the media reports – almost the entire nation can’t seem to get enough of the monster.
One wonders why that is. Is this the pure joy of action cinema with sophisticated special effects? Does Godzilla stand in the honorable tradition of the Yokai, the spirits and mythical creatures that have populated Japanese horror folklore for centuries? Or do many people simply find this dragon kawaii, cute in its own way, because it likes to put S-Bahn trains in its mouth and constantly accidentally steps on low buildings with its giant feet?
Godzilla is based on an idea that fits the trauma of the war experience
All of this is certainly part of the explanation for Godzilla worship. Nevertheless, there is more to it, because the birth of Godzilla almost seventy years ago in the studios of the Tokyo entertainment company Toho was not just a creative effort by instinctive spectacle sellers. It was based on an idea that fit the trauma of the war experience. Godzilla was intended to be a monster awakened by atomic bomb testing with the ability to spew a nuclear heat ray.
The Godzilla pioneers, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya and director Ishiro Honda, still had the horrors of mass destruction and radioactive contamination in their minds at the time. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were only a few years ago. And she was inspired by the fate of the fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru, which was irradiated on March 1, 1954 with 23 men on board during an American nuclear weapons test on the Bikini Atoll. Toho’s new monster was symbolic for the people of the battered island nation.
Coming to terms with its own war history is not a discipline that Japan is particularly good at. But with Godzilla, the film people in Tokyo at least took a stand against the devastation of nuclear warfare. The first film with the simple title “Godzilla” not only impressed with its magnificent portrayal of the monster by the stuntman Haruo Nakajima in an elaborate latex costume – it was also an intelligent manifesto of powerlessness.
After his cinema debut, Godzilla made a career, became the admired creature of modern special effects, proved himself as a brand in the film business, and stimulated the imagination of various directors. The monster was given new roles, fought new opponents, and became the main character of expensive Hollywood productions. Today, Godzilla is not only the oldest franchise in the film business, but also an icon of pop culture – and a hero to whom monuments are erected in his homeland.
Anyone who succeeds in America enjoys a special status in Japan; this applies to film monsters as well as to baseball professionals who hit one home run after another. “Godzilla is a character who is Japan’s pride,” said the mayor of Tokyo’s Shinjuku district, Kenichi Yoshizumi, in spring 2015. The huge Godzilla figure was unveiled in the Kabukicho entertainment district, which today looks over the edge of a Toho cinema building with a grim expression and an open mouth. Yoshizumi used the occasion to award Godzilla honorary citizenship for his services to the site. Shinjuku has had the honor of being crushed by Godzilla three times in film history.
Godzilla has moved somewhat away from his origins over the years. The fact that he is essentially a creature of the peace and anti-nuclear weapons movement may no longer interest many fans. They go to Godzilla movies to see their favorite monster on his destructive city walks. That’s why some people weren’t enthusiastic about “Godzilla Minus One”. Godzilla doesn’t get enough appearances in the 125 minutes of the Yamazaki work, they complained.
It’s also about the tragic side of the Japanese sense of honor
In fact, director Takashi Yamazaki’s interpretation focuses more on the virtues of the beginning of the long Godzilla story. His film takes place in the first years after the Second World War, when the war loser Japan began its laborious reconstruction. It is about the tragic side of the Japanese sense of honor: about the shame of not having died for the fatherland in the war. Many surviving soldiers were tormented by a guilty conscience, even though their families were happy that they had returned home safely.
The main character in Godzilla Minus One is Koichi Shikishima, played by former child star Ryunosuke Kamiki as a steadfast man with fragile bravery. Koichi Shikishima is an ex-pilot from the Shimpu Tokkotai special unit, one of the so-called kamikaze pilots that Japan’s commander-in-chief used as weapons against the Americans in the final phase of the war without regard for their lives. Because of his guilty conscience, Shikishima volunteers to fight Godzilla and experiences the fears that are the price of his courage.
It may be that Godzilla doesn’t get enough playing time in “Godzilla Minus One” for die-hard fans. It’s different for people who like to have stories told in the cinema. In addition to the monster spectacle, director Yamazaki takes enough time for a sensitive portrait of his proud, vulnerable island country of Japan. If that’s too profound for you, you can drive to Hamamatsu after the film, stand in the monster trail on the hillside and eat chicken in Godzilla breading.