You might think Godzilla is as Japanese as Pikachu in a Kabuki Mask drinking green tea, but you’d be wrong I think, I’m not sure the origins of Kabuki or green tea. No Godzilla is American, well sort of, he’s the symbol of the relationship between the United States of America and Japan.
The role of Godzilla has changed over the years, starting in 1954 when he made his debut. Godzilla in the original movie is a wrecking machine unleashed on Japan by America’s careless testing of nuclear weapons near his cave. The Atomic bomb woke the Dinosaur now mutating him, irradiating him and he now destroys Tokyo. The Japanese version of the film is a much darker film than it’s American re-release with scenes of Japanese peasants crying and praying for a quick death while the American has Steve Martin (played by Raymond Burr, and not being the popular comedian) doing newscasts about the monster with random Asian-Americans as stand-ins for the Japanese actors.
The film was a huge success for the Japanese film industry so of course sequels where made, and ones that attempted to hammer in the idea of Godzilla as a villain, but with more Kaiju (giant monsters), the first challenger was Mothra. A Beautiful protector of nature with painted butterfly wings looking like a giant Geisha, that got squashed by Godzilla in the final battle of the film. The next rival to Godzilla was King Kong, the cold heartless reptile that was killed in his first movie by a Japanese inventor vs the primal giant ape who in his film was killed by the US Air Force. Kong wasn’t Toho’s first choice, the movie was originally to be Godzilla vs Frankenstein which explains the ending where Kong is super-charged by Electricity and defeats Godzilla, but with this America’s enemy defeated Japans.
Despite Godzilla vs King Kong ending with the 2nd death of the giant lizard he returned to Japanese theatres, but after that he was a changed reptile. It was time for Godzilla to be the hero of his franchise, this was partially due to America and Japanese trade relations becoming more amicable but also because of the perceived idea that Rubbersuitmation (yes that is a word) was purely for kids like how in the west some deem cartoons and comics as “Kids stuff”. Godzilla being there most popular Kaiju, they either needed to make new heroes for him to fight every time or make him the hero. But how do you do this? Well Heroic Godzilla isn’t so much Superman but more John Wayne. He’s not a crusader for justice but more fighting for dominance over the other monsters, sure he’ll stop an alien invasion but it’s not because of loyalty to the humans it’s more “they’re messing with my stuff”. Over the course of the Toho-series Godzilla softens which would eventually cause the end of the series, starting with Son of Godzilla where Godzilla would find another Kaiju egg and raise it’s hatchling as his own son (who in later films would be called Minila with the l pronounced as an “r”). After this the series would implode on itself with the disappointingly long title “Godzilla: All Out Monsters Attack” where Minila helps a Japanese schoolboy to stand up to his bullies defying all rhyme, reason or logic. This would lead to one more Godzilla movie in this series that bombed so hard at the Japanese Box Office they did what any current Hollywood film producer would do, put the franchise into hibernation for 10 years and reboot.
Of course in 1978 during this hiatus, Toho sold the animation rights to Hanna-Barbera who would make a Saturday Morning cartoon losely based the film series. In it a bunch of scientists who are the adoptive parents of Godzilla’s other son “Godzooky” who judging by his behaviour I can only assume the other parent of Godzooky is Mutley. After 2 seasons of a cartoon Godzilla that didn’t topple building or blast his Atomic breath (it was changed to breathing fire), the film series was rebooted with a direct sequel to the 1954 original ignoring all the other films. Toho was so confident in this being a beloved international classic that while in pre-production they shopped the film rights around all the US Distributors to which all the major distributors said “no thank you” and they had to settle for Roger Corman’s production company. Now in 1984 Japanese art wasn’t as respected as it is now, Anime then was used to fill in gaps in US TV schedules and was often badly dubbed by writers and actors who plain didn’t give a shit about the source material. Godzilla however was an exception, Godzilla (1984) had one person who gave a shit about it, Raymond Burr despite years earlier getting really mad at Mark Hamil for telling him “that Godzilla was his favourite film with him in”, Burr wanted to do Godzilla justice. While Corman used it as a way to make a quick buck and to fill it with product placement for Dr Pepper (which sounds like the most American thing I’ve ever heard using a giant lizard to sell a worse tasting Coca Cola). Raymond Burr knew this version of Godzilla wasn’t a joke and reprised his role from the original under that condition. Despite Raymond Burr’s attempt Godzilla (1984) was a commercial and critical flop in the US, unlike in it’s native Japan where it was a success and relaunched the series.
Now it’s time to address the Elephant in the room the over bloated mess that is the first American produced Godzilla from 1998. Yes, we where still in the days when America looked down on Japan, so much so most fans of the real Godzilla dub the Kaiju in the film Not-Zilla. Of course a parody of this Godzilla would later appear in Godzilla Final Wars the last of the rebooted Godzilla movies. But thats it, in the 90’s and early 2000’s America wanted to steal any idea from Japan they could but didn’t respect it, this was the age when Pokemon was the big craze but every other show would insist on called it Pokey-Mon, while the US version of it tried to fit the Square peg of Japanese culture into the round hole of American ideals.
Japan needs America and America Fetishise Japan, but Japan is aware of this and uses it to it’s own benefit as much as they can, with Toho profiting off of another attempt by the US to make their own Godzilla franchise and this time a whole cinematic universe where he’ll get a rematch against Kong. While the first film in Warner Bros and Legendary pictures Godzilla was an uninteresting mess with subplots that are resolved as they are introduced the same year Japan made their own new Godzilla known as Shin-Godzilla. This movie reimagines Godzilla and brings him back to his roots as a history villain. In Shin Godzilla, Godzilla is an ever evolving unkillable irradiated sea creature, but as a rarity in a Kaiju film the human scenes are actually interesting as it delves into Japanese political satire almost being Godzilla meets the Thick of it. The United States are also involved in this one, but not as valiant heroes but as another threat. The President actually tells them to deal with Godzilla within 48 hours or he’ll nuke Japan out of existence, The United Nations do actually help Japan to defeat this version of Godzilla.
Godzilla is what America is to Japan he’s saviour and oppressor, fighter of cosmic threats and the destroyer, America and Japan have an interesting duality that I just glanced over.
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