Shin Godzilla
An Unwelcome Gift from the United States?

Date：12, Apr, 2019
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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Hello, everyone. I'm so glad that you are here with me now. Today I'm talking about Shin Godzilla, a Japanese 2016 film directed by Anno Hideaki and Higuchi Shinji. It was released in 2016 July Japan, and done in 2016 September America. Do you know Godzilla series? It is the representative series of Toho special effects (Tokusatsu) films. The first was, surprisingly, released in 1954. Shin Godzilla is the 29th.

What's Godzilla? It is an unknown colossal creature who looks like a lizard. One day, they find an unknown colossal creature land from Tokyo bay and creep freely in Tokyo. Buildings turn to a heap of rubble one after another. The mysterious monster looks just like an enormous lizard. Somehow they name it Godzilla. Japan's government must attack it and protect Tokyo and Japan. But their conventional weapons hardly work against Godzilla. They think they have to know what it is in order to exterminate it. What on earth is the Godzilla? Can they stop its destroying and get peace back? Check it out!

We can't enjoy it enough unless we check the 28 films before, you might think. Don't worry. Even if you have never watched any Godzilla movies before, you can enjoy the Shin Godzilla. Why can I say so? I watched the Shin Godzilla though I had never seen the series before, but the story didn't leave me alone at all.

Godzilla was (probably) described as the incarnation of atomic bombs in the first of the series. Godzilla uses radioactivity for attacking us. In Shin Godzilla, I guess it was (probably) described as the incarnation of nuclear plants. In 2011, we got the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster for clumsiness of Tokyo Electric Power. Godzilla is, just same as the nuclear plants, out of our control. Japan's officialdom have to stop Godzilla's activities at the destination of the film, then.

I don't know where watching the film brings you to. I believe it was meaningful that they made up this film and exported it to the United States, however. No doubt about that. In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs to Japan (Nagasaki and Hiroshima). Needless to say, it deeply damaged many Japanese people who had nothing to do with the war.

Moreover, in 1950's, they used Shōriki Matsutarō (1885-1969) as a covert operative of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and enforced founding of nuclear plants upon Japan. I don't say the fault lies with no Japanese people. Some actually accepted the nuclear plants in exchange for indemnification without a national consensus. However, I can say America brought threats of radioactivity to Japan. Then, Godzilla was born.

In other words, Godzilla was brought by the United States for destroying what we built and killing us.