“Godzilla Minus One” restores Japan’s most famous import to a thrilling cinematic throne. Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki who also with Kiyoko Shibuya was responsible for special effects, the film also heralds a new cinematic auteur. This is truly Godzilla as king of the kaiju. There is no White reporter inserted nor any White protagonist. This is Godzilla as a monster threatening Japan and the Japanese rising to defeat it and the film pays tribute to the original 1954 black-and-white film.
In the US, the first glimpse of Godzilla was in 1956 in the film “Godzilla, King of the Monsters!” which was not only dubbed, but added new footage with actor Raymond Burr interacting with body-doubles and Japanese American actors to make it seem as if Burr’s character, journalist Steve Martin, was part of the original Japanese production. That film begins with Martin in the hospital and telling his story through flashbacks. The Japanese original film wasn’t officially available outside of Japan until 2004.
The 1954 film premiered on 27 October, but on the first day of March in that year, the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru had been contaminated by the radioactive fallout from the US military Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb testing at the Bikini Atoll. The crew all suffered from acute radiation syndrome (ARS) and while most of the crew recovered, the chief radioman died (23 September 1954).
There are various explanations about the title. According to James Grebey of Vulture.com, (“Godzilla as an ‘Undiscerning God‘”) , immediately after World War II, Japan was at zero due to all the destruction, but “the arrival of Godzilla sets it back to ‘minus one.'”
Japan hasn’t been without a Godzilla film. Independent of the Legendary series, there are animated feature films on Netflix: there’s 2017 “Godzilla : Planet of the Monsters,” the 2018 “Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle,” the 2018 “Godzilla: The Planet Eater,” and the 2021 “Godzilla: Singular Point” on Netflix. The first three films are part of a series in which a protagonist Haruo Sakai battles Godzilla after returning to an Earth that is dominated by Godzilla.
“Godzilla Minus One” begins before the original film. In the last months of World War II, a kamikaze pilot, Kōichi Shikishima 敷島 浩一 (Ryunosuke Kaki), pretends that there are mechanical problems with his airplane and lands at the military repair station on Odo Island. Soon after the mechanics discover his airplane is fully functional, dead deep sea fish float to the top of the sea water and Godzilla appears. As the mechanics panic, their leader, Sōsaku Tachibana 橘 宗作tells Shikishima to man the guns on his airplane to kill Godzilla. Although Shikishima makes it to his airplane, he freezes. Godzilla kills everyone except Shikishima and Tachibana.
Shikishima eventually returns to his home in Tokyo, but his parents are dead, his neighbor Sumiko Ōta 太田 澄子(Sakura Ando), informs him. She is initially disgusted that he didn’t die in a suicidal flight like to many others. But Shikishima meets a woman, Noriko Ōishi 大石 典子 (Minami Hamabe), who cares for an orphaned child, Akiko 明子(Sae Nagatani), and they become a family unit although there is nothing romantic between Shikishima and Noriko. Shikishima takes a job on a minesweeping boat, Shinsei Maru, as their gunner, working with scientist Kenji Noda 野田 健治 (Hidetaka Yoshioka), trainee Shirō Mizushima 水島 四郎 (Yuki Yamada) and ship captain Tatsuo Hotta 堀田 辰雄 (Min Tanaka). Because this is hazardous governmental work clearing the mines leftover from both the Japanese and US military, the pay is extremely high.
Unfortunately, the US nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll result in Godzilla mutating and becoming much larger and he’s heading for Japan. When the minesweeper is tasked with delaying Godzilla, until the heavy cruiser Takao can engage with the kaiju. A mine is released and detonated after Godzilla bites it, but although injured, Godzilla regenerates.
Shikishima returns to Tokyo but when he hears that Godzilla is heading for Ginza where Noriko now works, he goes to find her, but although the Japanese military is there, Godzilla uses his atomic breath and in the powerful air currents, Noriko is blown away after pushing Shikishima into an alley. Godzilla has returned to the ocean, leaving the Japanese to devise another plan. A prototype of a new fighter airplane, the Kyushu J7W Shinden, a real fighter plane that was designed but tested on the same days as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is found and Shikishima insists that Tachibana come to repair them. The plan is to use boats to encircle Godzilla, surround him with Freon tanks to use the water pressure to kill him and if that fails, balloons would bring him back to the surface too quickly for him to survive. If all else fails, the plane will fly into Godzilla’s mouth and explode.
Directed and written by Takashi Yamazaki, “Godzilla Minus One” updates the original and brings into focus the reality of post-war Japan. Godzilla here is a threat and not a hero, but the Japanese must rise to protect themselves since maneuvers by the US military in a Japan would be perceived as a threat by the Soviet Union. Instead of the story of a scientist (Dr. Daisuke Serizawa) sacrificing himself to save Japan, this is the story of one man’s struggle with survivor’s guilt, PTSD and economic survival in a post-war Japan. This is a story about families lost and formed due to dire circumstances. And this is about a monster that was made more threatening due to nuclear testing.
The Legendary series, even when the action is based in Japan or China, chooses to use a White person as the POV character. The 2014 “Godzilla” directed by Gareth Edwards, begins in Japan at the fictional Janjira nuclear plant which has a French woman (Juliette Binoche) as its nuclear regulations consultant and husband, American Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) as the lead engineer at the same plant. The movie then follows their son, Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Ford is married to Elle (Elizabeth Olsen), who works as a nurse in San Francisco where they live with there son, Sam Brody (Carson Bolde). There is really no reason to have a White American or European working at a Japanese nuclear plant and San Francisco is 45 percent White, but 34 percent Asian American. The percentage of East Asians in Japan is obviously higher than that.
The next film, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (2019, also focused on White Americans. Kyle Chandler as Dr. Mark Russell, Vera Farmiga as his former wife, Dr. Emma Russell and Millie Bobby Brown as their 12-year-old daughter, Madison Russell. The film begins in San Francisco, but quickly switches to China where Emma and Madison are living an American lifestyle in an American style house in the Yunnan rainforest . The 2021 sequel, “Godzilla vs. Kong,” starred Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård as Dr. Nathan Lind, and brings back Madison Russell (Millie Bobby Brown). Rebecca Hall plays the anthropological linguist and adoptive mother of Jia (Kaylee Hottle), the young deaf orphaned Iwi native. In China or Japan or even the fictional Pacific island of Iwi, the people that are central to the movie are White.
“Godzilla Minus One” is about the Japanese and their struggles and that is reflected in the names of some of the characters.
In “Godzilla Minus One,” the name of the protagonist Kōichi Shikishima 敷島 浩一 tells us that he is the first-born son. The first character of the given name means “abundance.” Shikishima is, according to Nelson’s character dictionary, another term for “(ancient) Japan.” It is also the name of a battleship.
The name Tachibana (橘) is a name already connected with Godzilla but in the 2001″Godzilla Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack”) the characters Admiral Taizo Tachibana and his daughter Yuri Tachibana used different characters (立花) to express that name. Although the surname Tachibana is associated with a samurai clan, the clan uses the characters used for the 2001 film.
The name of the neighbor, Sumiko Ōta 太田 澄子, means “big field” (Ōta) and “clear” or “to clarify.” Noriko Ōishi 大石 典子, the woman who cares for the orphaned child, pointedly calls Shikishima “o-niisan” which means older brother. Her surname “big rock” and her given name means “rule” or “law” which is somewhat ironic because she meets Shikishima when accused of breaking the law (theft). Akiko’s 明子 name means “clearness,” “dawn” and “pure.” It is part of the word for “tomorrow” (明日).
Like the Kyushu J7W Shinden (九州 J7W 震電), the Takao (高雄) was a real Japanese cruiser active in the Japanese Navy as was the Yukikaze 雪風(Snowy Wind) and Hibiki 響 (Echo). Shinden means to tremble or vibrate, and the last character means “electric.” The National Air and Space Museum translates the name Shinden as “magnificent lightning.”
It’s worth nothing that the Soviet Union didn’t declare war on Japan until 8 August 1945. The Soviet-Japanese War lasted until 2 September 1945). This was after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). According to Britannica:
As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, Japan in 1905 (Treaty of Portsmouth) gained Sakhalin south of the 50th parallel and gave this part the Japanese name of Karafuto. After the Russian Revolution, the Japanese occupied all of Sakhalin, but they withdrew in 1924; in the following year White Russian forces were driven out of the north by Soviet troops. The Soviet Union regained the southern half of the island in 1945, at the end of World War II, together with the Kurils, and Sakhalin’s entire Japanese population eventually was repatriated.
The threat of what was then the Soviet Union was fresh in the minds of the Japanese in the post-war years. There is still a dispute over the Kuril Islands between Japan and the former Soviet Union. The US recognizes Japan’s sovereignty over the islands. On 7 October 2022, the Ukraine “recognized the southern Kuril Islands as Japanese territory.”
Japan had emerged victorious from the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), but Russia was under Emperor Nicholas II.
“Godzilla Minus One” also brings a stark contrast with the contemporary image of Japan and post-war Japan. In its depictions of Tokyo and the now high-rent district of Ginza, the film is a good reminder of what changes Japan has seen and what the few remaining survivors of the privations of World War II had to contend with. Looking at Tokyo today, it’s almost unimaginable.
The CGI-generated Godzilla design pays tribute to the original. Its face is more rounded and has bigger eyes than that of the Legendary series depiction. The tail seems more integrated into the movement of the kaiju compared to the Godzilla of the 2016 “Shin Godzilla.”
“Godzilla Minus One” takes us back to the original Godzilla, but moves forward with improved Godzilla model. In addition, the storytelling is logical, historical and filled with intimate emotional moments that are absent from the Legendary series. While the proportions of Godzilla don’t always seem to be exactly right in terms of proportions, with the head seeming small in some shots, but more acceptable from a worm’s eye view, this is the best Godzilla movie in years.
“Tokyo Minus One” (ゴジラ-1.0) is the 37th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 33rd Godzilla film and the fifth film in the franchise’s current Reiwa era. The film had its world premiere on 18 October 2023 in Shinjuku as the closing film of the 36th Tokyo International Film Festival. It was released in Japan on 3 November 2023 (Godzilla Day), which is the same day the original 1954 film was released. The film was released in the US on 1 December 2023. In Japanese with English subtitles.
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