“Godzilla Minus One” (2023) is set in post-World War II Asia and follows Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a former Japanese kamikaze fighter pilot who is disgraced and feels guilt ridden over choosing to obey his filial duty of surviving over his country’s orders to die for his nation. As Japan begins to recover, Koichi cannot move on and follow his heart by marrying Noriko (Minami Hamabe). When Godzilla begins attacking Japan, he finds a path to redemption and is determined to stop Godzilla so Japan does not have to fall into ruin again.
Japanese Godzilla movies were a staple of my childhood and a vague memory. I have not revisited them in adulthood nor seen the more recent installations. “Godzilla” (1998) starring Matthew Broderick was an utter disappointment, and “Godzilla” (2014) was barely a notch above though the subsequent MonsterVerse movies have shown some promise. “Godzilla Minus One” is critically acclaimed for a reason. It has excellent production values, has a majority Japanese cast and covers fresh territory by commencing during a time that has only been alluded to in the mythology: Godzilla was a dinosaur that mutated because of exposure to nuclear radiation. This Godzilla is thick. A friend with zero interest in seeing the film said that this kaiju has boobs, which is hard to unsee, but neglected to mention the giant thighs and butt. Godzilla is downright curvy, but objectifying this snowflake spiked overgrown lizard would be a mistake. According to the mythology, Westerners treat Godzilla like a monster, but Japan treats him as a destructive god. If they were describing Godzilla’s regeneration abilities, which renders the creature immortal, they are right. Equally intimidating is the laser-focused, red-eyed stare, which evinces a determination and focus that indicates brains backing Godzilla’s brute force. A favored feature is when Godzilla’s spikes rise and glow bright white blue to indicate when Godzilla is going to use their atomic breath, which has the effect of an atomic bomb though Hiroshima and Nagasaki are never explicitly referenced. The shockwave goes in and out like breath and wreaks complete havoc, blasting things away then sucking them back in. Godzilla becomes a sanitized, denationalized symbol of Japan’s conquerors in World War II-a chaotic, merciless death dealer. Godzilla’s attacks are random and undeserving, a force of nature, unlike the consequences of World War II, which were arguably earned.
Initially it seemed promising that “Godzilla Minus One” was set in post-World War II Japan. I overshot my expectations and thought that the film would grapple with the atrocities that they committed during that era, but instead it deals with the defeat and demoralization. Koichi is easy to like since he is insubordinate to a bellicose regime so it is hopefully unlikely that if the film rewound, Koichi would not be caught doing anything that should earn him a ticket to hell. He still feels guilty because writer and director Takashi Yamazaki is still Japanese, and everyone has a certain degree of national pride so he frames this disobedience as a failure to protect the defenseless when he has the ability to fight. (There would be no need to defend people if Japan had not become allies with the Nazis and started attacking people….) As Koichi rebuilds his life, including saving Noriko, he cannot enjoy it.
Noriko does not have a fleshed-out character. She saves babies, wants to live, and begs Kochi to confide in her. Yamazaki does a great job of showing that time is passing by showing the environment transform from ruins to solid structures, and the fashion changes from traditional to Western. When Noriko decides to get a job and wears a suit, it felt as if the camera treated her like the equivalent of Pamela Anderson running on the beach. In the end, her will to live becomes optional when Godzilla decides that he wants to take the same train that she is on, and she just appears to give up. Honestly same, girl. Same!
No one is going to save Japan. The US even rescinds demilitarization and says, “May the odds be ever in your favor,” because it is too busy with the Soviet Union. The Japanese government gets nothing but shade from its citizens, and the characters deride their government as secretive and unhelpful. So a rag tag bunch of navy veterans, now family men and one former kamikaze decide to forge a plan to stop an immortal. While “Godzilla Minus One” sidesteps the awkwardness of Japan’s role by slamming its government, it was a little troubling how easy it was to find battleships and fighter planes that were supposed to be decommissioned. Yes, one ship is officially returned to Japan (only for Godzilla to immediately destroy it), but the nation that raped its neighbors is not someone that you want hiding weapons two seconds later.
Yamazaki is using “Godzilla Minus One” to create an alternate history where the World War II Japanese veterans are not possible war criminals, but valiant defenders of people. The protagonist’s last name, Shikishima, happens to be the same as the Shikishima Squandron, which conducted the first successful kamikaze attack on the US. Ew. It comes from “Shikishima no Yamato Gokoro,” an Edo era Motoori Noringa’s tanka, a short poem, which is hung in the Yushukan war museum, which was built in the late nineteenth century, but honors kamikaze pilots in World War II. The poem reads, “If someone asks about the Yamato spirit [Spirit of Old/True Japan] of Shikishima [a poetic name of Japan]—it is the flowers of yamazakura that are fragrant in the Asahi [rising sun].” By erasing history as the aggressor and turning the Japanese into helpless, outmatched defenders, Yamazaki is getting the ordinary moviegoer, who may not even know about the horrors of the Pacific theater, to cheer for the Japanese to become a militarized nation again. By emphasizing their humanity against oversized, primordial monsters, human monstrosities are hidden from view. Japan has delivered inconsistent apologies for its torture of children and women whom they had the nerve to call comfort women, war supplies, public toilets, or female ammunition. Right wing elements in Japan try to suppress this history and claim it never happened. They even demand that other countries comply with their demands to take down statues memorializing their victims. If this movie existed outside of this push for revisionist history, alternate history would be understandable because not every movie about Japan must be a downer, but there should be some concern that our mindless monster movie may have a hidden agenda which outsiders are oblivious to.
“Godzilla Minus One” gets awkward as the narrative trajectory finds everyone rooting for Koichi to become a sincere kamikaze pilot again. Yamazaki deserves credit for finding a way that does not feel overtly Orwellian to reverse the essence of being a kamikaze in the twentieth century context without reverting to its origins, i.e. divine wind or used to describe a typhoon that scattered attacking Kublai Khan’s fleet of ships in the thirteenth century. Redefining kamikaze’s meaning is consistent with his rehabilitation of Japan by erasing history and feels like cheating, but as long as there is room for a sequel, which there is, maybe the next iteration will be less problematic so everyone can enjoy the monster mash spectacle in peace.