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Yi Yu

Professor Beadle

English 115

7 November 2017

Godzilla--A Monster that Dies and Lives

Have you ever been scared by a monster and tried to remove it from your head? I assume

you have. But if we are talking about the well-known Japanese monster Godzilla, its another

story. For the past 60 years, people in Japan and the US have recreated series of Godzilla movies

since the original Japanese Gojira movie came out in 1954. The monster people have always

loved, Gojira, also known as Godzilla, symbolizes nuclear power. However, what people try to

express with Godzilla varies between movies. Generally speaking, Gojira (1954) is a

condemnation of Americas use of nuclear weapons against Japan in World War II. On the other

hand, Shin Godzilla (2016) is a response to the Fukushima Nuclear Leak in 2011 and a story of

how people would deal with the conflict. (Atwater, 1) Although these two movies both involve

Godzilla, the monster endures different fates in the end. Godzilla was killed in Gojira and was

frozen to coexist with human in Shin Godzilla. This is a significant change for me because it

implies Japans changed attitude from resistance to acceptance towards nuclear power,

emphasizes Japans cherishment towards their beloved monster, and successfully opens a new

era of Godzilla films.

One way to look at the monster in Gojira is that it symbolizes atomic bombs that

America used against Japan during World War II. The destructions of the monster and the

radiation coming along were almost equal to the effects given by atomic bombs. The monster has

brought Japanese people great suffering and pain, and so have atomic bombs. In the movie, the
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monster killed thousands of Japanese people and forced millions of them to leave their home. In

reality, atomic bombs did more than simply robbing Japanese peoples life. In fact, the health

effects of the atomic bombs are still being studied in Japanese survivors even 70 years later. That

explains why Honda made the monster radioactive. He tried to recreate the trauma that atomic

bombs had given Japan through Godzilla. There is no doubt that people would make every effort

to destroy the monster. Those efforts included building giant electrical nets, using trains to hit the

monster, and even killing him with an oxygen destroyer. We can view the dead monster as the

determination of Japanese people to overcome their trauma caused by atomic bombs as well as

their resentment towards nuclear weapons.

Another way to look at the monster in Gojira is that it represents consequences of

Americas too frequent nuclear tests. In the film, nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific awaken the

monster, and make him radioactive. Godzilla acts on his suffering by attempting to destroy

Tokyo. The monster suggests that men have become too powerful because they make war;

consequently, society is no longer in harmony with the natural order of things (Shapiro, 275).

The fact that America threw nuclear tests has begun to damage Japans natural environment.

That is why Godzilla rages, like a wounded child, against Tokyo (Shapiro, 273). The monster

plays a role as if it were nature itself. It was hurt, irritated and unable to reason with. The death

of Godzilla shows Japans public opinions on nuclear issues: further nuclear tests need to be

stopped, otherwise, like Dr. Yamene said at the end of the film, there is going to be another

Godzilla. Godzillas death in Gojira implies how unwilling Japanese people would use nuclear

power because they believed that nuclear power could only serve unwanted use. That is to say,

Japanese people did not wish to cooperate nuclear power in their daily life by then.
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On the other hand, the monster is frozen to coexist with human beings instead of being

killed in Shin Godzilla. Unlike the wartime, nuclear power is so widely used all over Japan today

(for positive use). As a matter of fact, Japanese people cannot live without nuclear power

anymore due to their need of electricity. So far, Japans 50+ main reactors have provided some

30% of electricity and this was expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. (Nuclear Power

in Japan) Shin Godzilla, representing unprecedented nuclear power, is more destructive than it

ever was. The film Shin Gojira is universally recognized as a projection of the Fukushima

Nuclear Leak that happened in 2011. The freezing method that the Japanese government used

against Godzilla in the film was exactly the same method applied to deal with the Leak in reality.

At first, people tried to use atomic bombs to terminate the monster until Yaguchis Team enacted

the deep freeze plan. The choice of not killing the monster but coexisting with it not only reflects

Japans fear of losing a city again, but also emphasizes the importance of nuclear power for

Japan today. For all times, Godzilla symbolizes nuclear power. Simply speaking, if Japanese

people keep Godzilla with them, it means they would like to keep using nuclear power in the

future. They would risk getting disasters from nuclear power rather than giving up this extremely

beneficial power source for it has already tightly connected to their life. In the ending of Shin

Godzilla, we can see some human skeletons on the frozen monster. As the last scene of the film,

this shot not only implies the next Godzilla movie, but also points out the risks of keeping

Godzilla in central Tokyo. When the frozen monster finally gets released from the extremely low

temperature, it could once again destroy the entire city or even the world, taking away billions of

lives.

Regardless of the nuclear metaphor of the monster, the frozen Godzilla highlights Japans

cherishment towards their beloved monster even 60 years after the first Godzilla movie came
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out. For Japanese people, they have cherished the creation of this monster for it has become an

icon of Japanese science fiction movies and a character to convey their ideas. In fact, Godzilla is

a threshold for many Japanese (survivors included) to express their feelings. These people no

longer wish to be thought of as innocent victims of a tragic event. But the (local, national, and

international) politics and economics of victimization prevents them from speaking out.

(Shapiro, 305) The fate (frozen but not killed) of Shin Godzilla leaves a possibility that the

monster may still be alive after all. It is crucial for most Japanese people who wish to have the

monster stayed in the movies. Moreover, for a long time, Japan tends to see itself as a victim of

World War II, but this specific monster provides the world with a new insight to look at Japan.

The new insight is that Japan begins to realize it could play the role of an aggressor and could

be responsible for disasters. The monster is so loved that a lot of Japanese children (usually

boys) start to consider Gojira part of their nakama, or clique, and their protector. (Shapiro,

287) Furthermore, the design of the different fate that Shin Godzilla endured opens a new era of

Godzilla films. While most Godzilla films gave the monster a dead ending, Shin Godzilla

ignores all previous Godzilla films for its continuity, allowing the monster to be completely

unprecedented in the films continuity. (Atwater, 1) If the company only meant to catch

eyeballs and attention, it could just make another monster and use all the fancy computer

graphics technology on it. But instead, Toho created a new story for Godzilla, a new film that

gets the whole world to talk about. This really is a bold move, considering the fact that re-

creating a new movie based on the classic one can get lots of polarized comments. We could see

the ambition in Toho to challenge the idea of the original Godzilla. But more importantly, we

could interpret that nuclear is still a major issue in Japan. If no audience is interested in Shin

Godzilla, we can assert that Toho would not invest 15 million dollars in making this movie. On
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the opposite, people not only came to watch the film, but also love Shin Godzilla. Lets not think

about it as an easy job. We could accept old ideas without effort, but convincing other people to

accept new ideas takes time and skills. Toho made a great start. Regardless of the improvement

in technical parts (e.g. computer graphics), Shin Godzilla is a metaphor of mans tampering

with science, as relevant a message today as it was over fifty years ago. (Brothers, 56) Shin

Godzilla represents an incredibly timely issue with the nuclear threat still felt by the Japanese

people. (Atwater, 2) The connection between Fukushima Nuclear Leak in 2011 and Shin

Godzilla enables Japanese audiences to empathize with the people in the film. The revolutionary

new ending of Shin Godzilla improves the idea of the original Gojira, catches up with the current

Japanese society, and meets Japanese audiences timely emotional needs. That is to say, this

changed ending has succeeded in opening a new era of Godzilla films.

The change of fates that Godzilla endures at the end of two films--being killed in Gojira

and being frozen to coexist with humans in Shin Godzilla, is a significant change for me. From

being dead to possibly being alive, the changed fate of Godzilla means more than just a new

ending. Since Godzilla symbolizes nuclear power, through this change, we can have a glimpse of

the nuclear power struggles that Japanese people have experienced for the past sixty years. Of

course, one might object here that the change is just something to make people distinguish Shin

Godzilla from Gojira. But let us not forget that Godzilla, as a monster, symbolizes nuclear power

in these two films. Both films havent changed the metaphor of Godzilla and have clearly related

to real life issues. Thus, this change cannot be random and we certainly should not undermine it.

In conclusion, this change implies Japans attitude from resistance to acceptance towards

nuclear power, highlights Japans cherishment to their beloved monster, and successfully starts a

new era of Godzilla films. I cannot wait to have a look at the next Godzilla movie.
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Works Cited

Anno, Hideaki, Director. Shin Godzilla. Toho, 2016.

Atwater, Ben. Shin Godzilla: A Terrifying, Timely Return of a Titan. University Wire, 2 Nov.

2016, pp.1-2

Brothers, Peter H. Japans Nuclear Nightmare: How the Bomb Became a Beast Called

Godzilla. Monsters, edited by Andrew J. Hoffman, Bedford/St. Martins, 2016, pp.51-59

Honda, Ishiro, Director. Gojira. Toho, 1954.

Nuclear Power in Japan. World Nuclear Association, Oct. 2017, http://www.world-

nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-g-n/japan-nuclear-power.aspx

Shapiro, Jerome F. Atomic Bomb Cinema: The Apocalyptic Imagination on Film, Vol. 8,

Florence, Taylor and Francis, 2013, pp.273-275, 287, 305