By Joe Gibson
Here, at Plan9Crunch,
but also at our YouTube page, I like to revisit, review and even rank kaiju and
tokusatu franchises (links to some of the relevant videos and articles at the end of this one).
This review of Godzilla Minus One has long been in the works, but I wrote it as
a video essay you will be able to see in full on our YouTube page at the end of
this week. Consequently, there is some content missing from this three part blog post
version.
Introduction: All Roads
Lead To Godzilla Minus One
Takashi Yamazaki has
long had a working relationship with Toho. After 2004’s Godzilla Final Wars,
Godzilla the franchise went on hiatus indefinitely, only resurrected by
Yoshimitsu Banno’s efforts that eventually culminated in Legendary’s 2014 film.
But Godzilla, the character and pop culture icon, still remained in public
consciousness and through references in movies. Toho permitted Takashi Yamazaki
to include a version of Godzilla in a dream sequence in the film Always Sunset
On Third Street 2 (2007). From that Godzilla, you can see the ways Yamazaki was
experimenting with Godzilla designs integrating features from past designs as
well as his own flourishes.
Takashi Yamazaki is the
director and writer and led special effects on Godzilla Minus One. For one
thing, that means that if the film truly is as good as everyone says from all
of those standpoints, he is a genius, but also, it means that his vision is
uniquely captured in this movie being the way it is. This film is a period
piece, taking place between 1945 and 1947; the Always Sunset trilogy films are
also period pieces set mid 20th century. Many concepts, shots and characters in
this movie deliberately homage ones from the original 1954 Godzilla film,
Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah Giant Monsters All Out Attack 2001, Godzilla
Against Mechagodzilla 2002, Godzilla 2014 and Godzilla vs Kong 2021. I will
call those out when we get there, but while those shots originated elsewhere,
Yamazaki is placing them in his own new context, same as the music tracks from
54, King Kong vs Godzilla and Mothra vs Godzilla.
And Yamazaki has other
experience directing Godzilla with his theme park attraction Godzilla The Ride
displaying his take on a kaiju battle involving Godzilla (looking so close to
his later Minus One design it is uncanny), Rodan, and King Ghidorah. Toho had
approached Yamazaki to make a film for them shortly after his Always Sunset 2
scene, but he was waiting for the technology to catch up to his vision, and Godzilla
The Ride proved that it had.
With all of this context
in mind, we can get into some disclaimers, a piece of trivia to set the tone of
this review and then the review proper.
T Minus One: Countdown To Review
The main Godzilla design
in Godzilla Minus One (the one featured post “atomic baptism” in the
traditional Godzilla posture as opposed to the T-Rex esque Odo Island form) is
50.1 meters tall. Why is that?
To start, the original
Godzilla was 50 meters and so was his Showa series successor. The Heisei
revival brought him up to 80 and ultimately 100 meters to contrast against
higher skylines, while the Millennium series oscillated around 50 meters again
to make the miniature sets more detailed (but then they included worse CG than
before, so…) with Final Wars returning Godzilla to 100 meters tall. Then, after
2014, a little bit of an arms race commenced in regards to Godzilla’s size. The
2014 Legendary one was 108 meters, and 2016’s Shin Godzilla (from Toho once
again) was 118.5 meters, so Legendary’s Godzilla grew to be 119.8 meters, just
barely edging out Shin Godzilla. While all this happened, two Godzilla animes
came out. Godzilla Singular Point released later but entered production sooner
and featured a Godzilla that was 45 meters tall until it abruptly grew to 100
meters, while the Monster Planet trilogy has a Godzilla that was 300 meters
tall…and nobody has tried to beat Monster Planet Goji’s size.
While it would seem
based on all this that this is in keeping with a decade long trend of one
upping previous Godzilla sizes, it is actually a more mundane and insightful
answer. Yamazaki wanted this Godzilla to be 50 meters like the original but
also wanted to place emphasis on the dorsal fins of Godzilla to where they peak
over his head as a crown. The effects team measured from toe to dorsal fin tip,
which resulted in the extra .1 meters. This film and creative team is not
guided by petty size increases but an attention to detail in their own product
that no one would have expected to that degree. Keep that in mind for when we
get to the review. Whatever issues I have with the film do not diminish the
care that went into this film (unlike Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, where
the crew admitted on the commentary track that they stopped caring about the
details). And in case you’re wondering about the size of Godzilla’s smaller Odo
Island form, that is 15 meters.
I should lay out a few
terms before I delve especially deep into the movie. I personally define art
through it being the creation of a human to express something, often a theme,
and I believe it is possible though often difficult to analyze art to find out
whether its expression is consistent (good) or inconsistent (bad). Conversely,
I tend to think of literature as art which earns serious consideration and
downright warrants study into its textual, subtextual or metatextual tendencies
in relaying themes and concepts. Forgive me if these are nonstandard definitions;
if you have better words to describe these ideas, please share them. But that
is what I would like to concern myself with today.
All Godzilla films are
art, and I like to evaluate them based on the internal consistency of their
text because that is how I can measure a film easiest, the structural integrity
of its story. However, it quickly becomes apparent that some films are special
for how they develop their plot and characters, allegory or presentation in the
chosen medium, and there is more to learn from it than just the component
pieces of its story. The thing is that even though such films are absolute
masterclasses in whichever category, that does not guarantee them to be
flawless on my scale of internal consistency, which I find to be the most
important consideration for a review such as this. I find the storytelling in
Attack on Titan (an anime/manga about humanity fighting humanoid giant
monsters) for instance, to be brilliant for how it portrays the cycle of war
and radicalization first through subtext and then just as text, but major plot
beats in seasons 1 and 3 rely on just actual plot holes about the Colossal
Titan especially. A score out of 10 has to factor in the best and worst parts
of a story, which is why I go about searching for the merits and flaws of the
given work. It might be weird to hold a mature philosophy lesson to the same
standard as a popcorn flick, but I want to give every film the same fair shot
on the same scale, so if something I consider literature makes a mistake I
would criticize in mere art, I have to consider that in my final score and in
general.
I have said this before,
but it bears repeating, that there are three areas you are sure to eventually
disagree with in my analyses: 1. The flaws and merits each of us notice. 2. Our
evaluation of the severity of those flaws and merits (how much they should
affect a score). 3. Our comparison of those to other relevant examples. At the
end of Godzilla Minus One, lead character Shikishima will fly the Shinden plane
perfectly on his first try while recovering from very recent swelling around
the eye. I noticed this on my first watchthrough, and I have gone back and
forth on how big of an issue I think it is. This should technically impede his
ability to do this to a substantial degree, but the movie consistently
emphasizes the skills of Shikishima (the opening scene of the movie establishes
his skill through his perfect landing on Odo island). Suspending disbelief
feels like a cop-out to me in this case, because if Shikishima were compromised
by depth perception issues, Godzilla would have chomped down on him during one
of the moments it was Shikishima’s own skill navigating him around the kaiju’s
body. This is where I would compare it to other media to compare my thoughts on
how egregious other similar examples are. Not to commit a “whataboutism” and
deflect discourse of an issue to a different show, what I have to do is
consider if a movie I consider worse featured a similar plot point and if the context
for it in that film is better or worse. You will see an example of that thought
process later on in the review.
Plot Runthrough w/
Analysis
I will start with a
conclusion and structure some of the summary I inevitably include to prove this
point. Shikishima’s journey is central to the structure of this narrative
(obvious) and consequently the meticulous detailing to his arc and the story
surrounding him makes him the best realized character in the film and probably
the franchise as a whole. The nuance in this portrayal of PTSD and suicidal
ideation is unique even though he is building upon other characters in this
archetype Tsujimori and Akane from Godzilla vs Megaguirus and Godzilla Against
Mechagodzilla who both also partake in a cold open battle against Godzilla that
costs lives of people around them and affects their self worth. What sets this
movie apart from those though is how this already increased runtime grounds us
in Shikishima’s perspective compared to the more ensemble nature of those previous
films.
Cold Open
After some logos for
Toho and the “70th anniversary production,” which proves my point that Toho
considers this such, we open on Ensign Koichi Shikishima (Lieutenant in the
novelization apparently, I don’t know if you can be both), a kamikaze pilot, in
the closing months of World War 2. Shikishima lands on Odo Island for mechanics
to look at his rig, and, though this is less obvious in the film, the runway is
covered in bombing holes, so our very first impression of Shikishima is his
great skill at piloting. The novelization by Takashi Yamazaki himself
represents sort of a director’s cut version that elaborates on these minor
details, but the English translation is not out yet, so I only have access to
reporting on what it says, and it seemingly emphasizes the bombing holes during
Shikishima’s landing. Also, despite the fact that Yamazaki uses the novel to
answer questions about the film, I do not like using external media in that
way, and every time I bring up something from a novelization that you could not
reasonably glean from the film, that is an issue. In this case, most novel
exclusive details are still possible to interpret from the film itself however.
Tachibana interrogates
Shikishima about the actual problem with this plane’s rig (there is nothing
wrong with the engine or fuel line), but, after Shikishima walks off to the
shore, another mechanic, apparently named Saito, confides that he agrees with
Shikishima’s decision. This is realistic in that the mechanics would all have
differing perspectives due to being different people all involved in a war, but
it also foreshadows that despite Tachibana being in a leadership role to these
people, they will disobey him at their own discretion, such as when they all
fire on Godzilla, despite his protests, sealing their fate. In any case, after
Saito and Shikishima talk, deep sea fish float up to the surface, each one
malformed from the explosive decompression of moving up from underwater depths
with Godzilla as fast as he does. (If you’re wondering why that does not kill
or harm him even before getting mutated by the nuke, one of the few things I do
know about Yamazaki’s authorial intent that made it into the novel and not the
film is that Godzillasaurus here already has a healing factor for whatever
reason.)
Some users of TVTropes
seem to believe that, had Godzilla not attacked, the Odo Island crew,
particularly Saito would have sabotaged Koichi’s plane in order to back up his
story about the malfunction and save his life. I do not see any evidence of
that in the movie (for the majority of the runtime, Shikishima is convinced the
ghosts of this crew want him dead and punished for Odo island), but I also do
not think Saito’s name is ever spoken in the film, so the tropers may have access
to other information than I have, be it a translation of the film’s official
novelization or statements from Takashi Yamazaki.
The emergence of the
deep sea fish references the trilobite in Godzilla 1954, but these fish appear
throughout the movie and not just once (so what could be a mere reference
becomes a motif). Also, once Godzilla becomes larger, it seems he brings up
larger and more plentiful specimens, foreshadowing the mechanics of the plan to
defeat him, but we’ll get there eventually. I somewhat question why evidence of
Godzilla’s arrival is on the shore to the left of the landing strip where
Shikishima sits, whereas Godzilla attacks from behind trees on the right side
of the landing strip. First, the film implies a small time skip between the two
scenes, but this is also important for establishing Godzilla as a living and
thinking creature in this film. And, yes, as far as I have heard, the
novelization includes a dinner scene between the fish and Godzilla appearing.
As far as what I can observe in the film, I see a Godzilla already using the
dark and tree obstructions to mask his approach, acting intelligently from the
very beginning. As this assault continues, you will notice that Godzilla spares
Shikishima and Tachibana, the only two who do not fire upon him. As for those
two, Tachibana orders the other men around intelligently, subverting Godzilla’s
advantage by shining a light on him and ordering retreat to the trenches,
eventually sending just Shikishima to his plane to fire the gun. The existence
of this trench seems to imply a less than cordial initial occupation of the
island, which the bombing holes in the runway might confirm, but there seems to
be at least a functional relationship between these mechanics and the natives.
A very quick throwaway
line reveals some of the Odo island mechanics have discussed Godzilla with the natives,
and this is frankly enough to get the point across but feels incomplete without
the context of how the Odo Island villagers acted and responded in the original
film in your head. There was debate there between the older, more conservative
villagers and the younger ones as well as a component of human sacrifice in
order to offset food shortages and satiate the beast (also likely a King Kong
reference). The movie stands on its own merits, but it is better for the
audience if you have the context for at least 1954’s film and probably Godzilla
vs King Ghidorah 1991 where the imagery of a pre-nuke dinosaur form for
Godzilla attacking WW2 soldiers on an island originated. In terms of how this
film references and celebrates the previous films in the franchise, it
oscillates between elevating the concepts, just reproducing them and merely
alluding to them, which is a caveat I will put on the overall use of references
and fanservice.
Shikishima is unable to
stop himself from shaking to fire on Godzilla, so the mechanics do so instead,
even trying to lure Godzilla back to Koichi after he wanders to the trench.
Every person that fires on Godzilla (be it a beam of light or actual firearm)
dies by Godzilla’s hand (or teeth or tail), and it is interesting he stopped
just short of killing Tachibana and Shikishima too. It is equally interesting
but far less important to the portrayal of Godzilla that he also already has
fresh scars from something in his CGI texture body in this scene. We only see
Godzilla in this film through the perspective of Shikishima, almost as this
demon embodying the personal wounds and regrets of this one kamikaze soldier,
but Godzilla is his own creature and agent, and the ambiguity about Godzilla’s
moral code, while less well defined than movies like the original film or the
Heisei series, is still present for us to speculate on and interpret. According
to Yamazaki in interviews and the novelization, Godzilla likely would have
survived Shikishima’s guns, but I prefer the ambiguity in this scene, as it
exists in the movie.
Shikishima awakes, and
Tachibana is furious that Shikishima survived because, from Tachibana’s
perspective, it was Koichi’s cowardice that killed the men. Once the war ends,
Shikishima and Tachibana return home. The facial hair on Shikishima on the boat
shows that time has passed (specifically 6 months), and, for whatever reason
(maybe it’s the angle), Tachibana has never looked like the same person as he
does in the rest of the movie in this scene to me, but the signature limp
confirms that it is Tachibana giving a mysterious sleeve of pictures to
Shikishima (though it is revealed later, these are the pictures of the fallen
Odo Island mechanics and their families that will haunt Koichi in tandem with
dreams of Godzilla). I do wonder why Tachibana never gave him these sooner, but
it really affects nothing in the larger cause and effect except that the
imagery of this discovery on the boat of surviving soldiers is more cinematic.
(Also, as I alluded to, the mechanics disobeyed orders from Tachibana, so he
was probably using the images to shame himself until his hatred for Shikishima
festered into an acceptable target.)
Act One
Upon returning to his
hometown, Koichi finds that it is in ruins, his parents are dead, and his
neighbor Sumiko has lost her children. The soundtrack for these last two scenes
is a vaguely metallic shrieking in the background, which I am only mentioning
now because, while of minor importance, the original tracks in this movie,
while effective sound effects to supplement the emotion, don’t really sound like
songs, and that is one my main criticisms of the movie minor as it is. In any
case, Sumiko is shocked to see Koichi alive, and the actress’ acting clearly
shows the moment she realizes the shameful act he has done in fleeing service.
She ultimately hits him and blames his disgrace for the circumstances around
them (though she acknowledges it was more soldiers than just Shikishima that
made that choice.) He asks about his parents, and she explains they died in the
air raids along with her children. Consider the similarity in Sumiko and
Tachibana’s responses to Koichi’s survival, the shame and disgust that he
survived while everybody else died and specifically that Shikishima did not do
his duty. The fantastical Godzilla episode subtextually matches the mundane
stakes of his decision to go to Odo in the first place.
Some time later,
Shikishima is eating food in a black market when Noriko runs through, chased
for being a thief, and she passes off the bundle in her arms to him,
incidentally the baby Akiko. After a conversation between them that leads back
to what remains of Shikishima’s house, one of Noriko’s first impressions of
Koichi is that he is cognizant they are all just trying to survive and that he
will not judge her for anything she does to that end. Once Noriko and Akiko
settle in and fall asleep, Shikishima is unable to bring himself to remove
them. I lump this first 20 minutes together as the character establishing
scenes for Shikishima because, even though his unwillingness to die was his
first introduction to us, and the Odo Island massacre was the inciting
incident, the refusal of Shikishima to leave the baby behind or to leave Noriko
unprotected even amidst confusion about why he is helping them, clarifies the
stakes and themes of this movie about his found family and rebuilding Japan
with people that care. I should mention that Akiko is not Noriko’s biological
child, so all three of this new family (four if you include eventual Auntie
Sumiko) have lost family in the war from differing perspectives, and each
person was vulnerable, so even though the kamikaze appointment means that only
Shikishima was “supposed to die,” we root for all of their survival
together.
For implementation of
this theme, Noriko tells Shikishima that everyone that survived was meant to
later in the film (the antitheme being Shikishima thinking the dead soldiers
are asking him why he's still alive). Even Sumiko who blames and hates
Shikishima for his dishonorable living cannot stop herself from sympathizing
with this family to help them survive, and when she later pledges to take a
greater role in raising Akiko, she happily reflects on the children that she
raised before instead of their deaths. Skipping ahead for one brief moment,
that is also why from a storytelling standpoint, Tachibana overcomes his hatred
for Shikishima to repair the Shinden’s ejector seat and give him a chance to
live. A version of this story where Tachibana did not do that or Shikishima
chose not to live would undermine the themes of reconstruction. This movie is
brilliant for now not only its strong themes but how those themes build and
enhance the characters, stakes and plot, because it all feels natural the way
it plays out, but I have the rest of the review to prove that point so let us
get back into the plot.
Sumiko asks Shikishima
about Noriko and Akiko, verbally attacking him but ultimately offering her help
anyway once she learns that Noriko is not the biological mother of Akiko and
thus cannot breastfeed her. Sumiko gives up her prized rice so that the baby
can eat gruel and murmurs about it on the way out of Shikishima’s house. Then,
the film jumps to March 1946 in the rain.
The house is a little
more put together, and Noriko’s clothes are a little less ratty, but the living
conditions are still not great with bowls catching rainwater seeping through
the ceiling, mismatched wall tiles and broken glass as well as stains and holes
in their clothes. They allude to a previous scam job, as Shikishima’s new job
offer to improve their living conditions seems too good to be true. This job is
ultimately to be on a specially made (crappy wooden) boat the Shinsei Maru as
gunner to destroy the remaining naval mines with characters Dr. Kenji Noda,
“Captain” Akitsu, and Mizushima, who they call Kid. Shikishima tells Noriko
that he is not doing this just to die and that there is hope of survival,
unlike the war.
Shikishima’s coworkers
have a witty rapport, as Akitsu asks practical questions about Shikishima as
their sharpshooter, Mizushima is impressed that Shikishima saw action in the
war, and Noda exposits that the wooden boat is good for the job because it will
not set off the magnetic mines. Akitsu explains their job tasks, and it is not
“As You Know” dialogue because the exposition benefits Shikishima as well as
us. Shikishima proves very adept at shooting the mines, and Mizushima
accidentally offends Shikishima by saying he wished the war would have gone on
sooner so he could have joined too. It is worth mentioning that the Shinsei
Maru also has a sister ship to help called the Kaishen Maru.
Next comes Shikishima’s
nightmare reliving the Odo Island massacre from a slightly different
perspective of a head on shot with Godzilla. Noriko’s dialogue indicates this
is not the first time Koichi has had nightmares recently, but he is
sufficiently rattled that he confides he cannot tell between reality and
dreams, wondering if his life with Noriko is a dying dream or possibly
purgatory. He reaches out to feel her just to be able to ground himself, and
she pushes him off, jolting him out of it. The imagery here somewhat resembles
sexual assault, but the novelization clarifies that Shikishima, when he puts
his head near her chest, is trying to feel her heartbeat, and her heartbeat is
what helps snap him back to reality. When she pushed him off, all of the
pictures of the fallen soldiers fell out, and seeing them makes him start
shaking and crying.
The film jumps to July
of 1946 for the Bikini Atoll Operation Crossroads nuclear test that, for the
first time in franchise history, we see mutate Godzilla…very briefly, and then
we’re into a montage of Noriko raising Akiko, Shikishima bonding with his
coworkers, and their house improving. The montage serves a very mechanical
purpose to progress the rebuilding of Japan and age up Akiko before Godzilla
attacks, but it also contributes more specific details into the overall setup
and payoff of the film than it needed to. This is where Shikishima picks up his
motorcycle and leather jacket he will wear throughout the film, Akiko learns to
draw (that will be important for the end of the movie), and then it ends on the
dinner scene that brings Shikishima’s work and home lives together but also
contributes the photo of Noriko that will be so important to the climax. It is
not strictly necessary to show us exactly when the picture of Noriko that
Shikishima keeps is taken or that Akiko has started drawing because these are
assumptions we could make, but the film consistently has this attention to
detail that I admire a lot. During the montage, a few simple chords repeat, and
it is a more memorable song than most of the original tracks before and after
this, but with the first real track that has a melody happening 25 minutes in,
I feel like I can still criticize the soundtrack
Akitsu politely comments
on the improved house, and Noriko serves Noda a drink refill at which point he
snaps the aforementioned picture. Akistu and Noda banter about hitting on
Noriko, the married woman, and she surprises them by declaring she is not
Shikishima’s wife. Koichi explains the family situation but harshly corrects
Akiko when she calls him her father. Mizushima tries to lighten the mood, but
Shikishima says he does not necessarily want this as his family, that it just
happened to him. Something to notice in the background is that Akitsu,
evidently playing an Uncle role, has Akiko sitting on his lap.
Finally, it is March
1947, and within their improved rebuilt house, Noriko unveils a new suit with
her hair tied up nicely, as she has gotten a job in the rebuilt Ginza. She
explains that he will never find a wife if she is always around and that this
is not sudden for her as it seems for Shikishima. When Shikishima asks who will
watch Akiko, Noriko says that Sumiko was quite happy to volunteer, boasting that
she has raised three children before. As we know, those children died, and this
is growth from Sumiko to move forward as Auntie to this rebuilt found family,
which we saw the groundwork for and will also see her in the role of a little
later on. And that brings us to the circumstances that lead to the first ocean
battle against Godzilla…
….As this is a long
review paced to come out over the course of this week, I will stop here
temporarily. Over the coming days, you can watch the review come out on the
blog here, and the full video will release this Friday. So, stay tuned for the
ocean battle against Godzilla into act 2 of the film in a couple days and a third
part finishing the film with some conclusions a couple days after that.
Consequently, that makes
this week quite kaiju heavy, but we have a vast catalog of other cult materials
you can interact with on this blog. If you do like the kaiju stuff but would
prefer other subjects than Minus One, these links below may help to tide you
over.
Blog posts
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-nuanced-deconstruction-of-godzilla-x.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/part-two-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/part-three-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla-ii-strengths.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/part-two-godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla-ii.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/part-three-godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla-ii.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/12/how-i-came-to-love-godzilla-vs.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/03/introduction-to-jun-fukuda-plan9crunch.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/03/march-godzilla-film-releases-ranked-jun.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2014/03/godzilla-is-on-this-authors-mind.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2021/12/godzilla-2000-review.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2010/02/godzilla-versus-monster-zero.html
Kaiju Playlist on Plan9Crunch YouTube link:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzpsBkJrfDIEBg2cFH6uobJXIPocsfuWs&si=Kl1yE3m8eRvU_YP5
