Stories about monsters are amongst the common tales in Japanese folklore and culture, but what happens when one of these stories hits the big screen? Over seventy years of one franchise all built around one monster, Godzilla. I doubt there are still people over the age of five who don’t know about Godzilla, Not only is he “The King Of The Monsters” he has also had many different pop culture references and appearances outside of his own work.
The thing is though, Godzilla’s name wouldn’t be as big if it wasn’t for America.
I want you to picture this, it’s the 1950’s and the whole world is recovering from six years of the infamous second World War, notably the United States of America, but ever since their involvement in the war kicked off by Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, tensions between the Japanese and American people were at an all time high. This would eventually lead to the monumental bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now after the two literal suns we’re dropped you’d think that America would realize how dangerous they are and stop producing them right? Answer is sadly no, they would continue to test these weapons of mass destruction all the way until 1992. What is most dangerous about this is that they were testing in the pacific ocean which is the ocean in between the USA and Japan. The Japanese clearly we’re not too pleased with this testing and would try to put a stop to it by means of government, but these attempts would fall right on their face.
Ishiro Honda was a filmmaker raised in Asahi, Yamagata and would go on to be a filmmaker for five decades, one day Honda would stumble across a ship. This ship is known as the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, it was a tuna fishing boat that sailed around the Bikini Atoll March 1, 1954. If you know your history then you would know that the Bikini Atoll was one of the most popular testing sites for nukes, and with this the Daigo Fukuryu Maru and the crew of 23 aboard would be contaminated by the radiation from the nuclear tests. Their skin was burning and peeling and almost the appearance of spines piercing out of them, but what really caught Honda’s eye was the boat itself. It had these massive black spots caused by the radiation and when you got close you could almost say the boat had scales like a lizard.
Feeling inspired Honda would quickly get to work on a pitch for a film, but wait he didn’t want to just tell a message to a group of people who already knew the dangers of nuclear testing. He wanted to go higher and truly push this movie to be released in American theaters, there’s a slight issue in the fact that how could he truly get his message across? Sure he could just make a film about the crew getting infected, but would that truly get the message across? Taking from what he saw at the ship he figured out the perfect idea on what he truly needed.
A monster, it was the perfect plan. It’s just that it couldn’t be a common monster, it had to be something more natural and more vengeful to where you had to ask yourself “Does it know what it’s doing?” Thinking back to the boat once again it appeared to have these lizard-like scales. Taking all these ideas he and fellow filmmakers/designers Teizo Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe finally crafted the perfect monster, Godzilla.
Initially the film would wide release in Japan on November 3rd, 1954 to mixed reviews, but was a massive box office hit making about 346 million yen which is about 2.25 million US dollars. While all was going well in the homeland for Godzilla, what about the main demographic America? It would take Godzilla two years to finally make it into American theaters and after a ton of international laws and tensions Honda would finally get his wish. Only issue within the situation was the movie had to be heavily edited for American audiences and guidelines, although it wasn’t the original project through and through the mission was accomplished.
Godzilla! King Of The Monsters! (1956) would hit theaters on April 27, 1956 to a box office hit similar to its original Japanese version of two million dollars. It was hot news for the time, allowing a Japanese film to be released especially after the events of World War 2 would create a buzz in the U.S.
Although audiences who actually watched the movie gave it high praise and understood the message, this would lead to more people wanting more Godzilla and more Kaijus. This would eventually lead to more Japanese products and media landing in America, things like Anime, Ramen, Japanese Vehicles, etc.
It can be said that Godzilla’s message is not only important to Japanese culture but it is a relevant part of Japanese media/products being implemented into America itself.
