Here is a translation of the newest article Ranko wrote for Daily Bibibi. This time, she talks about Godzilla!
Hello, Daily Bibibi readers. My name is Ranko, and I’m the vocalist of BUTAOTOME.
This is a series of articles in which I introduce things I like in the way I like them.
If you read my last article, thank you very much!
Let’s continue with this series. I hope you’ll stay with me.
The theme of my second article is “Godzilla”.
Do you all know Godzilla?
When the movie “Shin Godzilla” was released, many people who had never heard of Godzilla or had no interest in it before went to see it.
It had been a long time since I had been exposed to the culture of Godzilla. It was so much fun! I went to see it five times. One of which was a voice-activated screening, and when the unmanned train bombs were hitting Godzilla, I shouted out my favorite train line. “Keihin Tohoku Line!”
When I was little, I loved Kitaro, Godzilla, and one other thing (I’m planning to write about that other thing in the future). I have looked back on Kitaro from time to time in my life, but I have never done so for Godzilla.
That’s because of this character…, let’s call him this angry guy, it’s his fault.
He was so scary in my memories, but this figure is so cool.
This guy is called “Destoroyah” and he was Godzilla’s enemy in “Godzilla vs Destoroyah” released in 1995. The tagline for this movie is “Godzilla dies”. It’s very easy to understand what this movie is about. Yes, Godzilla is gonna die.
I don’t remember much about the past, but I do remember that I went to the cinema with my family and cried a lot. It’s hard for me to remember why, so I’ve kept the memory sealed for a long time.
So, in fact, why I liked Godzilla so much? To put it simply, I’m not even sure why. I’m not even particularly fond of dinosaurs or special effects…
In order to write this article, I thought that I should really face it …, so I decided to rewatch the movie (do I have to think about it so much?).
However, I couldn’t remember the flow of that one movie, so I decided to rewatch the entire series known as Heisei Godzilla. It has seven films that were produced between 1984 and 1995.
What I found out after watching them all at once was that “I love Godzilla”. No, seriously, there was no other way.
I love Godzilla for the concept of support, so I was sad if he was about to lose, and if he looked like he was in pain, I thought “stop it!”. It didn’t matter if the opponent was a monster or humans. Maybe I can’t relate to the human side… No, when I saw Shin Godzilla, I was like, “Humans, do your best!”. Because I was scared of Godzilla.
Yes, Godzilla in Shin Godzilla is very scary. But Godzilla in the Heisei series is very cute.
When I looked closely, I noticed that the face, body, and movements were completely different.
In addition, the Heisei series has a lot of close-ups of Godzilla’s face. It’s easy to see the differences in facial expressions.
Anyway, whenever Godzilla appeared, I became an otaku who watched over and cheered for their favorite.
“Godzilla vs Destoroyah” was a movie that had a lot of sadness in it, with Godzilla Junior getting hurt badly and Godzilla himself dying. It’s sad when your favorite dies.
But his death was caused by a meltdown in Godzilla’s body, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault, so apart from my emotions, I felt that it couldn’t be helped. I became an adult.
So, this was the story of how I became a fan of Godzilla.
I hope to see you next month.
