less than zero

thoughts on 'Godzilla: Minus Zero' and the death of an anti-war titan under capitalism

“Is your war over?”

This is the last line of Godzilla: Minus One. It’s spoken by Noriko — one of two leading women — to her loving not-husband, AWOL kamikaze pilot Koichi. She says this heavily bandaged and battered from a blast of Godzilla’s radioactive breath. It comes after a movie of her cooking, cleaning, and caring for him out of the goodness of her heart. He doesn’t do anything for her, mind you — doesn’t further her situation beyond taking her in and putting a roof over her head. Koichi has a whole arc independent of her, using her labor and kindness to self-flagellate himself into being a “noble” and “just” soldier in the war against Godzilla. All in her name. For her honor. And then — at the end of the film — Noriko sits in a hospital bed as Koichi sobs in joy.

This sequence is one of the most dishonest and ugly moments in a Godzilla film. Opportunistic to a fault, it sits at the tail end of an entire movie reveling — with childish glee — at the prospect of a demilitarized Japan coming together to defeat a common enemy. Of being abandoned by America and left to their own devices with their own artillery. Of having the right kind of soldier, the right kind of battleship. Minus One indulges in the fantasy of earnest, well-meaning Japanese Imperial Army officers pulling themselves and their country up by their bootstraps in uncertain times. It’s loaded with common military otaku fair — planes, boats, tanks, you know the drill.

But instead of tangible miniatures, real things that can be built and destroyed, we’re treated to fetishistic video game-esque renders of these hyperfixations. Because that’s all they are here — hyperfixations. Computer animation is of dubious artistic distinction when cinema is concerned to begin with, but when used this excessively to render real things, it loses weight, texture, feeling. Here, we’re meant to think these things look cool squaring off against Godzilla after several hundred hours in a program. Not on a miniature, a suit, a replica — a computer program. All in service of making us think that Japan’s military had some cool ships. Shades of Pearl Harbor, in a dark twist of irony.

Then it has the audacity — after letting us believe she was dead for much of the back half — to trot Noriko out for this cheap moment after this two-hour barrage of utter drivel. It’s unearned, and sold with all the hollow melodrama of a cancelled soap opera. On one level, it’s meant to curb Koichi’s death drive — he yearns for a kamikaze blaze of glory for much of the film. But on another, it’s meant to cap off the entire film — to turn the camera back at the audience and say, “see, we’re the baddies for enjoying this all!” That is, until a quick zoom on her neck reveals a throbbing radioactive vein on her neck — a cliffhanger of some sort.

(It does not resemble real-world radiation poisoning by any measure.)

Remember, folks: Godzilla is a cinematic universe now. That means lore, teasers, cliffhangers, false starts, half-sequels. You know — all the things that made the MCU buckle under its own weight despite the best intents of certain creatives. And what better way to kick off a cinematic universe than by — after crudely remaking sequences from the original film in CG — using radiation poisoning as the starting point for a follow-up? Exciting times ahead for the series, to be sure.

This ugly moment points to one of Minus One’s many faults. Noriko is a character defined by her drive to raise a child and be a wife. Koichi’s next-door neighbor, Sumiko, is also largely characterized by her nurturing and maternal traits. In a series that’s been home to female reporters, scientists, mech pilots (!), and fairy demi-goddesses, it’s a smack in the face to Noriko and Sumiko’s development that this is all they get. While this could — at the least — be an interesting chance to examine the gendered expectations of wartime, Minus One doesn’t have the chops of a Honda or Sekizawa. Where those creators actually pushed boundaries and opened doors for actresses in mainstream Japanese cinema, this crew concocts new ways to exploit shared transgenerational trauma for one-note supporting roles.

But let’s unpack this further. ‘Noriko’ roughly translates to ‘law’, ‘order’; Sumiko is ‘pure’, ‘unmixed,’ ‘genuine’; and Akiko (the baby girl) is ‘golden child’ or ‘Autumn child.’ These are three feminine names ended with the diminuitive feminine ‘ko,’ all ascribed to aspirational traits that are literally embodied by the characters. Noriko brings order to the traumatized Koichi’s life, while Sumiko offers a ‘pure’ and ‘genuine’ support to Akiko. They are three hegemonic generations of idealized Japanese woman, which is hilarious when you stop to consider Sakura Ando is just fourteen years older than Minami Hamabe. The idea that she’s an ‘older’ woman by comparison — conveyed by make-up and posture — trades in sheltered otaku conceptions of how women age. (Or in Hollywood’s. Take your pick.)

This is obvious and hokey naming in some respects, but sinister in another light. Taking care of a family, raising children, holding down a clean fort — these are traits Minus One champion as valuable and worthwhile femininity. That’s it. They have no real history, drive, reason for being outside of children. No interests, no passions — nothing. Women are treated as vessels and vectors for masculine grief to an almost comical degree. Almost.

It’s neo-traditionalist nonsense concocted by a dyed in the wool company man. Takashi Yamazaki’s previous credits are fleshed out by big-name children’s IP, dry historical drama, and theme park rides. All account for not only the simplistic writing, but the smack of naive, childish jingoism that permeates the picture. Of course this is the Godzilla movie directed by somone who helmed a picture about the construction of the Yamato. Shin Godzilla brought real-world bureaucracy into the narrative to make salient points about the importance of checks and balances. Minus One, meanwhile, paints the military as scrappy do-gooders and well-intentioned researchers. This is driven home by a particularly treacly monologue from Noriko, who asserts that anyone who survived the war lived for a reason. That every person who came home from war — every soldier, every researcher, every pilot — deserves to live. When this sentiment is read in context of folks like Nobusuke Kishi or Shiro Ishii, the intent begins to feel more than a little loaded. One can’t but wonder if folks in Northeast China — Manchuria — feel the same.

All this to say — Godzilla: Minus One is a failure on most ideological and narrative fronts. It’s an intellectual kiddie pool, an IV drip of CG kaiju silliness for mainstream Japanese moviegoers and more easily entertained American fans alike. In fact, the film feels tailormade for this type of international consumption — the ultimate promise of pop culture as “soft power” in the wake of Cool Japan. Stylistically and thematically, it borrows elements from the Legendary pictures (yes, really) to serve as familiar calling cards for American audiences. There’s some of the military family narrative of 2014, a bit of the mis-matched parent dynamics of King of Monsters, and visual effects ‘borrowed’ from all three ‘MonsterVerse’ installments. This is, perhaps, the biggest sign of franchise rot to date. Toho has whipped up apolitical rice gruel for people who want to look at big lizards and not ask big questions.

Perhaps most egregious is how heavy Roland Emmerich’s 1998 spin-off weighs on the effects. Godzilla is all-CG here, which makes her virtually no different from what Emmerich and effects wizard Patrick Tautopoulos cooked up two decades ago. Visual effects teams at Toho must have realized that, as they liberally pilfer key sequences from the film throughout. Key shots of Godzilla’s foot slamming down, slow approaches on people stranded on the street, fast and aggressive chomps — these are all things Emmerich’s picture did, and did better. Further, it even did those things in a film with a complex leading female character and overt anti-military messaging. And that’s the ‘bad one’!

Is there anything worthwhile in Godzilla: Minus One? Not really. I could point to a few key sequences that made me smirk, or talk about how I’m a big fan of this new Zilla design. Maybe I could even point to key parts of the original film they nod back to. But what’s the point? Minus One is the kind of liquified brain candy that’s led to Barbie at the box office. Weening audiences on drip feeds of recognizable imagery until they’re done with that brand for the decade. But it hurts worse, I think, because Godzilla has always been better than that. Even its lesser entries trade in overt anti-war messaging, round their casts out with fleshed-out characters, and bring a certain level of craftwork to the table.

Now Godzilla is unidentifiable from the faff Hollywood has been cooking up before superheroes took off. A tapestry of scrap left over from the era’s showstoppers, like Independence Day and Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Originality? Style? Substance? We don’t need those. We’ve got the jolly green paycheck right there in the title.

Render that lizard, put up that green screen — we’ve got theme park tickets to sell.

this week in mads

— hi I’m doing this section again to promote my DDR piece for Paste. it was a lot of fun to work on, and while I thought it would be my final piece, it turns out: I like writing about video games. so I’m going to keep those pitches going and keep the articles coming in 2024 along with fiction submissions. I’m a busy girl — and a bit self-involved. (All the best ones are.)

— there will be some year-end shenanigans here. right now, I’m doing another big comic research essay for y’all before my next Highlander write-up. after that, I’ve got two year-end lists coming to madshaus. these are all in different stages of half-done.

— I’ve been asked to do a ‘best games’ year-end list for a lovely friend’s site, along with some great folks in gaming. excited to be working on it! making it a little weird in the tradition of, say, a Colin Spacetwinks to keep things from feeling too hegemonic. you’ll see. you’ll all see!

— film production! it’s happening! like for real! I can’t really talk about it! but wow, we’ve got some absolutely unhinged stuff in store for you over this next year or two. until next time!