Godzilla: The Retroactive King

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Well folks, the new Godzilla movie is almost out, and I feel it's only appropriate we celebrate with an article about my favorite monster of all time. The king of the monsters, the big G, the bane of Tokyo himself; GODZILLA!


Godzilla has been a huge influence on my childhood. I can't even tell you how many pictures of the big guy I drew stomping cities, how many fansites I browsed back in the days of Geocities, or how I would always root for him against monsters like Mothra and King Ghidorah, regardless of whether or not Godzilla was playing the good guy. He, Windows 98 edutainment games. and dinosaurs were pretty much my whole childhood. Also emotionally abusive and extremely right-wing parents. FUN TIMES!

Truth be told, I was in a pretty small minority back in the 90s. Today things are different; Godzilla fans are proudly pronouncing their love for Godzilla on the internet, in public, and especially at anime conventions. Adding to that, more and more of the mainstream crowd are starting to become Godzilla fans themselves, not the least (in fact, very much because of) the American-made movies from Legendary and Warner Bros., and it seems that people are starting to realize just how awesome this big radioactive dinosaur is.

....but back in my time? Well....that's a very different story.


As James Rolfe (a.k.a. the Angry Video Game Nerd!) has pointed out in his review of the Godzilla video games, and I quote, "being a Godzilla fan in the late 80s and early 90s wasn't easy for an American". As a 90s kid obsessed with Godzilla myself, I definitely agree. In fact, "wasn't easy" is kind of an understatement, I'd say. It's actually kind of amazing I managed to get into Godzilla at all, given how little exposure he got. I don't even really recall how I got into the series in the first place, but America's refusal to sell any Japanese media to mainstream audiences outside of Nintendo properties and maybe DragonBall Z certainly didn't help.

I recall walking into a Toys R Us, back when they....you know, were still around. I distinctly remember seeing one wall dedicated to Godzilla toys. I was pretty ecstatic, needless to say! .....until I found out it was mostly military toys like those little green plastic soldiers and toy fighter jets. It's true that Godzilla movies have a lot of the army involved, but really? Where were my Mothra or Anguirus figures? What about my plush Godzilla I could hold in my arms while I sleep to spew nuclear fire on Boogeymen if they come snooping by? Don't leave me hanging here.

I did own a few Godzilla toys, granted....but not many. the only ones I remember owning were the Trendmasters figure seen above, which I actually borrowed from someone on a school bus. I also found an old Rodan figure in my grandmother's carport about a year ago from the same company, which I don't even remember having as a kid.


And of course, there's the matter of the movies themselves. Hoo boy. Did us 90s Godzilla fans get screwed over bad. Finding the movies on video was already pretty tough, at least for me. Hardly any Blockbuster or family-owned rental store had even one of the films. When they did, I made sure to snag that shit up as soon as I could. This isn't even getting into the fact that none of the Godzilla movies still being made in Japan wouldn't see an American release until at least 1998, if not later. The most I got was an occasional showing on television with frequent commercial breaks, and that's about it.

When people did acknowledge Godzilla was a thing, it wasn't often in a positive light. Cartoons on TV would often parody the big G, pointing out the "cheesy" nature of his films or the special effects....which honestly made me a lot angrier than it should have. I know I was just a dumb kid and all, but still; come on young me, lighten up a little! It's a good thing I didn't grow up in this decade, I would loathe to see how they actually, officially advertise Godzilla.


In tiny Chris's defense, though; commercials like the one above, and the internet memes today, really only seem to perpetuate how much of a respectable pop culture icon Godzilla is, in the same vein as the endless posts on Facebook and Twitter about "the snap" in the Avengers movies, or the love of the creature designs in the recently released Detective Pikachu movie.

Back then, however, Godzilla wasn't respected by anyone outside of his own fanbase. Even comic books and genre films like Star Wars had some degree of mainstream admiration that would eventually evolve into characters like Iron Man and Luke Skywalker becoming household names; but Godzilla? He's only now starting to get the genuine love from people outside of Japan he so badly deserved.



It's not as though my childish anger didn't have some degree of merit to it either; I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that the Showa-era Godzilla films had special effects that rival Jim Henson's Creature Workshop, or that the scene of Godzilla dancing in Monster Zero is a cinematic stroke of genius on par with the cinematography of Citizen Kane.....well actually, I will on that second one, but that's beside the point.



The thing many people outside of Japan fail to realize is just how hard it is to work in a rubber suit. It's hot as hell, heavy, and you have to wear it for a long time. Even being outside of the suit is hard work, given that you have to stay in shape to stand a chance of keeping the thing up. It's like wearing a rubbery, dinosaur-shaped suit of armor. And the dragon you're slaying has three heads and is from outer space.

I think that deserves at least a little bit of respect.


Perhaps the hardest part of all for a kid like me though, was the fact people straight up resented you for unironically loving something so "campy" and "stupid". It wasn't the only reason I got bullied, or even the main reason. I was (well, still am) fat, socially awkward, autistic, depressed, and easily triggered into frustrated sadness by people telling me my dog was dead. Regardless, my sincere adoration for Godzilla definitely didn't help the case. I remember being a pre-teen on some internet message board about Nintendo, and people making fun of my love for the big guy.

Not fun, needless to say.

People knocking other people for liking or disliking stuff they don't is still a thing on the internet, to be sure, but nowhere near as bad as it used to be. We're all starting to realize just how silly it is to get mad over differing opinions. Especially opinions regarding fire-breathing reptiles.


Oh yeah, and another hard part....having to deal with the god-awful 1998 movie from my native homeland. That's an article all on its own. Also not fun....although it did spawn a pretty good animated series.


Over the years, however, things have very much changed. It seems that, ever since the first Iron Man movie came to be, and The Avengers became a massive box office hit a few years later, people finally started to realize "Hey, you know....maybe silly and cool don't have to be mutually exclusive!" and because of that, we now live in a cinematic landscape where people fall in love with a talking wood monster from space, bawl their eyes out from sentient toys, and of course, cheer on a 400-foot tall dinosaur beating up giant butterflies and pterodactyls. This is only a good thing as far as I'm concerned.


This segues into the new and (vastly) improved American Godzilla. Toho and Warner Bros. teamed up to cash in on the "cinematic universe" craze that Avengers popularized, which definitely makes sense with Godzilla himself. He had a cinematic universe before it was cool!

The results of the first film in the so-called "Monsterverse" were....polarizing with audiences. Many criticized the lack of monster action until the last ten minutes, the waste of Bryan Cranston's character, the blandness of the other human characters, and the slow pace. I myself enjoyed the film for its flaws; I loved the atmosphere and sense of dread the movie had, and those last ten minutes? Damn! Even people who straight-up didn't like this movie admit that climax was to die for.

That being said though, even if I didn't like the movie in question, I'd still be glad it was made. It got people talking about Godzilla, even if it wasn't entirely positive. But this time, criticisms weren't made towards "rubber suits" or "being silly", it was genuine stuff. Lessons to be learned for the next film so that more people can appreciate Godzilla as much as I do, if not moreso.


A lot of people seem to hate when once obscure (relatively or otherwise) stuff they enjoy gets mainstream attention, and I totally get why. It's not fun seeing a show or game you admire harbor a shit-awful fanbase (Rick & Morty comes to mind for me). However, I'm far less a fan of the other extreme; when something I love either fades into obscurity and never recoups lost money, or, in my case, when people tease and mock you for it. 

Sure, Godzilla was a known property before the 2010s. A lot of people knew who he was, and he's always been crazy popular in his home of Japan, but it's only now that he's becoming the worldwide phenomenon that he is. I for one welcome Godzilla's entry into the pantheon of respected popular culture along with Star Wars, Marvel, and Pokemon. It's about damn time, I say. It makes me so happy that Godzilla is finally getting the respect the rightful king of the monsters deserves.


With all this being said though.....even if Godzilla was forever doomed to stay in the shadows of obscurity outside of Japan, even if we still lived in a culture that encouraged the verbal abuse of people outside the norm, I'd still love him to death. Godzilla is the perfect monster to me. He's an allegory for the horrors of nuclear war, yet he's also been a hero to children, he's been a conglomeration of J-horror ghosts from World War II, he's fought King Kong and is going for a rematch in the near future, he's played so many different roles yet still manages to keep one thing consistent; he's a giant, radioactive, fire-breathing dinosaur. What's not to love?

There's a lot of articles on Godzilla I want to do in the future, for now though; I just wanted to give you all a perspective on the influence Godzilla has had on my life and his evolution in popular culture. It's wonderful to see the king of monsters finally get some love over here in the states, and everywhere else in the world.

Here's to you Godzilla; you big, lumbering, nuclear lug.


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