Criterion’s col­lec­tion of Showa-era Godzil­la films is a cin­e­mat­ic feast

In 1954 the Japan­ese crew of the Lucky Drag­on No 5 fish­ing boat were caught in the mis­cal­cu­lat­ed vicin­i­ty of Cas­tle Bra­vo, a hydro­gen bomb test con­duct­ed by the US at Biki­ni Atoll. The inci­dent com­pound­ed the nation­al trau­ma caused by the atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki, caus­ing the death of one crew mem­ber and gen­er­at­ing con­cern that Japan’s fish­ing indus­try was contaminated.

Respond­ing to the fears felt across Japan, Ishirō Honda’s 1954 film Godzil­la intro­duced the tit­u­lar kai­ju as a con­se­quence of mankind’s exper­i­ments with ther­monu­clear weapons. Thanks to com­pas­sion­ate sto­ry­telling and ground-break­ing spe­cial effects, Godzil­la became a pop cul­ture icon, going on to appear in over 35 fea­ture film and var­i­ous oth­er media.

Across 15 films in stu­dio Toho’s ​‘Showa-era’, Godzil­la came to embody the roles of antag­o­nist, anti-hero and anthro­po­mor­phic super­hero. Giv­en the his­tor­i­cal­ly ardu­ous process of offi­cial­ly obtain­ing many of these films in the UK, the emer­gence of the Cri­te­ri­on Collection’s Godzil­la: The Showa-era Films 1954 – 1975 feels long over­due. Cov­er­ing two decades’ worth of films, the boxset reveals not only how the stu­dio devel­oped game-chang­ing prac­ti­cal effects, but how they con­sis­tent­ly refined their tech­niques in accor­dance with chang­ing audi­ence inter­ests, con­cerns and trends. Most per­ti­nent­ly, these films still chime with con­tem­po­rary con­cerns, exem­pli­fy­ing the alle­gor­i­cal pow­er of mon­ster movies.

For exam­ple, the appear­ance of Moth­ra pro­vides a pow­er­ful les­son in the exploita­tion of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. When the moth-like kai­ju​’s egg wash­es ashore in Japan and is swift­ly sold to busi­ness­men as a tourist attrac­tion in 1964’s Moth­ra vs Godzil­la, its Shobi­jin fairies are unable to nego­ti­ate its return, and while Moth­ra sleeps in 1966’s Ebi­rah, Hor­ror of the Deep, its Infant Island inhab­i­tants are kid­napped by an evil cor­po­ra­tion who exploit their native resources to fend off the film’s crus­tacean villain.

The fran­chise reg­u­lar­ly mus­es on the Space Race of the ​’60s in the likes of Ghi­do­rah, the Three-Head­ed Mon­ster from 1964 and Inva­sion of the Astro-Mon­ster from 1965, incor­po­rat­ing astro­nauts, space mon­sters and alien sabo­teurs while Godzil­la is repo­si­tioned as an anti-hero. In 1968’s Destroy All Mon­sters, a group of astro­nauts become the cen­tral enablers of vic­to­ry when aliens seize con­trol of Earth’s domes­ti­cat­ed kai­ju.

Unpre­dictable weath­er con­di­tions back­drop 1967’s sur­pris­ing­ly lack­lus­tre Son of Godzil­la, intro­duc­ing cli­mate change con­cerns that would lat­er define the for­mi­da­ble foe in 1971’s Godzil­la vs Hedo­rah: an alien life­form mul­ti­plied by the world’s indus­tri­al waste. Fea­tur­ing some of the scari­est imagery in the series – a fish tank engulfed by sludge, a child drown­ing in indus­tri­al waste, peo­ple dis­solv­ing – Godzil­la vs Hedo­rah is one of the more divi­sive films in the series, per­haps due to its inclu­sion of psy­che­del­ic rock inter­ludes and info­graph­ic-like ani­ma­tions aimed at chil­dren. Yet it is one of the most time­ly entries, per­fect­ly bal­anc­ing its adult and ado­les­cent protagonists.

Before that, 1969’s All Mon­sters Attack adapts pre-exis­tent footage from Son of Godzil­la into a nar­ra­tive about Ichi­ro, a child who spends his time scav­eng­ing through dilap­i­dat­ed build­ings and dream­ing of a friend­ship with Godzilla’s son Minil­la. A played-down entry in the fran­chise, it’s one of sev­er­al explor­ing how chil­dren might respond to a world inhab­it­ed by mon­sters, includ­ing 1973’s Godzil­la vs Mega­lon, which cap­tures the pop­u­lar­i­ty of robots amid young­sters at the time and intro­duces the sen­tient cyborg Jet Jaguar who teams up with Godzil­la to fight Mega­lon and the pre­vi­ous film’s antag­o­nist, Gigan.

Guid­ing the series back into dark­er ter­ri­to­ry, and like­ly to res­onate with those dis­mayed by today’s post-truth pol­i­tics, 1974’s Godzil­la vs Mechagodzil­la intro­duces the mech­a­nised dop­pel­gänger of Godzil­la, who attempts to dis­man­tle the pub­lic image of the reformed kai­ju. Hon­da returned to direct its fol­low-up, Ter­ror of Mechagodzil­la, the next year, clos­ing out the Showa-era with a trag­ic romance-inject­ed plot that best demon­strates the iden­ti­fi­able role that humans play in so many of the Godzil­la nar­ra­tives. It’s a com­po­nent of the series that is con­stant­ly adapt­ed, giv­ing us a var­ied line-up of sci­en­tists, reporters, roman­tics, mis­fits, anti-heroes and chil­dren as moral compasses.

Vari­ance and refine­ment are pre­cise­ly what define these Godzil­la films. The spe­cial effects work real­ly hits its stride around Ghi­do­rah, The Three-Head­ed Mon­ster before step­ping into pyro­ma­ni­a­cal ter­ri­to­ry with Godzil­la vs Gigan. The sup­ple­men­tary 1986 doc­u­men­tary Toho Unused Spe­cial Effects Com­plete Col­lec­tion is a must-watch, high­light­ing the unfor­tu­nate rel­e­ga­tion of oth­er kai­ju at the hands of the inher­it­ed West­ern­ised, Godzil­la-cen­tric pred­i­ca­tion of Toho’s output.

Much of the all-star team seen in Destroy All Mon­sters appeared in absen­tia in Toho films first, which will like­ly be a sore point for those who have their per­son­al favourites from the 11-fold gang which con­tributes to one of the best brawls in the col­lec­tion, or those sim­ply wish­ing to see the spe­cial effects in the studio’s kai­ju films devel­op across one chrono­log­i­cal sitting.

That said, this col­lec­tion is a whole­some and var­ied cin­e­mat­ic feast. Com­prised of essays on each film and new­ly com­mis­sioned illus­tra­tions, the boxset comes in an appro­pri­ate­ly large book for­mat capa­ble of dev­as­tat­ing the order of any OCD-rid­den collector’s shelves, much like Godzilla’s occa­sion­al­ly for­giv­able clum­si­ness. Here’s hop­ing this release sparks wider inter­est in Toho pro­duc­tions; as with many of the sub­se­quent and adja­cent kai­ju films, the studio’s war films and Honda’s ear­li­er works are equal­ly deserv­ing of attention.