Just the Ticket #232: Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla
a.k.a. The Ticketmaster.
August is looking like a high-traffic month, as we're just past the halfway point and Just the Ticket is already over ten thousand views, making it the fourth month in a row to do so. And speaking of things happening four times in a row, today's Goj-Year-ra entry is the fourth continuity reboot of the Millennium Era.
However, it does something rare and compelling that pretty much none of the reboots have before it when faced with an elastic timeline: instead of treating the gap since Godzilla's first attack as "Godzilla hasn't appeared in x amount of years, but we know he will, so we've been building weapons this whole time" (that end up not working because of thick skin, regeneration, internal body temperature, Godzilla being a ghost, or any number of other reasons) "just in case," or having Godzilla appear suddenly and sporadically as a solitary threat to drive human desperation and bad choices that make things worse (like in Godzilla vs Megaguirus), or mentioning other kaiju appearances without naming or showing them (like with GMK), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla weaves the appearances of other kaiju into the history and development of the JSDF (later the JXSDF, with the X standing for Xenomorph, so there's another movie crossover that would be cool to see...) and the AMF (the Anti-Megalosaur Force, who will have 4,072 members for exactly as long as the screen tells us that, because Godzilla can subtract), actually showing us the organization dealing with 1961 Mothra and "Bigfoot Gaira" from War Of the Gargantuas (suggesting that Frankenstein vs Baragon also happened in this timeline). There are other nods to where this movie's world is going that I will touch on as the review progresses, but something as simple as showing flashback footage during narrexposiation really made me feel like the fictional world being presented was rich and sensible (relative to a Godzilla movie, but you know what I mean...).
In 1999, AMF Maser gunner Akane Yashiro (Yumiko Shaku, who voiced Joanna in Perfect Dark: Zero) panicks during a Godzilla attack, causing the deaths of her colleagues (one played by Olympic gymnast Shinji Morisue). After three and a half years as a military librarian (during which time she montages her way into being swole for active duty as well), Akane is approached by the leader of the Kiryu Squadron (Kô Takasugi, of the Tax G-Men TV film series) to pilot their Mechagodzilla (referred to mostly as Kiryu, a portmanteau meaning "machine dragon" that could also be written as "air dragon," "breath dragon," or "soul dragon," which is really clever foreshadowing, and the suit is worn by Hirofumi Ishigaki, who had been suit-acting in tokusatsu TV since the 80s and began serving as an action director for Super Sentai the year this movie released). Literally and metaphorically haunted by her past, as most of Kiryu Squadron (particularly Kamen Rider's Yūsuke Tomoi as Hayama, whose older brother died in the 1999 attack) don't trust her with their lives, Akane aims to prove herself against the monster who killed her comrades and ultimately learns the importance of life and the strength of the heart. I've heard her be compared to Tsujimori as motivations go, but that seems like a misunderstanding of both characters because Akane is not driven exclusively by grief and revenge, but also by pride and a need to belong, despite her claim that she is "someone who should not exist." Tsujimori is Godzilla Must Die: The Person. Akane is both not that and so much more (and attractive, to boot).
Which brings us to her three partners in the story: Kiryu themselves, their creator Tokumitsu Yuhara (Shin Takuma, Return Of Godzilla), and Tokumitsu's daughter Sara (Kana Onodera, in her only known acting credit).
Consensus seems to be that Kiryu is the best Mechagodzilla in terms of design, story, and effectiveness. And although the original's "fake Godzilla" reveal is among my favorite narrative moments in the franchise, I otherwise agree. The idea of Kiryu takes that "robot wearing a skin of Godzilla" concept and inverts it, using the skeleton of the 1954 Godzilla as the chassis for the Mechagodzilla shell (which is armed with shoulder- and wrist-mounted missile launchers, a Maser breath cannon, and an absolute zero cannon embedded in its chest) and an operating system that executes Godzilla's genome as DNA computer code (so there comes a point where the DNA, if not the soul, of the first Godzilla takes over Kiryu and it goes on a rampage until its battery drains like Serpentera from Power Rangers). In the finale, the spiritual aspect becomes more clear as Akane is forced to pilot Kiryu manually like a Zord, bonding with it through the power of will and kinship, and putting herself on the Mount Rushmore of badass Godzilla characters in perhaps the best final fight setpiece in franchise history, aided by a nigh-seamless blend of suitmation and CGI, peak choreography, and an emotional roller-coaster of visual and performative storytelling. Kiryu is amazing, everything surrounding it is amazing (including the trilobite prototype hinting that, had the Millennium Era been more consistently profitable, we might have seen a version of Destoroyah in this timeline), and if not for the twenty-plus episodes of One Piece I have to watch by Monday, I'd say I can't wait to see how the sequel unfolds.
As for the Yuhara family, Tokumitsu is the creator of Kiryu's DNA computer OS and the biological endosketon cyborg process, and his chief character traits are single father, scientist, and unfiltered simp (the latter of which is gross because he's almost thirty years older than Akane, who may or may not also carry the souls of his dead wife and miscarried first child as part of that "I'm someone who should not exist" thing). For being the kid in the movie, Sara is the more influential and compelling character of the father/daughter dynamic. Living with survivor's guilt over the deaths of her older sibling and mother (both in childbirth), she carries around a Touch-Me-Not plant that she believes is possessed by the spirit of her mother (possible hint at an unrealized Biollante reboot?), and has derived a childish spirit of optimism from the darkness in her young life that proves crucial in how Akane interacts with Kiryu, Godzilla, and her Squadron-mates in the finale. I don't like the reveal that she's helping her father hook up with a woman who's young enough to be her older sister, but her impact on the story is otherwise greatly felt.
Speaking of references to possible Heisei Era reboots and big narrative implications, I love how dark the politics are in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. The Heisei Era films rarely addressed how disturbing it was that Japan had a UN-sanctioned military task force with a flying fortress with space-age weaponry, a series of giant robots, a school for psychic child soldiers, access to future technology, and a genetics division that created no less than two potentially world-ending threats on accident. But enter Prime Minister Igarashi (Akira Nakao, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II), successor to Machiko Tsugue (Kumi Mizuno, Invasion Of Astro-Monster and Ebirah, Horror Of the Deep), and the logistics of fighting Godzilla with a giant robot Godzilla become publicly unfavorable, to be simple and kind about it. Not only is the Kiryu project a financial drain as a tax-funded government expenditure (not to mention the entire country has to be blacked out to power the thing at one point in the finale), but should Kiryu succeed in destroying Godzilla, the Japanese government will have a beyond-military-grade kaiju cyborg weapon that it can use to subjugate its people or disrupt the global balance of power in its favor (so, is this a shifted version of the global superpower future from Godzilla vs King Ghidorah?). And though the story given the most importance is Akane's redemption and triumph (an ultimately optimistic character arc), this political subtext colors the movie's implications a very dark shade throughout without someone expositing the moral directly at the camera. Great job, team!
The pacing of the human plots can be a drag (especially when Tokumitsu and Akane are sharing awkward screentime), and the early kaiju action has that mid-Heisei Era, stop-and-start feel to it, but the franchise nods gave me food for thought, Akane and Kiryu were the peak of cool, and I enjoyed myself.
A-
Just ignore the uneven tense of that last paragraph, Ticketholders; I are smart and I knew what I am did. Next week, more Dressrosa, let The Game begin, and Tokyo sends an S.O.S. to the world. Stay Tuned and please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder (you haven't yet), leaving a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, helping out my ad revenue as you read because the government is using my taxes for evil, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.
21
Ticketmaster,
Out.
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