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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of the Superhero Ethics podcast. Today and

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myself and Riki Hayashi are here to
talk to you about Godzilla Minus One,

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the Japanese film that's currently in theaters
that's taking the Godzilla franchise that we've talked

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about somewhat on this podcast already and
really doing some new, interesting things,

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going back to some of the original
story beats telling it in new ways.

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And Riki and I have had some
amazing conversations over the last year about Gojira,

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the Godzilla stories and character, but
I haven't gotten a chance to get

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him on the podcast. So I'm
really excited to have you on. And

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I wanted to say a quick note
before we jump in that if you're enjoying

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this podcast and you want more of
it, one of the best things to

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do is to become a member.
Only five dollars a month, are fifty

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five dollars a year. You get
ad free content, you get bonus content.

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So for example, today, Riki
and I, at the end of

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this we're going to talk about sort
of the Godzilla franchise as a whole,

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and also we're gonna start doing a
book club pretty soon. Definitely for Star

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Wars quite possibly for the Superhero Ethics
as well, at least once a month,

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and those those episodes will be for
members only, so please seriously think

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about becoming a member. All the
informations in the show notes it's only five

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dollars a month, or as I
said, fifty five dollars a year.

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But with that, Riki, let's
get started and let me just ask you,

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as someone who was born in Japan
grew up mostly in America but with

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a Japanese family, what is the
significance of the Goji rak character and the

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Godzilla franchise and movies for you even
before you saw this one? Yeah,

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Matthew, first off, thank you
so much for having me on to talk

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about this because of it, it
is just an amazing movie, an amazing

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franchise For me personally, I grew
up watching these movies and it's just I

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mean, it's the most successful movie
franchise to come out of Japan, right

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And in fact, it holds the
Guinness World Record for longest running movie franchise

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because it started in nineteen fifty four, so it's longer than James Bond,

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which is probably the second longest.
If I were to guess it sounds right

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right, And you know, in
terms of cultural exports from Japan, I

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think it's the most significant. You
could make arguments for some anime stuff,

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especially these days like Dragon Ball,
one Piece, Attack on Titan, but

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from like a longstanding historical perspective like
this is it and personally like I love

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it. I love Kaiju. You
know, monster movies and just growing up

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with them, they were great,
can't be fun movies to watch as a

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kid or as a young adult,
And same thing with the you know,

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we talk like we do the Star
Wars podcast and we talk about that and

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how it's affected our lives. And
now to see this franchise move in the

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direction that it's moving with the last
two movies Shane Gojidra and then this one

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minus one is truly amazing and heartwarming
for me as a fan. And it's

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great that I can continue to enjoy
the franchise as an adult and have it

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resonate with much more adult themes than
just like a monster destroying cities. Yeah,

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there's a couple of things I want
to talk about what you just said.

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First of all, just on the
cultural significance. You know, it's

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funny to think how much the Godzilla
name, which is funny, which isn't

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as you picked up, but just
kind of make clear. The word in

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Japanese is gojira. Godzilla is what
has been is the anglicization of it.

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But that then become the word that's
very well known in America and English speaking

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worlds, and that name, Like
we did an episode on the Star Wars,

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the Clone Wars episode called the Zilla
Beast, which is very clearly a

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Godzilla story. You know, think
about terms like bridezilla and groomzilla and like

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the zilla. You know, application
to all sorts of different things is very

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common in our community. That's all
out of these movies say signify like a

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monster the same way. Yeah,
we add a gate to the end of

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anything for like a political controversy exactly
exactly, and it's it's a monster,

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but it's also anything that's kind of
like just oversized and scary, you know,

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and that kind of thing. The
Bridezilla one has an awful lot of

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misogyny in it, to be clear, and I'm a very proud Groomzilla,

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but that's a whole other story.
But also what you said, it's funny

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to me because I'm sure there's some
stuff that's in the middle. But I

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feel like there's kind of two distinctly
different sets of Gojiro movies that are out

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there, and the one that is
most often known, I think by a

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lot of people. And there's a
funny story about Kevin Smith that I'll tell

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with this is the a guy in
a rubber suit smashing buildings, and a

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lot of those are a lot of
fun. Some of them have some real

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plot and some real interesting commentary on
you know, indigenous populations in the South

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Pacific, or on nuclear war,
or a lot of these things, but

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a lot of them it's just a
lot of fun watching these rubber monsters smash

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each other. And in at least
one setting, I believe it's Godzilla versus

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the Smog Monster, the name of
which I forget at the moment, but

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you get to see Godzilla look very
like passive, aggressive and condescending at the

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silly military as he has to go
after the smog Monster because they can't do

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it. Really fun, really silly, to the point I think those are

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dominant, to the point where Kevin
Smith in our recent podcast talked about how

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he doesn't want the human story in
these movies he just wants to see the

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monsters fighting. And I bring that
up because he has now recanted that and

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said after this particular movie, he's
like, oh, Okay, now I

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get it. And it's funny because
and we did a podcast about this that

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Riki was not able to be a
part of, but Paul and I did

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about the original Godzilla movie that the
Gojira, that came out in nineteen fifty

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four, very significantly the first year
after the American occupation ended, and it's

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really this heartrending story of and metaphor
of Japan coming to terms with the nuclear

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horror that they went through and the
war and America and all that, and

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it's this searing piece of social commentary
wrapped up in a monster movie, which,

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if you also look at things like
invasions of the body snatchers and stuff

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like that, horror and monster movies
were often in the fifties the place you

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could get away with that and get
around government censorship and all that kind of

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thing. And so yeah, I
love that, Like, yeah, the

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rubber monster movies are fun. But
with this and with shin Godzilla, it

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really feels like it's a return to
that older tradition of Yeah, the monster

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fights are fun, and the monster
in this movie is great, but let's

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really use this to dig into some
difficult ethical and moral questions about war and

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monsters and violence and nuclear power.
Yeah, to be clear, I mean

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this minus one is very political,
right, Like, the message is pretty

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clear. But for any fans out
there who are like, you know,

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why do they have to make Godzilla
political the same way they do with other

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franchises, That's silly. It's always
been political. The commentary has been written

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into the franchise since the very beginning. As you said, regarding the horrors

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of nuclear weapons, and I don't
know if you talked about this on the

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podcast. I apologize I haven't had
a chance to listen to it. But

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it's not just the atomic bombings.
It was very directly influenced by an atomic

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bomb test that the United States did
in the Pacific that the fallout affected a

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ship. Yeah, it was called
like the Lucky Dragon number five. I

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can't remember the Japanese name for the
ship, but yeah, you talked about

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that ship. Yeah, how I
mean, just to be very clear that

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the name of that ship is the
name of the ship that is the first

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damaged in the movie. Itself like
they were not pulling any punches. And

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it's the test at Bikini Atoll that
they're talking about, which is also the

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test mentioned in this movie. Yeah, and you mentioned the monster the smog

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Monster's hetera Godzilla versus heatera. That's
very clearly a nineteen eighties message about the

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dangers of pollution, air pollution and
kind of like the sludge pollution that was

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becoming an issue. There have been
Godzilla movies where the monster Godzilla itself is

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said to be the spirit kind of
like the vengeful spirit of Japanese soldiers who

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were abandoned in the Pacific. Yeah, and I believe maybe soldiers and like

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civilians who were who were affected by
the war, by the Japanese Imperial War.

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So it's always been political. It's
it is just a fun you know,

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you can watch it, watch them
as fun monster movies. But the

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directors have always tried, in my
opinion, to maybe not hide but layer

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these messages in Shin Godzilla, the
previous movie to this one, had a

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very clear political message about bureaucracy,
and it was it was a criticism of

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the Japanese government's response to the Fukushima
nuclear disaster and it just depicts the government

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in a very incompetent, bumbling way. Yeah, and I think this one

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is very similar in that it's interesting. It's why I'm so excited that you're

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on this podcast. And again very
clear not you know, we don't have

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you on here to be the voice
of all japan and the voice of all

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Japanese perspectives by any means. But
I think you know more about this than

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I do, certainly, But I
think in watching this movie, and we

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will for those of you who haven't
seen it yet, we'll give you a

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quick plot summary of promise. But
like on the surface level, I could

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say, oh, this is Gojurra
meet Survivor's guilt, you know, and

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because there's a very clear theme that
I think anyone could understand of This is

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about survivor's guilt and the post war
period and all of that, and is

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a beautiful depiction of PTSD and how
all of that would play out, both

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with individual characters survivor's guilt, but
also with the whole nation coming to terms

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with this horrible war that it just
happened. But also I know that you

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know, into a more reading and
the like that there's also a lot of

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specific commentary, both historical about,
you know, the American occupation that was

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happening at the time and the Japanese
government under the American occupation, but also

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that you know, because in the
in the movie, the government doesn't really

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do anything except try to cover this
up and try to like not let people

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panic. And a lot of the
Japanese commentary I've read has said that this

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is also you know, again,
you can look at it as a historical

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piece, but the same way shin
Godzilla is about the nuclear power plant,

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this is a lot about COVID as
well, and sort of what the Japanese

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government did response to COVID and things
like that. And I'm sure, like

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any you know, in a world
where Ronald Reagan can think that Bruce Springsteen's

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born in the USA is on his
side, I'm sure that this is one

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of these things that, like any
political movement can twist enough to say it's

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supporting their political cause. But it's
anything to dive into. Let me give

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a quick political, quick plot summary, and then let's dive into some of

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stuff we're talking about here. Oh, so the movie opens with a young

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pilot landing on Odo island where there's
a small airfield, and a lot of

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this movie is clearly making reference to
the original. Odo Island is the first

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place that the Gojira attacks. In
the original nineteen fifty four, we learned

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that he was a Kama Kazi pilot, that there. Actually he landed here,

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he claims because there's something wrong with
his plane, but that actually there

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wasn't. That he just didn't want
to die and he didn't want to go

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and be a Kama Kazi. And
on the island he's met with kind of

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you know, some folks are judgmental
of him, but there's also a sense

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of like, look, we all
know the war is over. There's no

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you know, what is the point
of you being one more person to die

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and sinking one more American ship when
the war's basically over. And he's with

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these mechanics, and while he's there, the Gojira Monster, a much smaller

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version of it, but does attack, and he is ordered by the mechanics

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to get into his zero fighter and
shoot the monster with the twenty millimeters machine

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gun that the monster has. At
this point, the monster is supposed to

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be The idea I think is that
it's small enough that the machine gun may

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well have made a difference. Granted, the plane is on the ground and

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most of the shots it's pointing at
its like ankles, so I don't really

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know how much it would have done, but like its head bends down a

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couple of times. But once again, he's paralyzed by fear. He's not

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able to take action, and as
a result, almost all of the mechanics

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die except for him. And I
had all these names written down, and

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now the way I have my computer
set up, I can't see them.

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So please fill in the names.
Yeah, I've got so. The the

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pilot is Shikishima Koe yep. The
one engineer who survives is Tachibana. Tachibana

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yep. And he makes very in
the next morning, Tachibana makes very clear

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that he kind of thinks that,
you know, uh, Shinasaki, I'm

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sorry say that first one again,
Shinsa Shikishima, Shikishima, thank you that

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Shikushima was a coward once again,
and that all the people are dead because

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of him, and in a very
kind of powerful but again not overdone the

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way it often could have been.
Give him this little folder with all the

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pictures of the mechanics who died and
their families as just kind of like you

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have to bear this guilt. Shikishima
goes home to a utterly devastated Tokyo,

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and I really like that it's Tokyo
here, It's not Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

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It's a reminder that like as horrific
as the nuclear bombings were, the fire

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bombing of Tokyo actually killed more people
and did even more destruction, as hard

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as it is to imagine that,
and the Tokyo there's rubble everywhere. People

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are living in the rubble. Everyone
is dead. And he meets a woman

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one of his neighbors, who is
at first very happy to see that he's

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home, but then also realizes he's
a kamikaze. He's not supposed to be

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here, and accuses him again of
cowardice and basically says like I've worked for

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men like you, my children will
still be alive, which is gosh.

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Yeah, for anyone who historically knows
the war, there's no truth to it,

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but you understand just the harrowingness of
it, and that looking for someone

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to lame And there's a lot there
about the sort of coma kazi culture,

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which we're definitely going to discuss and
its place in a society. And so

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then he winds up taking in this
young woman, Norico, who has a

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baby Akiko. Again I think,
if I'm getting in the names wrong,

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please let me know, and they
kind of become a family, and he

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never sort of crosses the line into
romance with Nuriko, ahough it's clear that

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it's open to him in part because
he is still carrying all of this survivor's

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guilt and this feeling like he shouldn't
still be alive and that all these people

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are dead because of him. And
we get over the next couple of years

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in a quick couple of quick scenes, like pictures of the nation slowly rebuilding

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and the neighborhood kind of slowly cleans
up, but there's still a lot of

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refuse. We're given reference to the
American occupation, but there it's never seen.

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We never see American soldiers on street
corners, even though that would have

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been very common, and I think
that's a very pointed choice by the movie

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makers. That will get into a
second and then of course the Gojira monster

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begins attacking again. There's discussions about
how to kill it. He winds up

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being out on a boat trying to
get rid of all the mines, which

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is another kind like if you think
about today, one of the biggest sort

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of justice issues is all of the
mines that have been left behind in Korea,

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in Southeast Asia, in parts of
Central America. And here we're seeing

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again, like all these mines were
left and the Japanese, you know,

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want to be able to fish and
want to be left shipping, but all

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the mines have to be taken care
of. It's very dangerous, and he

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assembles this great group of people,
the sort of crusty old captain, the

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doctor, things like that. We
get a couple of other great scenes of

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Gojura attacking and trying to figure out
how to deal with it, and the

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American occupation says they're not going to
get involved at all. Douglas MacArthur says

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that he's not going to do anything. It's in nineteen forty seven, when

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the Cold War's really just kicking off, and the Americans claim they're too busy

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with the Soviets. The Japanese government
also seems to say that they can't do

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anything, and so a group of
civilians have to come together to try and

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fight Gojira on their own. They
come up with a great scientific way to

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defeat it. They're going to surround
it with free on and make it drop

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to the bottom of the ocean and
then rise it back up with the hope

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that compression and the decompression will kill
it. But Shikishira isn't sure that this

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will happen. He winds up reaching
out to that mechanic again to say,

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hey, look, I need your
help, and the way he convinces the

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mechanic to help him is by saying, I will finally be the Kamakazi that

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I was supposed to be. That
he's going to load up his plane with

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bombs, as would have been done. That was the whole idea of the

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Kamakazi planes and fly it into the
open mouth of Gojira in the hope that

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that's what will destroy the monster because
so many other things haven't. And it's

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a really beautiful scene, and it
left me at least really not knowing what

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I wanted to happen or what would
happen. I mean, I think the

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film does a very good job of
kind of leaving you in about where you're

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supposed to be feeling this because on
the one hand, there's the feeling of

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he is doing what he was originally
ordered to do and what so many people

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have said he was wrong not to
have done. On the other hand,

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at least for me, not having
grown up in the culture of that,

246
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there is a whole sense of,
like, you know, I would much

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rather live live humbly for a cause
than die nobly for it. So there's

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just a natural reaction I have against
the whole idea of the kama Kazi attack.

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But at the end, and again
big spoilers, we find out that

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the Mechanic, on his own volition, without being asked by Shikashira, who

251
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was ready to die, builds an
ejector seat and sort of gives him the

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possibility of you don't have to be
a Kamakazi, you can live. And

253
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in this just beautiful moment of that
kind of first the Mechanic gives him that

254
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permission, and then in kind of
everything works out ending we had thought that

255
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Nokia was dead, Noriko was dead, but it turns out she's alive,

256
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and she kind of gives him a
final absolution and asks him, is your

257
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war finally over? And and that's
where I just started sobbing because it's a

258
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it's a beautiful, beautiful moment.
And the movie ends with with Gojira dead

259
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and everyone living happily ever after.
And then of course the last scene that's

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somewhere under the bottle of the ocean, Gojira's healing. Uh So we can

261
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have more of these movies. That's
I think I got most of the plot.

262
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There's any big things I missed plot
lies, No, I think you

263
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covered it well. I just want
to mention that some of the additional characters.

264
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Uh Kenji Noda is the former Navy
naval technician who's like the scientists character

265
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with the crazy hair who comes up
with the idea. The captain of the

266
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mind Sweeping boat is uh Akitsu Yoji, although most of the characters just referred

267
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to him as Captain had I had
to look up his character name, but

268
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he He's a fun character, probably
my one of my favorites in the I

269
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mean, yep, they are all
amazing characters. There's also a young crewman

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on the mind sweeping boat, Mizushima, who represents like the next generation for

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Japan and specifically like they call out
that he was too young to fight in

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the war, and there's a lot
of great characterization around that about his motivations.

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I just want to say on that
because I think it's kind of one

274
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of the central themes is it seems
like a lot of this theme is about

275
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sort of moving on from the war
and how do you get past this idea

276
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that the most noble thing you can
do is to die for the emperor and

277
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all that. And in a great
scene, the doctor and the captain tell

278
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the younger man not to go with
them, and they say, because you

279
00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:51.799
know, not having fought in war
is something to be proud of. Because

280
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he's saying, like, I need
to fight in this war. I didn't

281
00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:56.359
get to fight in World War two, and they tell him, no,

282
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you should be proud that you didn't
fight a war, which feels like it's

283
00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:03.160
a real sea change in the mentality. Yeah. I like this movie.

284
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I cried multiple times. That was
definitely one of the scenes, the scene

285
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with Shikishima and you know, plot
wise, not knowing if he's going to

286
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actually die or not. I I
saw that coming. I think that,

287
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like all the clues were there,
I definitely wanted him to live. And

288
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the way they set up the scenes, especially when Tachibana says, like one

289
00:21:33.720 --> 00:21:37.559
more thing, like they're they're checking
out the plane. He says, one

290
00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:41.880
more thing, and then it cuts
away, and I think they showed the

291
00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.039
back of the seat, the pilot's
seat, and there was like German on

292
00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:49.119
it, so it was very clear
that that was not part of the original

293
00:21:52.039 --> 00:21:56.279
of the plane and that he had
done he had made some special modification.

294
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So they were like there were clues
there. It wasn't like hit you over

295
00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:06.680
the head because you missed it,
obviously, but it was very much hinting

296
00:22:06.720 --> 00:22:11.200
at that direction. So for me
personally, it wasn't a surprise. But

297
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I think it was written well in
a way that is like you wanted this

298
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to happen, You wanted him to
live, and they gave you some hints

299
00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:23.920
that it was possible, but you
still weren't sure because it was kind of

300
00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:26.559
at the end, it's up to
him and it was his decision, And

301
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I think that's what made it so
powerful, I would agree, and I

302
00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:33.400
think I think I definitely had a
sense of maybe he's going to figure out

303
00:22:33.440 --> 00:22:38.240
how to jump out or something like
that, but having it be Tojikira,

304
00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:42.799
the mechanic, the one who had
been on him and who only did this

305
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because he was willing to die,
saying like, no, you don't have

306
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to die, It's okay if you
live through this. That hit me so

307
00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:56.119
hard because it really felt like it
was not just him forgiving himself, but

308
00:22:56.599 --> 00:23:00.279
the others, you know, the
kind of representation of the culture or that

309
00:23:00.359 --> 00:23:04.720
he thought he had failed, the
military culture giving him that absolution. Yes,

310
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Tachivana giving him permission, and then
Akiko the young their daughter. I

311
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:17.240
mean this is a found family situation, right, Like Noriko is not Akiko's

312
00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:22.640
biological mother, but they come together
as a family unit surviving in Tokyo.

313
00:23:23.319 --> 00:23:30.319
So then there are scenes where Akiko
refers to Shikishima as daddy, right,

314
00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:37.240
so if she sees them as her
parents. So not just the permission from

315
00:23:37.279 --> 00:23:42.039
Tachibana to live, but the motivation
of wanting to live to continue to be

316
00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:47.279
her father, like those are all
like very important parts of this history and

317
00:23:47.319 --> 00:23:49.799
his character, and it was just
it just came together in such a beautiful

318
00:23:49.839 --> 00:23:56.240
way. Yea. I will say
the other thing too, like when Gojia

319
00:23:56.279 --> 00:24:03.519
first makes landfall after being a Radi
and becoming like super monstrous, he attacks

320
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:11.400
Ginza the Ginza district where Noriko is
working, and that's where she appears to

321
00:24:11.559 --> 00:24:18.599
die, pushing Shikishima aside into an
alleyway and saving his life. And and

322
00:24:18.640 --> 00:24:26.960
that I cried in that scene too, because his acting was so real to

323
00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:33.519
me, Like he just like unleashes
this primal cry slash yell to kind of

324
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:40.759
mirror when Gog uses the atomic slash
heat breath and also does like that the

325
00:24:40.799 --> 00:24:45.599
classic you know yell. He also
yells like when he thinks Noriko is dead

326
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:49.200
and when he sees the devastation,
and it was just gut wrenching. I

327
00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:56.240
couldn't believe it. Like one of
the most amazing acting performances I've seen of

328
00:24:56.359 --> 00:25:02.240
just like raw emotion. Yeah,
it's I'm very glad. I saw this

329
00:25:02.279 --> 00:25:06.400
movie in subtitles, something I often
struggle with, and I kind of medicated

330
00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:10.880
myself proper. Least on ADHD would
be under control. And I think that,

331
00:25:10.960 --> 00:25:12.519
like, you know, I think
dubbing can sometimes work, and dubbing's

332
00:25:12.559 --> 00:25:17.519
got a lot better. But getting
to see this the original, I don't

333
00:25:17.559 --> 00:25:22.519
speak a word of the language,
but the acting performances still came across so

334
00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:26.960
so well, and in ways that
would just I thought he was amazing so

335
00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:30.640
much, and it's kind of funny. And I'm not even getting to the

336
00:25:30.680 --> 00:25:37.359
politics of Hollywood and the oscars.
But you know, when Oppenheimer came out,

337
00:25:37.559 --> 00:25:40.920
I do think Oppenheimer is a phenomenally
good movie. And it's not about

338
00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:42.960
what a lot of people seem to
think it's about. That it's not just

339
00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:47.480
about the atomic bomb. It's much
for his life and specific But a lot

340
00:25:47.480 --> 00:25:49.039
of people were talking about, like
how funny it was that, like this

341
00:25:49.119 --> 00:25:52.920
is a movie about the atomic momb
that there's no Japanese characters in it whatsoever.

342
00:25:53.519 --> 00:25:56.920
And so the fact that now this
and Oppenheimer are going to go up

343
00:25:56.920 --> 00:26:00.920
against each other in the Oscar season, Yeah, like I think because I

344
00:26:00.920 --> 00:26:03.799
think it really deserves I think,
you know, best acting performances don't have

345
00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:08.240
to be in English by any means. Yeah, let me well, let

346
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:15.599
me quickly the actor's name. Shikishima's
actor's name is Juno Ski Kamiki, So

347
00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:18.759
just want to shout out his name
and then follow up real quick. What

348
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:26.039
I was saying about the Ginza attack
scene, I actually like suspected that Noriko

349
00:26:26.279 --> 00:26:30.160
was still alive. So even that
to me was not a surprise. Okay,

350
00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:36.279
mostly because you know, we talk
like superhero ethics, we talk about

351
00:26:36.319 --> 00:26:40.559
the concept of fridging, right,
where that is when a lot in a

352
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:45.880
lot of comics from the eighties and
nineties, female characters would die or like

353
00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:52.440
suffer some horrible injury or something in
order to motivate the male superhero character to

354
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:57.640
you know, attack the villain or
whatever. And so when Noriko appeared to

355
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:02.039
die in the Ginza attack, I
kind of had like, I was sad,

356
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:04.119
I was devastated, but I had
in the back of my mind,

357
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:07.400
I was like, ah, that's
you know, that's kind of a bad

358
00:27:07.559 --> 00:27:15.640
fridging job. But the movie is
so good, and the hype around the

359
00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:19.160
movie was so strong, and I
was like, no, I don't believe

360
00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:22.599
it. I don't think they actually
friged her, because that would make this

361
00:27:22.680 --> 00:27:27.440
a bad movie. So I kind
of had faith like in the production.

362
00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:33.640
So yeah, it was like a
weird oh, like she actually survived.

363
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:38.839
But did you notice? I didn't, But I read about this after because

364
00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:44.119
I wasn't watching her in that scene. I was bawling my eyes out.

365
00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:49.240
But apparently, like on the back
of her neck there's like some movement to

366
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:55.519
suggest that she has been irradiated.
Like there's debate about this because the movie

367
00:27:55.519 --> 00:28:02.519
doesn't make it clear that she's been
irradiated and or been infuse with Godzilla DNA.

368
00:28:02.839 --> 00:28:04.960
Oh did you see this? Because
I I did. I did not

369
00:28:06.160 --> 00:28:08.839
at all. I was watching everything. Everything I was reading was all about

370
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:12.920
like the history and the Japanese culture
and stuff like that. So no,

371
00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:17.000
I didn't see any of that.
But like they clearly are setting up a

372
00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:21.319
sequel, so they're like, like
I said, there's debate in the fandom.

373
00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:26.359
It could just be radiation poisoning,
but it was like visually weird enough

374
00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:30.559
that some people believe that it's like
Godzilla DNA infused her and that's why she

375
00:28:30.680 --> 00:28:36.839
survived. So Okay, I don't
know what's Yeah, who knows? Uh.

376
00:28:37.160 --> 00:28:40.039
A couple of the quick things I
want to point out, just in

377
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:44.160
terms of the Ginza again, this
is very much I feel like a reference

378
00:28:44.240 --> 00:28:48.680
to the original movie. In some
ways, it's a prequel because it's happening

379
00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:53.240
beforehand, but a lot of the
exact same things happen. And also the

380
00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:56.559
first thing I'd read said that the
name minus one is supposed to be because

381
00:28:56.559 --> 00:29:00.279
it's like a prequel to Godzilla,
that's not actually true. The director and

382
00:29:00.359 --> 00:29:04.960
writer have both got a record of
saying it's because if you think of like

383
00:29:06.079 --> 00:29:10.640
Japan rebuilding at being at like point
zero, it's that after the war they

384
00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:15.480
were at minus one because of the
idea being that Japan wasn't even ready to

385
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.960
start rebuilding yet, because it was
still wrestling with the ghosts of the war

386
00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:22.839
and the past and the survivor's guilt
and all of that. So that was

387
00:29:22.839 --> 00:29:26.440
really a nice explanation of what the
name is about. But the Ginza attack

388
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:30.559
Ginza is what's attacked in nineteen fifty
four, and there's a number of specific

389
00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:34.240
moments that happen exactly as they do, Godzilla picking up a train in its

390
00:29:34.279 --> 00:29:41.119
mouth and sort of shaking it around, which is how Camigo is first endangered.

391
00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:48.400
And also there's a beautiful scene in
the original movie of these reporters standing

392
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:52.039
on the top of a building telling
the story to the listeners on the radio

393
00:29:52.079 --> 00:29:56.519
of what's happening as their own lives
are becoming endangered, and they eventually all

394
00:29:56.599 --> 00:30:00.880
die when their building is attacked.
Pretty much that exact same scene happens in

395
00:30:00.920 --> 00:30:04.920
this which I thought was just a
in the later movies, the press often

396
00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:08.559
becomes the enemy. It goes back
and forth. The presses sometimes the enemy,

397
00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:15.000
but often there's like there almost becomes
a kind of a cast that you

398
00:30:15.079 --> 00:30:19.319
have to have the young military guy
who's disillusioned, the girl who he is

399
00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:23.640
flirting with and who has some part
to play, the old man scientist who's

400
00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:27.599
a little crazy but has some good
ideas, and the reporter. And sometimes

401
00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:30.960
the woman is the plucky reporter,
and sometimes the guy is and like,

402
00:30:32.119 --> 00:30:34.559
but those parts are always there,
and so it's nice to see again that

403
00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:40.920
homage to the reporter characters, and
just that again made me cry because they're

404
00:30:41.000 --> 00:30:44.480
just they're scared out of their minds, but they're doing their job of trying

405
00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:48.119
to make sure everyone knows what's happening, even as they're about to die.

406
00:30:49.079 --> 00:30:52.359
Let me, I want to start
getting into some of the deeper meanings of

407
00:30:52.400 --> 00:30:57.480
this, and it's very interesting for
me watching this as someone who it's clearly

408
00:30:57.599 --> 00:31:02.440
about. It is a part of
a conversation that I haven't been part of.

409
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:07.559
And so let me kind of give
a little bit of my background in

410
00:31:07.599 --> 00:31:10.519
terms of my understanding of Kama Kazi
and this part of the culture, and

411
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:15.480
then kind of shirt from you because
growing up, I think, you know,

412
00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:18.279
it was the eighties and there was
still an awful lot of racism about

413
00:31:18.319 --> 00:31:22.400
Japan. I mean there still is, to be very clear, but you

414
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.519
know, this was the time when
Japanese industry was really threatening American industry again

415
00:31:26.559 --> 00:31:29.480
in the way it was posted.
And so there's an awful lot of racism.

416
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:33.880
And I learned about Kama Kazi and
just Japanese soldiers and Bonzai and all

417
00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:40.359
this as this sort of like there
was a strong degree of the noble savage,

418
00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:44.000
the rousseau idea, as well as
this idea of the kind of like

419
00:31:44.759 --> 00:31:49.000
Western idolization of Eastern mysticism, you
know, and that like the Japanese old

420
00:31:49.039 --> 00:31:55.039
man on the mountain who would always
give you great wisdom, and that a

421
00:31:55.079 --> 00:32:00.119
part of it was this lack of
you know, it could be treated as

422
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:05.000
the Japanese were so crazy because they
would were so willing to die for their

423
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:08.079
cause, or it could be the
oh, look how awesome Japanese were.

424
00:32:08.119 --> 00:32:12.359
They were so fanatical, they were
so dedicated. If only we had that

425
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:15.759
in westernness, and so much racism
obviously tinged around all of this, but

426
00:32:15.839 --> 00:32:20.000
that was what I learned about Kama
kak the whole idea of the Kama Kazi,

427
00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:23.119
as well as that it was all
taking place after the war was basically

428
00:32:23.160 --> 00:32:28.960
over, and the whole thing was
just an exercise in futility. A lot

429
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:32.279
of this was also taught in the
kind of American justification of the atomic bomb,

430
00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:36.640
in that you know, Japan would
fight to the last man, and

431
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:39.200
so we had to do this because
there were else Millions of Japanese would die,

432
00:32:39.240 --> 00:32:42.839
millions of Americans whould die in an
invasion, et cetera, et cetera.

433
00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:46.000
And since then I've learned to unpack
a lot of that and undershit it

434
00:32:46.039 --> 00:32:49.839
more as culture. But I'm curious
for you obviously, I mean, you

435
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:51.920
grew up, you know, many
many years after the wars I did were

436
00:32:51.920 --> 00:32:55.680
about the same generation. But what
what did you learn in terms of like

437
00:32:55.880 --> 00:33:01.359
the these ideas of like the like
this to die for the emperor and the

438
00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:07.240
role of the kamikaze in the war
and all this kind of thing. Yeah,

439
00:33:07.319 --> 00:33:12.880
so, I mean, and so
far as it was an empire,

440
00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:17.480
you know, imperial Japan, the
notion of the emperor, you know,

441
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:23.839
like a king as your leader,
and in Japanese culture, the emperor is

442
00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:29.119
considered divine, right, like the
divine right of kings. That literally,

443
00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:34.000
the emperor is considered to be a
divine being. Whether you know today in

444
00:33:34.039 --> 00:33:37.920
modern Japan, like people actually believe
that or not, it's still a part

445
00:33:37.960 --> 00:33:43.759
of that mythos and cultural impact and
importance of the emperor, like regardless of

446
00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:47.920
whether you actually believe in divinity.
So the emperor, you know, continues

447
00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:54.480
to be important. And it's hard
to get into the mindset of people from

448
00:33:54.799 --> 00:34:00.440
almost eighty years ago, right,
but it's un standable, I guess,

449
00:34:00.920 --> 00:34:06.519
not in a way that I would
believe in, but that if you have

450
00:34:06.680 --> 00:34:14.719
this culture that props up the emperor
as a divine being, and you know

451
00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:22.079
that people would do anything to save
their country to save their emperor, it's

452
00:34:22.199 --> 00:34:27.480
very sad and tragic. And I
think that's the reckoning that this movie is

453
00:34:27.599 --> 00:34:32.280
trying to have with Japanese history and
a lot of people like are trying to

454
00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:37.920
have And yeah, so like it
goes to the divinity of the emperor and

455
00:34:38.000 --> 00:34:45.039
also the Bushido, you know,
the Samurai code. Samurai didn't exist anymore

456
00:34:45.119 --> 00:34:49.480
at the time, but even today
to this day, like Samurai is considered

457
00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:54.440
a very important, you know,
historical and cultural thing in Japan. So

458
00:34:57.039 --> 00:35:00.320
even though like samurai is a class
didn't exist, you know, you know,

459
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:04.840
people caring on swords or anything that
ethos, just like you know the

460
00:35:05.320 --> 00:35:08.280
I think the Knights of Camelot.
That's the comparison I make for Western cultures

461
00:35:08.320 --> 00:35:13.039
is like people see that as like
an ideal, like we should aspire to

462
00:35:13.079 --> 00:35:15.840
be like the Knights of Camelot in
terms of honor and like fighting for what

463
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:21.360
we believe in type of thing.
Samurai very much like occupy that space in

464
00:35:21.480 --> 00:35:24.960
Japan, and so like the Bushido
culture, like placed a high value on

465
00:35:25.480 --> 00:35:32.440
honor and even even death in service
of honor or, the idea that if

466
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:40.239
you acted dishonorably, you should die, right. The idea of seppuku ritual

467
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:47.159
suicide was often that if a samurai
acted dishonorably, they then like agreed to

468
00:35:47.199 --> 00:35:52.519
subject themselves to seppuku to kill themselves
because of it. And you know,

469
00:35:53.639 --> 00:35:58.519
for you and I I think we
value life and think that that's not the

470
00:35:58.599 --> 00:36:04.280
correct thing to do, but it's
and we make our judgments, we judge

471
00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:07.960
people, but I want to make
it clear, like it I think it's

472
00:36:08.039 --> 00:36:13.159
understandable how if you grow up in
a culture like this, with these traditions,

473
00:36:13.639 --> 00:36:20.519
with these ideals of the samurai bushid
away, that young men could be

474
00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:24.840
convinced could be lied to, in
my opinion, to do this, And

475
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:30.239
it's it's unfortunate that that happened.
And you're right, like, I think

476
00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:34.800
there is racism to the narrative of
kamu kase. So let me also like

477
00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:42.159
historically or just like factually, in
Japan, it's actually not referred to as

478
00:36:42.199 --> 00:36:49.039
kami kase. Interestingly, the technical
term for the units, the suicide units

479
00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:58.199
was shimpou toku koiktai sometimes and in
this movie shortened to toko tai and the

480
00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:02.800
shimpoo at the beginning. If you
change the pronunciation can be read as kamu

481
00:37:02.840 --> 00:37:07.639
kase the way you read the kanji. And so I'm not sure like where

482
00:37:07.800 --> 00:37:12.440
and how like that term got exported, imported and changed to kamu kase.

483
00:37:12.599 --> 00:37:15.480
But it's interesting and I kind of
want to like look into that, because

484
00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:21.039
no one in Japan calls it that. To my knowledge, I studied this

485
00:37:21.239 --> 00:37:25.360
like twenty five thirty years ago.
I remember there was something about how like

486
00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:30.800
in Japanese mythology that you know,
way back in the day, there had

487
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:36.079
been like a fleet coming from China
or Korea or whatever to invade the Japanese

488
00:37:36.119 --> 00:37:39.440
islands, and a great wind,
a divine wind had come, kind of

489
00:37:39.440 --> 00:37:44.199
like the Protestant wind that's supposed to
have destroyed the Spanish Armada. That some

490
00:37:44.360 --> 00:37:49.480
great wind from the heavens came and
destroyed this invading Armana and that that was

491
00:37:50.639 --> 00:37:52.559
that the Kama Kase were supposed to
be something like that. And so I

492
00:37:52.559 --> 00:37:54.679
don't know if that's connected to the
name at all. Again, this is

493
00:37:54.679 --> 00:38:00.559
something I read twenty five years ago, but absolutely, Kamik i'ld say like

494
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:06.840
that that refers to the two Mongol
two failed Mongol invasions in the twelve hundreds,

495
00:38:06.960 --> 00:38:10.199
I believe eleven hundred and twelve hundreds. I can't remember specifically the dates,

496
00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:15.199
but yeah, like there there is
definitely a historical mythological belief that the

497
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:22.880
divine wind sunk Mongol fleets and prevented
the invasion in kind of that Genghis kogle

498
00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:29.079
icon era, right, and it's
it is definitely a reference to that.

499
00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:34.559
And like I said, the Shimpu
part of the name of the unit there

500
00:38:34.599 --> 00:38:39.079
there's always two ways to read kanji
in Japanese, the on yomi and the

501
00:38:39.119 --> 00:38:43.760
cunyomi, And basically it's like the
Japanese way to read it and the Chinese

502
00:38:43.800 --> 00:38:47.519
way to read it. So it's
like the characters for kami kase are there

503
00:38:47.559 --> 00:38:52.920
in the name, but to my
knowledge, that's not how it's called in

504
00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:58.440
Japan. So again, like it's
weird. It's possible at some point historically

505
00:38:58.880 --> 00:39:01.119
someone from the US or something and
say, hey, like what is can

506
00:39:01.159 --> 00:39:02.880
you read this to me? And
someone just said, oh, it says

507
00:39:02.920 --> 00:39:08.440
kami kase, when actually the Japanese
reading of it is shimpu. I mean

508
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:13.519
when you try to think about like
we used to think Beijing was pronounced peking

509
00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:17.880
like pee king, and like Mumbai
was Bombay, Like there's a long history

510
00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:22.880
of horrible mispronunciations and anglicizations of words
from this part of the world. Yeah,

511
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:24.920
I mean, to this day its
parts of the world, I should

512
00:39:24.920 --> 00:39:31.199
say, I'm I'm rather confused on
why English speakers call the country Germany instead

513
00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:35.400
of Deutschland, right, which is
where they refer to themselves the same as

514
00:39:35.480 --> 00:39:44.119
Japan, like we for ourselves as
n So yeah, well, one other

515
00:39:44.159 --> 00:39:47.280
thing I think that it's important there
is. I love what you said about

516
00:39:47.280 --> 00:39:51.639
Bushido, and I think it's important
to understand this as a particularly Japanese story.

517
00:39:52.079 --> 00:39:53.440
But one thing I think is always
funny again in the kind of racist

518
00:39:53.480 --> 00:39:59.880
retellings of the kama Kase or the
like, is every culture that I think

519
00:39:59.880 --> 00:40:02.760
of, and especially most of the
movies that we talk about, have stories

520
00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:07.639
of people who are willing to sacrifice
their lives to as part of the fight

521
00:40:07.679 --> 00:40:10.960
for others, you know. And
this is everything from you know, Natasha

522
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:15.679
Romanov being willing to like you know, you know, die to get the

523
00:40:15.679 --> 00:40:20.639
stone that's needed for the the the
Affinity Gauntlet, to almost every war movie

524
00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:23.280
has someone who does this too.
I mean, I don't want to say

525
00:40:23.280 --> 00:40:27.719
that this movie has the same message
as The Last Jedi by any means.

526
00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:30.960
Oh, but I have to think
about you know, Finn wanting to wanting

527
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:36.039
to literally be a Kamakase, fly
his plane into the thing to destroy it,

528
00:40:36.559 --> 00:40:39.360
and Rose saving him with we don't
fight, you know, we don't

529
00:40:39.400 --> 00:40:43.880
die to kill what we hate.
We fight to support, we defend what

530
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:50.039
we love. Absolutely, and I
strongly thought of that connection while watching Minus

531
00:40:50.079 --> 00:40:54.400
One, and I you and I
love the Last Jedi. Yeah, but

532
00:40:54.519 --> 00:40:59.880
I I think that scene in the
Last Jedi with Finn and Rose is kind

533
00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:02.239
of written a little fuzzi in my
opinion, right, I think he maybe

534
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:07.280
should have done it like it was
weird, Like I don't know if it

535
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:12.079
was fully earned. And that's why
I love Minus one because I think,

536
00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:16.039
like the parallel scene and this one
like fully earns it, and it's just

537
00:41:16.079 --> 00:41:22.239
like written much better and it's presented
in a much better way. So yeah,

538
00:41:22.440 --> 00:41:25.280
I thought of that comparison to The
Last Jedi, and I thought this

539
00:41:25.440 --> 00:41:30.920
movie just did that section of it
much better. I think you're totally right,

540
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:35.800
I think, especially because the fact
that it's it happens twice with our

541
00:41:35.800 --> 00:41:40.760
main character, Shikashima, thank you
so much, you know, because I

542
00:41:40.760 --> 00:41:45.599
think, like, yeah, the
war is almost over. One more plane

543
00:41:45.639 --> 00:41:50.039
crashing into one more American ship.
I have a ton of sympathy for someone

544
00:41:50.079 --> 00:41:52.039
being like, oh no, my
engine has trouble. I can't do this.

545
00:41:52.960 --> 00:41:57.760
But I think the movie says it. What in the next scene though,

546
00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:00.400
the fact that like he's in his
fighter plane, he knows that if

547
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:05.199
he fires his guns, he's going
to attract Gojira's attention and probably die.

548
00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:08.280
He doesn't, and so the other
people fire, they're much less effective guns,

549
00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:13.800
and they all die. I don't
know by any means that him firing

550
00:42:13.840 --> 00:42:16.480
his gun would have stopped Gojira,
but I think it's certainly I think he

551
00:42:16.519 --> 00:42:21.679
would have thought that it's possible.
And I do think that there's like what

552
00:42:21.800 --> 00:42:24.000
I've absolutely probably done the same in
his situation. I probably don't even get

553
00:42:24.000 --> 00:42:27.400
in the plane. I'm way too
much of a coward. It's not that

554
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:30.239
I'm holding him in judgment, but
I feel like they're they're sort of very

555
00:42:30.239 --> 00:42:36.519
able to be like, Eh,
no one's really watching today going to feel

556
00:42:36.519 --> 00:42:39.159
bad about what he does with not
being a kama Kazi but not shooting,

557
00:42:39.199 --> 00:42:43.880
then yeah, there is some real
guilt to be had there. And so

558
00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:46.000
this interesting thing of the culture blames
him all for not being a kama Kazi

559
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:50.039
when him and the mechanical are the
only ones who know. His real shame

560
00:42:50.079 --> 00:42:52.719
probably comes from what happened on that
island. And I thought it was such

561
00:42:52.719 --> 00:42:55.000
a beautiful way of, like you
said, of making it really earned,

562
00:42:55.079 --> 00:43:00.519
because you really felt like his survivor's
guilt was it was he was to it

563
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:04.480
was he was culturally programmed, but
also this moment that happened where he probably

564
00:43:04.519 --> 00:43:08.320
did fail. Yeah, it's very
interesting. So I have not seen this

565
00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:15.280
movie, but the director of Minus
one, Takashiyamazaki, who is a very

566
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:21.360
acclaimed director in Japan. I believe
he's on's like eight Japanese Academy Awards,

567
00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:27.760
and one of the movies he won
the Best Director award for is called The

568
00:43:27.800 --> 00:43:35.119
Eternal Zero from twenty thirteen, and
it is a movie about Kami Kazi Toko

569
00:43:35.159 --> 00:43:38.760
Tai pilot. And in that movie, I believe if I wrote that the

570
00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:45.519
synopsis correctly, he does make the
sacrifice, but he all like not like

571
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:49.519
he does it, you know,
because of all the reasons historical reasons we

572
00:43:49.639 --> 00:43:52.840
talked about, but there's also like
a friendship like he does it to save

573
00:43:52.920 --> 00:44:01.719
a friend or something like that.
And I've read that there's been criticism of

574
00:44:02.039 --> 00:44:09.119
Yamazaki and this movie, you know, from Japanese critics that it's glorifying the

575
00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:15.719
Topko Tai because I think culturally,
like we have reached the point where it's

576
00:44:15.760 --> 00:44:19.559
like, yeah, that they shouldn't
have done that, like the government and

577
00:44:19.599 --> 00:44:22.199
the military shouldn't have done that should
not have asked young people to do that.

578
00:44:23.239 --> 00:44:31.760
And it's it's very interesting because the
movie The Eternal Zero was apparently beloved

579
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:37.880
by Shinzo Abe, the former prime
minister who was assassinated, but also Yoko

580
00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:43.840
Ono, who you know was John
Lennon's wife and who I met once,

581
00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:51.199
and so those are two very different
people when it comes to war. When

582
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:54.679
it comes to opinions of war,
yoko on No obviously is uh you know,

583
00:44:54.880 --> 00:45:00.679
it was very anti war mm hm. And Shinzo they like, I'm

584
00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:02.159
not going to say he's pro war, like I don't want to say that

585
00:45:02.199 --> 00:45:08.039
of any politician, but he has
a very troubling history, especially when it

586
00:45:08.039 --> 00:45:16.480
comes to World War Two. His
grandfather was actually prosecuted as a war criminal

587
00:45:17.119 --> 00:45:24.679
for his what he did as I
think a military governor in China, and

588
00:45:25.239 --> 00:45:30.440
he Kishi was his name. He's
still even though he was prosecuted as a

589
00:45:30.440 --> 00:45:36.480
war criminal, became Prime Minister of
Japan in the fifties, which as a

590
00:45:36.519 --> 00:45:40.239
whole which is a whole thing.
But Avi so like Ave's personal history and

591
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:45.800
his connection to that, like familiar
with connection. He has always downplayed Japan's

592
00:45:47.159 --> 00:45:54.199
history like criminal war criminal history because
you know, it's very personal to him.

593
00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:00.519
So I just want to jump in
on that that like, as I

594
00:46:00.559 --> 00:46:02.199
understand it, a lot of that
is today, Like the context of it

595
00:46:02.239 --> 00:46:07.159
today is like in the same way
that you know, the American right wing

596
00:46:07.239 --> 00:46:08.639
wants to really be like, no, we didn't you know, Vietnam,

597
00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:14.239
like really downplay American criminal activity certainly, like they never want to acknowledge the

598
00:46:14.239 --> 00:46:16.159
war crimes and the nuclear moms,
but also like, no, we were

599
00:46:16.199 --> 00:46:21.159
doing what was right in Central America
and in Vietnam. And and thus see

600
00:46:21.159 --> 00:46:23.360
everything America does today is you know, make America great. I think this

601
00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:28.039
is that we are seeing this kind
of thing happen all over the world of

602
00:46:28.159 --> 00:46:34.119
nations wanting to kind of reclaim their
national greatness and and really you know,

603
00:46:34.719 --> 00:46:37.039
wash over all the crimes and all
these different nations have committed and the like,

604
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:40.000
and so it just putting that in
that larger context. Go on.

605
00:46:42.360 --> 00:46:46.599
Yeah, and so like for those
for Ave and oh No, like two

606
00:46:47.519 --> 00:46:51.840
in my opinion, like polar opposites
when it comes to the subject of courts

607
00:46:51.800 --> 00:46:55.400
who both love the movie. Like
that's you know, you said earlier that

608
00:46:55.559 --> 00:47:00.760
people can draw all kinds of lessons
and inspirations, you know, personally from

609
00:47:00.840 --> 00:47:06.719
movies like this, and draw different
conclusions about what the message is. And

610
00:47:06.760 --> 00:47:10.920
I think that just shows like that
previous movie of his, The Eternal Zero,

611
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:19.199
directly about Kamakazi pilots, and yet
like people do very different ideas and

612
00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:22.679
lessons from it. And I think
that he learned from that, from the

613
00:47:22.760 --> 00:47:29.679
controversy and from the criticism, and
it seems much more clear in this movie

614
00:47:30.519 --> 00:47:35.239
that he's driving this line of like
this was wrong. And I think this

615
00:47:35.320 --> 00:47:38.440
is why you and I having a
conversation is so important, because you know,

616
00:47:38.480 --> 00:47:42.480
I imagine most of our listeners are
are more like me in terms of

617
00:47:42.519 --> 00:47:45.519
being, you know, a couple
of steps away from those conversations internal to

618
00:47:45.679 --> 00:47:51.159
like Japanese politics and culture, both
then and today. But I think it's

619
00:47:51.159 --> 00:47:55.039
one of the interesting and possibly dangerous
but also the important parts of looking at

620
00:47:55.039 --> 00:47:59.880
a movie like this is this is
a movie that I think has incredible resonance

621
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:04.800
of people outside of Japan because again
issues of survivor's guilt, of PTSD,

622
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:07.760
of how do you come to terms
with you know, post tragedy and post

623
00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:12.679
national tragedy and all this, But
also it does have a specific meaning in

624
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:16.760
conversations that I'm not a part of. And like a movie that originally I

625
00:48:16.760 --> 00:48:22.039
thought I was gonna do some coverage
of but decided not to, is another

626
00:48:22.119 --> 00:48:27.360
phenomenal movie that I strongly recommend people
watch r R R. It's a wonderful

627
00:48:28.519 --> 00:48:30.119
It's not Bollywood, but it's what
a lot of people think of it because

628
00:48:30.119 --> 00:48:32.760
it's actually it's tom Ol made,
so I believe it's off referred to as

629
00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:37.599
Tollywood. It's not even tombl It's
another kind of subculture in that area.

630
00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:44.119
But it is this beautiful story of
people in India fighting against British occupation and

631
00:48:44.239 --> 00:48:49.880
includes everything from like romance and swashbuckling
to song and dance and like defeating the

632
00:48:49.880 --> 00:48:52.840
British at a dance off instead of
a storage fight at one point, and

633
00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:58.320
it's this incredible anti colonial story.
It's also, as I read a lot

634
00:48:58.360 --> 00:49:01.800
more commentary from people either in the
Indian subcontinent or of that you know,

635
00:49:01.840 --> 00:49:07.800
diaspora around the world, apparently like
it can be read as having a very

636
00:49:07.880 --> 00:49:14.400
strong pro Hindi nationalism and very kind
of like pro like. It has some

637
00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:19.320
very strong like religious iconography that often
I think could be missed that apparently,

638
00:49:19.360 --> 00:49:23.480
like in an internal Indian politics conversation, is making a very strong point that

639
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:28.119
a lot of people really strongly objected
to. And that's not a conversation I

640
00:49:28.119 --> 00:49:31.000
have any context for and decided not
to cover, and probably would not have

641
00:49:31.039 --> 00:49:34.880
done this movie without you or someone
else who had at least more of that

642
00:49:34.920 --> 00:49:38.840
background in Japanese politics, in Japanese
understandings, because it's I think a really

643
00:49:38.840 --> 00:49:43.800
interesting question in general about how do
you approach a movie that both has a

644
00:49:43.800 --> 00:49:49.320
lot of universal significance and meaning but
also is making a point in a larger

645
00:49:49.360 --> 00:49:52.960
conversation that you might not have any
idea of. Yeah, I mean,

646
00:49:52.960 --> 00:50:00.360
that's the beauty of art, and
especially like movies and this movie and particicular

647
00:50:00.039 --> 00:50:06.119
is that it can be multi layered, and I appreciate that on a basic

648
00:50:06.199 --> 00:50:12.280
level, people are enjoying this movie
a lot as a kaiju movie, but

649
00:50:12.360 --> 00:50:15.000
as a human interest movie. A
lot of the commentary I've said I've read

650
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:21.679
or watched, you know, YouTube
videos is comparing this movie to the American

651
00:50:21.840 --> 00:50:27.519
made you know, legendary Monster Verse
Godzilla movies from the last decade or so

652
00:50:28.119 --> 00:50:32.239
and saying like, look like this
minus one was made on a budget of

653
00:50:32.320 --> 00:50:37.840
fifteen million dollars. That's one five. Compare it to you know, Godzilla

654
00:50:37.920 --> 00:50:44.039
versus Kong that probably costs like two
hundred million. And like most of the

655
00:50:44.079 --> 00:50:47.400
people are saying minus one is a
better movie, and it's and not just

656
00:50:47.440 --> 00:50:52.440
because the human story is better.
The CGI the monster looks phenomenal and terrifying.

657
00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:58.119
Yeah, yeah, the kind of
like Jaws ish ish scene where Gozilla

658
00:50:58.239 --> 00:51:02.599
is swimming behind the lines boat.
I believe that's all CGI, right,

659
00:51:02.679 --> 00:51:07.119
but it looks it looked as real
as you can get, Like it looked

660
00:51:07.119 --> 00:51:13.840
like it was a suit nation or
like a model being like chasing the boat.

661
00:51:14.480 --> 00:51:17.039
And there's a direct allusion to Jaws
in that. For spoilers from a

662
00:51:17.039 --> 00:51:22.000
movie that's fifty years old, forty
nine years old, Jaws is defeated because

663
00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:27.599
there's like an air canister in his
teeth and our hero Rachneider shoots it and

664
00:51:27.639 --> 00:51:30.719
it explodes, and they try to
do the exact same thing with a mine,

665
00:51:30.039 --> 00:51:32.840
but here it doesn't work. Oh
yeah, yeah, definitely. Well,

666
00:51:32.920 --> 00:51:37.400
I mean, I can't say definite, but it felt like a reference

667
00:51:37.480 --> 00:51:42.039
or illusion, you know, yeah, just just short of Shikishima literally saying

668
00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:45.599
smile you son of a bee.
Yeah, which is the line from Jaws.

669
00:51:46.119 --> 00:51:49.320
And they do kind of say,
I don't actually funny, I hadn't

670
00:51:49.320 --> 00:51:51.800
even thought of it. But they
do say at one point, we're gonna

671
00:51:51.800 --> 00:51:54.119
need a bigger boat. They don't
say those exact words, oh gosh,

672
00:51:54.199 --> 00:52:00.679
yeah something. Yeah. So I
just love stuff like that. It's so

673
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:04.679
good. But yeah, all of
it is is just wonderfully done, and

674
00:52:04.960 --> 00:52:07.519
the human story of it is so
good. And I think we've kind of

675
00:52:07.559 --> 00:52:10.079
mentioned it a lot, but you
kind of named at the beginning, you

676
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:13.239
know that in this one, you
think the point of it is not clear.

677
00:52:13.320 --> 00:52:17.079
What do you see as the point
of this movie? Anti war every

678
00:52:17.159 --> 00:52:23.960
one, anti imperial war, like
specific to Japanese history, like a deep

679
00:52:24.039 --> 00:52:34.480
criticism of the imperial government and military
yea, And often like definitely like criticism

680
00:52:34.599 --> 00:52:40.519
of the decision to use the kami
kase it is a tactical weapon, you

681
00:52:40.559 --> 00:52:45.280
know, going back to that conversation. In a lot of media, as

682
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:52.760
you've mentioned, it is shown as
honorable to die for a cause, right,

683
00:52:53.480 --> 00:53:01.239
right to sacrifice yourself for victory in
superhero shows, in militaries, drama,

684
00:53:01.480 --> 00:53:06.000
all of that. Like it's shown
as an honorable thing for a hero

685
00:53:06.159 --> 00:53:09.920
to do, and we often like
those are our favorite moments where maybe like

686
00:53:09.960 --> 00:53:15.519
a secondary hero a character makes that
sacrifice so that the main heroes can win,

687
00:53:16.039 --> 00:53:22.360
right, right. I think the
criticism, especially historically, is that

688
00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:30.119
a government should not make that an
intentional strategy. It should be an individual's

689
00:53:30.159 --> 00:53:37.840
decision in combat whether they want to
do something like that to try to help

690
00:53:37.880 --> 00:53:44.880
their cause. But for the government
to intentionally recruit young people and you know,

691
00:53:45.199 --> 00:53:49.719
in my opinion, brainwash them into
wanting to do this in the service

692
00:53:49.760 --> 00:53:55.079
of their country and Emperor I think
is despicable. It was despicable. Then

693
00:53:55.159 --> 00:54:00.119
you know that the notion of suicide
bombers that happen like nine to eleven and

694
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:07.400
stuff like that's despicable terrorism strategy.
So whether it's terrorism or like actual military

695
00:54:07.440 --> 00:54:12.440
strategy in a war, I don't
think like we should do that. And

696
00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:15.760
yeah, you know, we talk
a lot about on you and I about

697
00:54:17.400 --> 00:54:25.119
how terrible war is, and at
a certain point in combat, people do

698
00:54:25.159 --> 00:54:30.239
what they have to do, right, But you know, that's my opinion

699
00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:36.519
is that you know, criticism of
Imperial Japan and of that specific strategy I

700
00:54:36.519 --> 00:54:39.000
think is like the main thing I
took away. I think that makes a

701
00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:42.519
lot of sense, and I think
that was definitely what I saw, as

702
00:54:42.559 --> 00:54:45.199
well as a lot of real tales
about how do you how do you rebuild

703
00:54:45.239 --> 00:54:47.280
while holding onto ghosts to the past, you know, And that's both in

704
00:54:47.360 --> 00:54:52.199
terms of a nation, but also
just this for me as someone who's gone

705
00:54:52.199 --> 00:54:55.679
through a lot of tragedy and trauma, some of my own making and some

706
00:54:55.760 --> 00:55:00.159
of other things happening and had large
there's is his life where I think,

707
00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:04.440
like I wasn't I wasn't able to
let go of that, and so I

708
00:55:04.480 --> 00:55:09.440
couldn't move on this story of the
man who can't let as they say it,

709
00:55:09.639 --> 00:55:14.639
his war hasn't ended. Like the
subtlety of the movie, the fact

710
00:55:14.639 --> 00:55:17.159
that Nurico, like there's never a
moment where Nurico tries to kiss him and

711
00:55:17.199 --> 00:55:22.880
he pushes her away, like it
is all in subtext, but it's fairly

712
00:55:22.960 --> 00:55:27.000
clear, and the other characters later
name it that she is waiting for him

713
00:55:27.199 --> 00:55:34.079
to move their connection from kind of
roommates and found family into a romantic one,

714
00:55:34.199 --> 00:55:37.719
and that they all understand it's because
he is he he doesn't believe he's

715
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:40.760
worthy of it. He doesn't believe
his war is over, and so that

716
00:55:40.840 --> 00:55:45.800
line at the end of you know, is your war finally over? And

717
00:55:45.840 --> 00:55:51.119
he just breaks down in tears holding
her or I think the very clear indication

718
00:55:51.239 --> 00:55:55.119
that they get married later because his
war is finally over is just yeah,

719
00:55:55.159 --> 00:56:00.800
I think it's very anti war.
It's very critical of that on a kamikaze

720
00:56:00.039 --> 00:56:04.239
like raising people with the idea that
their lives only have meaning and service to

721
00:56:04.280 --> 00:56:08.159
the emperor. Like all of it
is just there's so there's so many layers

722
00:56:08.159 --> 00:56:14.639
to it, which is really fantastic. And the criticism of the government continues

723
00:56:14.679 --> 00:56:22.480
on post war. The captain mentioned
several times like he's he's very anti government,

724
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:27.119
and he mentions like when it goes
you to attacks, I think he

725
00:56:27.159 --> 00:56:29.719
says something out, well, they're
just going to lie and cover it up.

726
00:56:30.360 --> 00:56:34.679
Yeah, yeah. And and and
the fact that it's not because in

727
00:56:34.719 --> 00:56:37.800
the original it is kind of a
government effort that pulls everything together. Because

728
00:56:37.840 --> 00:56:44.599
again and again I think it's it's
you know that is that is a movie

729
00:56:44.599 --> 00:56:49.199
being told literally by a japan that's
nine years away from the awful devastation of

730
00:56:49.239 --> 00:56:52.519
the war, and it's literally a
year after the American occupation has ended.

731
00:56:52.519 --> 00:56:57.079
It's the first time they can talk
about these things in a in public settings

732
00:56:57.079 --> 00:57:00.239
like a movie. And so I
think in a lot of ways, I

733
00:57:00.239 --> 00:57:04.719
think this is a very interesting remake
of sort of what's Japan's view of the

734
00:57:04.760 --> 00:57:09.119
war nine years after and then now
like now seventy nine years after, you

735
00:57:09.159 --> 00:57:12.079
know, and you get to see
a lot more reflection for that reason.

736
00:57:13.440 --> 00:57:16.599
Yeah, and a very strong like
for me, like this movie minus Onan

737
00:57:16.800 --> 00:57:23.760
and Shin really like highlight not just
the criticism of government of Japanese government,

738
00:57:24.239 --> 00:57:34.400
but a bringing up like a celebration
of civilian power, civilian like brain power,

739
00:57:34.519 --> 00:57:39.920
and just like ordinary citizens coming together
for each other in a strong way.

740
00:57:40.199 --> 00:57:45.079
Because Yeah, like when they come
up with the plan to defeat Gurjia,

741
00:57:45.679 --> 00:57:49.400
they say, well, the government's
not gonna help us, so they

742
00:57:49.440 --> 00:57:59.519
basically cobble together volunteers of ex military
naval shipment, right, Yeah, Like

743
00:57:59.599 --> 00:58:01.719
most think all of those people were
like they fought in the war, they

744
00:58:01.719 --> 00:58:06.840
survived, so they all have this
collective like survivor's guilt. Yeah, and

745
00:58:06.880 --> 00:58:08.119
they say, well, if the
government's not going to help us, if

746
00:58:08.119 --> 00:58:12.599
they're not going to do anything,
we have to do it ourselves. And

747
00:58:12.639 --> 00:58:20.559
there was also that company that supplies
the flotation device right, very much like

748
00:58:21.119 --> 00:58:25.320
so that was like a civilian company
coming in and helping them, and and

749
00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:30.480
those were not military, those were
just like civilian engineers who were saying,

750
00:58:30.559 --> 00:58:34.960
we will also stay with the ex
soldiers and help you and risk our lives.

751
00:58:35.599 --> 00:58:39.440
And then Noda the scientist gives this
very uplifting speech about like, our

752
00:58:39.480 --> 00:58:45.679
goal is zero casualties. Yeah,
in this con this is not about trying

753
00:58:45.679 --> 00:58:50.920
to die nobly, which is why
they're so upset when they think that Simashira

754
00:58:52.239 --> 00:58:55.880
Shikashima is gonna die. Oh that's
not what they want. Yeah. Yeah.

755
00:58:57.000 --> 00:59:00.800
The captain like curses him out when
he thinks that's what he's doing.

756
00:59:00.679 --> 00:59:06.920
And I think also again it's again
just how powerful this message is in that

757
00:59:07.039 --> 00:59:10.159
meeting of all these like formal naval
uh you know, enlisted men and and

758
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:15.800
and so, sailors and officers.
The captain of the destroyer who's leading this

759
00:59:15.880 --> 00:59:21.800
specifically says these are not orders.
Yeah, you're asking for volunteers and if

760
00:59:21.800 --> 00:59:25.480
you want to walk away, you
can and it will do and there's no

761
00:59:25.800 --> 00:59:30.559
shame. Yeah, no one says, why you know you're abandoning your your

762
00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:32.840
duty, and I think they got
to change. I think they could.

763
00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:37.599
Some of them like nod to them
understanding, like because one of them says

764
00:59:37.639 --> 00:59:40.119
like I have family, like kids, like I can't do this, and

765
00:59:40.119 --> 00:59:45.119
they're like, yes, we understand. Yeah. That was very powerful.

766
00:59:45.280 --> 00:59:51.920
And the the young man right Mizushima
I mentioned the young man who didn't fight

767
00:59:51.960 --> 00:59:53.480
in the war. He's part of
the mind sweeping crew, you know,

768
00:59:53.880 --> 00:59:59.000
family, and they tell him he
can't come on this mission. He's like,

769
00:59:59.079 --> 01:00:00.159
why, you know, I didn't
get to fight in the war,

770
01:00:00.239 --> 01:00:04.320
like I want to be involved in
this, and they just flat to deny

771
01:00:04.400 --> 01:00:07.719
him. But then he shows up
with all of the tugboats. So he

772
01:00:07.880 --> 01:00:12.639
still went out and he enlisted all
these tugboats to come, you know,

773
01:00:12.920 --> 01:00:16.599
at the last second, and very
like Dunkirky again, like civilian power.

774
01:00:16.679 --> 01:00:21.719
I think it was the message civilians
helping each other, citizens helping each other.

775
01:00:22.440 --> 01:00:25.960
He still got into the quote unquote
fight, but in a non military

776
01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:31.360
way and got other civilians to join
in the cause. And it's you know,

777
01:00:31.360 --> 01:00:37.639
another comparison to Star Wars Rise of
Skywalker. At the very Endlando Calarisian

778
01:00:37.679 --> 01:00:43.119
shows up with that huge fleet of
just random ships, from all across the

779
01:00:43.159 --> 01:00:47.960
galaxy coming to fight. It's a
very similar scene, and again I think

780
01:00:49.079 --> 01:00:52.599
just done much better here than in
Star Wars. Like I love Star Wars,

781
01:00:52.199 --> 01:00:57.480
but this is taking like scenes,
similar scenes from Star Wars and just

782
01:00:57.519 --> 01:01:01.639
doing it better. In my totally
totally agree. And the last this is

783
01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:04.559
the last thing I want to say, but then also give you space for

784
01:01:04.639 --> 01:01:07.039
last things. And as I said, we'll have member content we're talking about

785
01:01:07.079 --> 01:01:09.920
some of the other movies. One
of the things I was very struck by

786
01:01:10.039 --> 01:01:13.880
is as someone who is American,
you know, American all my life.

787
01:01:15.079 --> 01:01:17.239
Let me start that again, as
someone who was born and raised in Western

788
01:01:17.280 --> 01:01:22.239
culture and with Western values and things
like that, you know, I was

789
01:01:22.280 --> 01:01:25.079
really and especially American ones. I
was very early taught like the power of

790
01:01:25.119 --> 01:01:29.039
the individual. You know, that
the individual is everything and all this,

791
01:01:29.320 --> 01:01:32.320
and I think a lot of people, myself included, have really grown to

792
01:01:32.360 --> 01:01:37.440
be very critical of that and very
critical of the you know, pick yourself

793
01:01:37.480 --> 01:01:39.679
up by your own bootstraps kind of
thing, and the idea that like each

794
01:01:39.760 --> 01:01:43.639
man is a king and so you
get to shoot in self defense all the

795
01:01:43.679 --> 01:01:45.960
time, and you know that that
I take care of me, and you

796
01:01:46.039 --> 01:01:50.599
take care of you and we'll all
be okay, And that that leaves very

797
01:01:50.599 --> 01:01:53.719
little room for communal responsibility and the
sense of, like, you know,

798
01:01:53.760 --> 01:01:58.400
that there should be shame for people
who you know, billionaires and people who

799
01:01:58.400 --> 01:02:00.159
are hoarding money to the extent that
it cast is harmed to everyone else.

800
01:02:00.400 --> 01:02:05.199
Like that has no place in our
culture. And I think that there is

801
01:02:05.480 --> 01:02:10.400
a very powerful counterculture message that's happening
now of like let's push back against that,

802
01:02:10.480 --> 01:02:15.320
and let's let's look with some honor
and reverence and see what we can

803
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:20.360
learn from cultures that do have much
more of a communal perspective and a communal

804
01:02:20.400 --> 01:02:25.360
aspect. And to me, this
movie is also very powerful because and there's

805
01:02:25.360 --> 01:02:29.159
a conversation I've had when I was
in seminary, there's a lot of Asian

806
01:02:29.199 --> 01:02:31.440
students there, and we often talked
about this about how, you know,

807
01:02:31.480 --> 01:02:37.559
American history is a real lesson of
the danger of the cult of the individual,

808
01:02:37.280 --> 01:02:42.760
but that Japanese history and some other
Asian culture's history and in other parts

809
01:02:42.800 --> 01:02:44.960
of the world as well, can
also be a danger of when it goes

810
01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:47.880
all the way the opposite of each
individual life is meaningless in service to the

811
01:02:47.920 --> 01:02:52.880
state, in service to the emperor, and that's Japanese, but it's also

812
01:02:52.920 --> 01:02:54.719
that was a big part of fascism
as well in Germany and Italy and Spain

813
01:02:54.760 --> 01:03:00.320
and places like that, of you
know, the individual, because that's everything

814
01:03:00.320 --> 01:03:02.440
they say where they talk about how, you know, ships were built with

815
01:03:02.519 --> 01:03:07.119
very little armor and fighter planes didn't
have ejector seats and all this, and

816
01:03:07.679 --> 01:03:09.760
because that, it was that idea
of the best thing you can do with

817
01:03:09.760 --> 01:03:14.440
your life is to die nobly for
the emperor, for Japan itself. And

818
01:03:15.400 --> 01:03:19.440
it's just a nice reminder I think
of that, like there's a dialectic there

819
01:03:19.480 --> 01:03:22.559
between like are we too focused on
the individual or we're too focused on the

820
01:03:22.360 --> 01:03:28.000
Every individual is meaningless in service of
the leaders or the culture or the country,

821
01:03:28.440 --> 01:03:34.079
and at finding some middle ground there
is what's most important. Yeah,

822
01:03:34.440 --> 01:03:42.800
I mean I think I agree with
all of that. Let me collect my

823
01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:46.719
thoughts on it real quick. Yes, I think you mentioned COVID earlier,

824
01:03:46.800 --> 01:03:53.280
like COVID response, and yeah,
there are definitely hints of criticism of government

825
01:03:53.360 --> 01:03:59.159
COVID response in terms of like the
whole cover up the government is lying to

826
01:03:59.199 --> 01:04:03.079
you of thing and it's it's dangerous, like you and I like, we

827
01:04:03.119 --> 01:04:10.599
don't want to get into just like
straight up denialism or anti backs messages obviously,

828
01:04:10.679 --> 01:04:15.519
like that's definitely not where we are. But I think we can be

829
01:04:15.199 --> 01:04:21.519
critical of the way that many governments
downplayed COVID to obviously to the detriment of

830
01:04:21.840 --> 01:04:26.920
lives like death or like severe illness, and you know, like the whole

831
01:04:26.960 --> 01:04:32.000
masking issue COVID, Like as of
right now twenty January twenty twenty four,

832
01:04:33.039 --> 01:04:39.000
COVID is still out there. It's
still affecting lives, people are suffering from

833
01:04:39.000 --> 01:04:45.239
it, people are dying from it. And the idea that it's over,

834
01:04:45.440 --> 01:04:48.960
like the message that is over,
I think that government's put out in terms

835
01:04:48.960 --> 01:04:53.480
of like let's get the economy back
on track, et cetera, I think

836
01:04:53.599 --> 01:04:57.920
is too far in one direction.
I think we should acknowledge that it is

837
01:04:57.960 --> 01:05:04.159
here and still ask that people do
you know, bare minimums to protect themselves

838
01:05:04.199 --> 01:05:10.000
and to protect each other. And
that's where I think your thing about collective

839
01:05:10.440 --> 01:05:16.199
collectivism, I guess in Asian culture, Japanese culture is something that I still

840
01:05:16.400 --> 01:05:21.960
admire and aspire to that in Japan
if you go to Japan, especially in

841
01:05:23.000 --> 01:05:27.599
the winter, especially now with COVID. If you go on trains, I

842
01:05:27.639 --> 01:05:30.559
would say, probably like ninety percent
of the people are going to be wearing

843
01:05:30.599 --> 01:05:35.800
masks on trains, right, And
I'm understanding is that that predates COVID at

844
01:05:35.880 --> 01:05:41.119
least I played when I went to
grad school. I played poker in casinos

845
01:05:41.119 --> 01:05:45.320
all the time in California, and
there was a large Asian population in those

846
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:47.840
in those poker rooms, and you'd
often see about like ten to fifty percent

847
01:05:47.840 --> 01:05:49.800
of them wearing masks. And I
remember asking us, what about it,

848
01:05:50.039 --> 01:05:55.480
Yeah, pretend it should Yeah,
but like I would, it would have

849
01:05:55.480 --> 01:05:58.280
never occurred to me, oh,
if I have the sniffles, I should

850
01:05:58.320 --> 01:06:00.920
wear a mask. Now it does, and I was idiot that it shouldn't.

851
01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:04.440
But and especially like trains in Japan, like though they're packed, like

852
01:06:04.639 --> 01:06:09.679
literally people get packed in, like
there are train attendants whose job is to

853
01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:12.920
push people onto the train. It
used to be I don't know if it

854
01:06:13.000 --> 01:06:16.000
still is now of COVID might be
a little bit more social distancing, but

855
01:06:16.679 --> 01:06:20.960
you still stand kind of shoulder to
shoulder. During Russian War and so like,

856
01:06:21.199 --> 01:06:27.599
especially under those circumstances, like wearing
your mask is considered respectful right to

857
01:06:27.639 --> 01:06:30.719
your neighbors to the people around you, and I think, yeah, like

858
01:06:30.800 --> 01:06:38.280
that that could also be seen as
a message of this movie, is everyone

859
01:06:39.400 --> 01:06:44.159
fighting not just for the nation of
Japan, because like again there's criticism of

860
01:06:44.519 --> 01:06:48.679
fighting the war for Japan, but
fighting for the people, like the your

861
01:06:48.719 --> 01:06:53.679
neighbors, other other people around you. I think that's that's a very strong

862
01:06:53.719 --> 01:06:57.079
message in this movie. Yeah,
I can definitely see that. I definitely

863
01:06:57.119 --> 01:07:00.360
see that. All right, Well, any last things you want to say,

864
01:07:01.000 --> 01:07:04.800
I don't know, go see this
movie. Yeah, it's very good.

865
01:07:04.880 --> 01:07:09.960
It's very I would even suggest,
like watch watch the nineteen fifty four

866
01:07:10.119 --> 01:07:14.840
and then watch this because it's really
a beautiful getting to see like what could

867
01:07:14.880 --> 01:07:17.480
happen if they have good because the
nineteen fifty four one's incredible, but it's

868
01:07:17.480 --> 01:07:20.079
still a guy in a rubber suit
and it looks pretty good for the time

869
01:07:20.119 --> 01:07:24.719
but still ridiculous. But also a
lot of things are very different, and

870
01:07:24.760 --> 01:07:28.679
I think it's really powerful. Yeah. I think what my closing thought on

871
01:07:28.719 --> 01:07:33.280
this is like, please consider like
if you're listening to this again, like

872
01:07:33.280 --> 01:07:38.199
I said, January twenty twenty four, it's still in theaters and in fact

873
01:07:38.400 --> 01:07:41.920
seems to be picking up some momentum
in terms of like the theaters that are

874
01:07:41.920 --> 01:07:46.039
willing to screen it because of the
strong word of mouth. Keep that going

875
01:07:46.679 --> 01:07:51.000
because it's an amazing movie. I
think you'll enjoy it, even if you're

876
01:07:51.079 --> 01:07:57.119
not a Kaiju fan, if you're
even if you're not a fan of this

877
01:07:57.199 --> 01:08:01.159
franchise. My wife Sarah, I
don't know if she's seeing any other Goji

878
01:08:01.360 --> 01:08:05.320
movie. In its entirety, she
enjoyed it. She loved the human element.

879
01:08:05.360 --> 01:08:10.400
I think she enjoyed the Kaiju elements
because those were well done, the

880
01:08:10.440 --> 01:08:14.480
special effects. But the important thing
is, like, especially for like a

881
01:08:14.760 --> 01:08:20.720
US audience or worldwide, but you
and I live in the US, having

882
01:08:20.920 --> 01:08:30.560
a Japanese movie with subtitles in the
original Japanese language, showing in US theaters

883
01:08:30.560 --> 01:08:35.039
and having success is very important.
Like from a culture standpoint, It doesn't

884
01:08:35.079 --> 01:08:39.720
mean like we have to show every
Japanese movie, but I think like this

885
01:08:39.960 --> 01:08:44.560
we acknowledge that this is a very
good movie that I hope gets some consideration

886
01:08:44.680 --> 01:08:49.760
for an Oscar or multiple oscars and
deserves all the praise and deserves your love

887
01:08:50.479 --> 01:08:55.239
and your money. Yeah, that's
a very cynical way of putting it.

888
01:08:55.279 --> 01:09:00.920
But studios and movie theaters operate on
making money, and if we show that

889
01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:02.680
we are willing to come out for
a movie like this and pay money,

890
01:09:03.039 --> 01:09:06.000
then maybe we'll see more of them
in the future. I mean, the

891
01:09:06.239 --> 01:09:10.680
good ones, right, totally agreed, And I would just say, just

892
01:09:10.720 --> 01:09:14.920
the one counterpoint to that is,
I do think that they're as COVID numbers

893
01:09:15.000 --> 01:09:17.239
rise, there are some very legitimate
concerns that a lot of folks have about

894
01:09:17.239 --> 01:09:20.000
going to see a movie in the
theater. I know, for me,

895
01:09:20.039 --> 01:09:24.119
I intentionally chose it. We went
at like two in the afternoon when like

896
01:09:24.359 --> 01:09:28.159
the theater was almost empty. But
also it will what I'm reading is it

897
01:09:28.159 --> 01:09:32.000
will probably be on streaming services within
a month or so, where you can

898
01:09:32.039 --> 01:09:35.720
pay like, you know, four
dollars to rent it or fifteen dollars to

899
01:09:36.199 --> 01:09:40.600
own it. Owning it online being
a whole other thing. But you know

900
01:09:40.640 --> 01:09:43.800
what I mean. And so I
would just say, you know, if

901
01:09:44.039 --> 01:09:45.079
you're not interested in going to see
it in the movie theater, which I

902
01:09:45.079 --> 01:09:48.920
think is a fair perspective for COVID
reasons and all, definitely look at,

903
01:09:49.039 --> 01:09:51.079
you know, try to spend some
money on it in one of the streaming

904
01:09:51.079 --> 01:09:56.079
services or just when it gets out
to DVD or Blu ray or VHS if

905
01:09:56.079 --> 01:09:59.239
you're still a you know, old
fogie like myself for whatever you can do,

906
01:09:59.600 --> 01:10:03.039
because lots of things like that.
Yeah, yeah, I mean for

907
01:10:03.159 --> 01:10:12.800
me personally, representation in media in
movies isn't important. I mean I say

908
01:10:12.840 --> 01:10:16.319
that it's important for everyone, I
hope. Yeah. And so movies like

909
01:10:16.960 --> 01:10:23.000
Crazy Rich Asians, Shuan Chi and
The Lesson Lesson, a Legend of the

910
01:10:23.039 --> 01:10:28.960
Ten Rings, everything everywhere all at
once, like these have been culturally impactful

911
01:10:29.079 --> 01:10:34.960
and important movies to me to see
and support as Asian American, but specifically

912
01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:42.960
as a Japanese person. This one, Godzilla minus one is like very deeply

913
01:10:43.039 --> 01:10:47.840
personal to me, and I hope
that it resonates, you know, continues

914
01:10:47.840 --> 01:10:54.079
to resonate with audiences across around the
world, and that Toho sees this and

915
01:10:54.159 --> 01:11:00.239
recognizes recognizes as the studio and makes
more movies like this, right, Like

916
01:11:00.319 --> 01:11:06.760
this is such an exciting direction for
this franchise to go and to make like

917
01:11:09.319 --> 01:11:15.199
just better movies like this was such
a good movie and it's so refreshing as

918
01:11:15.199 --> 01:11:19.039
a fan of the like I'm a
fan of the cheesy Kaiju movies. Yeah,

919
01:11:19.319 --> 01:11:23.680
but This was amazing, and this
is like a franchise changer. In

920
01:11:23.720 --> 01:11:27.399
my opinion, I thought shino Jo
was a franchise changer. This is like

921
01:11:27.479 --> 01:11:32.279
even more so. Yeah, I'm
just stunned and it's so good to hear.

922
01:11:32.359 --> 01:11:34.680
And a couple of things that say. One is, I don't know

923
01:11:34.680 --> 01:11:36.920
if you've seen it. I haven't
seen it yet. I probably will wait

924
01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:41.720
for it to be out on streaming, but I may see in the theaters

925
01:11:42.680 --> 01:11:45.119
if monster movies aren't your thing.
There's also what is quite likely going to

926
01:11:45.159 --> 01:11:49.760
be Miyazaki's last and but the most
recent Studio Ghibli movie is also in theaters

927
01:11:49.840 --> 01:11:54.600
right now. And I remember I
was reading an article about these two and

928
01:11:54.680 --> 01:11:57.680
how it was kind of funny that
like, the two of the parts of

929
01:11:57.760 --> 01:12:00.680
Japanese culture that have most made it
to America in terms of on screen movies

930
01:12:01.079 --> 01:12:05.840
are the Gojuro movies and then the
Miyazaki Studio Ghibli movies, which are aggressively,

931
01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:12.239
aggressively anti war and very much kind
of like much more wholesome content,

932
01:12:12.600 --> 01:12:15.600
though with also a lot of darkness
in them as well. But also,

933
01:12:15.680 --> 01:12:19.920
just on what you said about the
representation point, I think is so important,

934
01:12:19.960 --> 01:12:21.960
because yeah, these are stories that, like I said, like,

935
01:12:23.720 --> 01:12:26.319
if you're listening to this and you
grew up in America or anywhere else that

936
01:12:26.399 --> 01:12:30.439
you know Western, you probably did
learn about Kamakazi's the same way I did.

937
01:12:30.520 --> 01:12:31.720
You know, and I know that
some anime have dealt with it,

938
01:12:31.760 --> 01:12:34.760
but like, this is a really
good opportunity to be part of a conversation

939
01:12:34.840 --> 01:12:38.439
that you would not necessarily be part
of, which I think is one of

940
01:12:38.479 --> 01:12:42.159
the like representation isn't just for the
people who are represented in that way,

941
01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:47.119
And I'll use that to do as
we wrap up a quick transition that another

942
01:12:47.600 --> 01:12:51.159
I love hearing you talk Riki about
how important this is to you as a

943
01:12:51.199 --> 01:12:56.079
Japanese person, an American Japanese American
person, because for me, that's how

944
01:12:56.079 --> 01:12:59.000
I feel about the TV show Echo
that just came out, and there already

945
01:12:59.079 --> 01:13:02.279
is an Echo episode that I put
up with Will Freeland that I think it

946
01:13:02.279 --> 01:13:08.159
was last week's. There'll be another
episode coming out pretty soon. Echo is

947
01:13:08.279 --> 01:13:15.079
I think a master class in intersectionality
because I watched it as an amputee and

948
01:13:15.239 --> 01:13:19.960
saw myself represented as an amputee while
also seeing it as a great story about

949
01:13:19.960 --> 01:13:25.479
a Native American person and a person
that about a deaf person two communities I'm

950
01:13:25.479 --> 01:13:28.880
not a part of, and it
really got me into a mindset of thinking

951
01:13:28.880 --> 01:13:30.800
about what does it mean to be
in one of these three communities, and

952
01:13:30.840 --> 01:13:34.159
then getting to read the stuff that
natives are saying and that deaf people are

953
01:13:34.199 --> 01:13:39.119
saying, and then like I've made
some great friends where like a deaf person

954
01:13:39.119 --> 01:13:42.319
will talk about how much they see
themselves represented and I'll say, like,

955
01:13:42.359 --> 01:13:45.119
I hope it's okay to say,
but I feel as an amputee the same

956
01:13:45.119 --> 01:13:48.439
way, and that that person's like, yes, that's awesome and just and

957
01:13:48.520 --> 01:13:51.640
even putting aside all the presentation,
it's it's I think one of the best

958
01:13:51.680 --> 01:13:56.479
Marvel shows we've seen. I think
it's a reminder that although there are incredible

959
01:13:56.479 --> 01:14:00.000
acting performances in the MCU as a
whole, Vince Tonafrio, i think,

960
01:14:00.119 --> 01:14:05.520
is just head of so so good, and this is returning his acting as

961
01:14:05.600 --> 01:14:10.279
Kingpinn to the very best it was
in Netflix. There's just so much to

962
01:14:10.279 --> 01:14:14.159
love about it. But from the
representation standpoint, if you're curious about any

963
01:14:14.199 --> 01:14:16.479
of those three communities or all three, or just how these can be dealt

964
01:14:16.479 --> 01:14:19.960
as part of a great story.
Go check out Echo and check out my

965
01:14:19.960 --> 01:14:24.119
podcast episode about it. Check out
all the things that Rieky and I have

966
01:14:24.159 --> 01:14:28.479
had to say. We will finally, finally, finally be finishing up with

967
01:14:29.279 --> 01:14:32.600
rebels pretty soon over on the Star
Wars Generations podcast. You can find all

968
01:14:32.640 --> 01:14:36.640
that podcast stuff on the Ethical Panda
dot com or going to True Story.

969
01:14:38.039 --> 01:14:40.119
Let us know what you think.
We'd love to know your thoughts in this

970
01:14:40.159 --> 01:14:45.520
movie and Kaiju movies in general.
You know on gojr Movies in general.

971
01:14:45.880 --> 01:14:47.600
All the informations of the show notes. Please think about becoming a member.

972
01:14:47.600 --> 01:14:50.520
We'll have bonus content for the members. You can find out more information about

973
01:14:50.560 --> 01:14:54.159
how to find Wreky and the stuff
Rieky does in the show notes, and

974
01:14:54.199 --> 01:14:57.600
to anybody else, Thank you so
much for listening. We have spoken.

975
01:15:00.479 --> 01:15:06.479
I can't do is so iconic.
Well, Mary, my partner, what's

976
01:15:06.520 --> 01:15:12.039
complete exist? And one thing she
missed Garry's the mitamonic almost kind of like

977
01:15:12.199 --> 01:15:15.439
how the pics that Gesira make in
the original that think gets repeated again and

978
01:15:15.479 --> 01:15:18.199
again, and they didn't use that, which probably for the best, but

979
01:15:18.319 --> 01:15:18.840
we missed it.