Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Superhero Ethics podcast. Today and
myself and Riki Hayashi are here to talk to you about Godzilla Minus One,
the Japanese film that's currently in theaters that's taking the Godzilla franchise that we've talked
about somewhat on this podcast already and really doing some new, interesting things,
going back to some of the original story beats telling it in new ways.
And Riki and I have had some amazing conversations over the last year about Gojira,
the Godzilla stories and character, but I haven't gotten a chance to get
him on the podcast. So I'm really excited to have you on. And
I wanted to say a quick note before we jump in that if you're enjoying
this podcast and you want more of it, one of the best things to
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So for example, today, Riki and I, at the end of
this we're going to talk about sort of the Godzilla franchise as a whole,
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But with that, Riki, let's get started and let me just ask you,
as someone who was born in Japan grew up mostly in America but with
a Japanese family, what is the significance of the Goji rak character and the
Godzilla franchise and movies for you even before you saw this one? Yeah,
Matthew, first off, thank you so much for having me on to talk
about this because of it, it is just an amazing movie, an amazing
franchise For me personally, I grew up watching these movies and it's just I
mean, it's the most successful movie franchise to come out of Japan, right
And in fact, it holds the Guinness World Record for longest running movie franchise
because it started in nineteen fifty four, so it's longer than James Bond,
which is probably the second longest. If I were to guess it sounds right
right, And you know, in terms of cultural exports from Japan, I
think it's the most significant. You could make arguments for some anime stuff,
especially these days like Dragon Ball, one Piece, Attack on Titan, but
from like a longstanding historical perspective like this is it and personally like I love
it. I love Kaiju. You know, monster movies and just growing up
with them, they were great, can't be fun movies to watch as a
kid or as a young adult, And same thing with the you know,
we talk like we do the Star Wars podcast and we talk about that and
how it's affected our lives. And now to see this franchise move in the
direction that it's moving with the last two movies Shane Gojidra and then this one
minus one is truly amazing and heartwarming for me as a fan. And it's
great that I can continue to enjoy the franchise as an adult and have it
resonate with much more adult themes than just like a monster destroying cities. Yeah,
there's a couple of things I want to talk about what you just said.
First of all, just on the cultural significance. You know, it's
funny to think how much the Godzilla name, which is funny, which isn't
as you picked up, but just kind of make clear. The word in
Japanese is gojira. Godzilla is what has been is the anglicization of it.
But that then become the word that's very well known in America and English speaking
worlds, and that name, Like we did an episode on the Star Wars,
the Clone Wars episode called the Zilla Beast, which is very clearly a
Godzilla story. You know, think about terms like bridezilla and groomzilla and like
the zilla. You know, application to all sorts of different things is very
common in our community. That's all out of these movies say signify like a
monster the same way. Yeah, we add a gate to the end of
anything for like a political controversy exactly exactly, and it's it's a monster,
but it's also anything that's kind of like just oversized and scary, you know,
and that kind of thing. The Bridezilla one has an awful lot of
misogyny in it, to be clear, and I'm a very proud Groomzilla,
but that's a whole other story. But also what you said, it's funny
to me because I'm sure there's some stuff that's in the middle. But I
feel like there's kind of two distinctly different sets of Gojiro movies that are out
there, and the one that is most often known, I think by a
lot of people. And there's a funny story about Kevin Smith that I'll tell
with this is the a guy in a rubber suit smashing buildings, and a
lot of those are a lot of fun. Some of them have some real
plot and some real interesting commentary on you know, indigenous populations in the South
Pacific, or on nuclear war, or a lot of these things, but
a lot of them it's just a lot of fun watching these rubber monsters smash
each other. And in at least one setting, I believe it's Godzilla versus
the Smog Monster, the name of which I forget at the moment, but
you get to see Godzilla look very like passive, aggressive and condescending at the
silly military as he has to go after the smog Monster because they can't do
it. Really fun, really silly, to the point I think those are
dominant, to the point where Kevin Smith in our recent podcast talked about how
he doesn't want the human story in these movies he just wants to see the
monsters fighting. And I bring that up because he has now recanted that and
said after this particular movie, he's like, oh, Okay, now I
get it. And it's funny because and we did a podcast about this that
Riki was not able to be a part of, but Paul and I did
about the original Godzilla movie that the Gojira, that came out in nineteen fifty
four, very significantly the first year after the American occupation ended, and it's
really this heartrending story of and metaphor of Japan coming to terms with the nuclear
horror that they went through and the war and America and all that, and
it's this searing piece of social commentary wrapped up in a monster movie, which,
if you also look at things like invasions of the body snatchers and stuff
like that, horror and monster movies were often in the fifties the place you
could get away with that and get around government censorship and all that kind of
thing. And so yeah, I love that, Like, yeah, the
rubber monster movies are fun. But with this and with shin Godzilla, it
really feels like it's a return to that older tradition of Yeah, the monster
fights are fun, and the monster in this movie is great, but let's
really use this to dig into some difficult ethical and moral questions about war and
monsters and violence and nuclear power. Yeah, to be clear, I mean
this minus one is very political, right, Like, the message is pretty
clear. But for any fans out there who are like, you know,
why do they have to make Godzilla political the same way they do with other
franchises, That's silly. It's always been political. The commentary has been written
into the franchise since the very beginning. As you said, regarding the horrors
of nuclear weapons, and I don't know if you talked about this on the
podcast. I apologize I haven't had a chance to listen to it. But
it's not just the atomic bombings. It was very directly influenced by an atomic
bomb test that the United States did in the Pacific that the fallout affected a
ship. Yeah, it was called like the Lucky Dragon number five. I
can't remember the Japanese name for the ship, but yeah, you talked about
that ship. Yeah, how I mean, just to be very clear that
the name of that ship is the name of the ship that is the first
damaged in the movie. Itself like they were not pulling any punches. And
it's the test at Bikini Atoll that they're talking about, which is also the
test mentioned in this movie. Yeah, and you mentioned the monster the smog
Monster's hetera Godzilla versus heatera. That's very clearly a nineteen eighties message about the
dangers of pollution, air pollution and kind of like the sludge pollution that was
becoming an issue. There have been Godzilla movies where the monster Godzilla itself is
said to be the spirit kind of like the vengeful spirit of Japanese soldiers who
were abandoned in the Pacific. Yeah, and I believe maybe soldiers and like
civilians who were who were affected by the war, by the Japanese Imperial War.
So it's always been political. It's it is just a fun you know,
you can watch it, watch them as fun monster movies. But the
directors have always tried, in my opinion, to maybe not hide but layer
these messages in Shin Godzilla, the previous movie to this one, had a
very clear political message about bureaucracy, and it was it was a criticism of
the Japanese government's response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and it just depicts the government
in a very incompetent, bumbling way. Yeah, and I think this one
is very similar in that it's interesting. It's why I'm so excited that you're
on this podcast. And again very clear not you know, we don't have
you on here to be the voice of all japan and the voice of all
Japanese perspectives by any means. But I think you know more about this than
I do, certainly, But I think in watching this movie, and we
will for those of you who haven't seen it yet, we'll give you a
quick plot summary of promise. But like on the surface level, I could
say, oh, this is Gojurra meet Survivor's guilt, you know, and
because there's a very clear theme that I think anyone could understand of This is
about survivor's guilt and the post war period and all of that, and is
a beautiful depiction of PTSD and how all of that would play out, both
with individual characters survivor's guilt, but also with the whole nation coming to terms
with this horrible war that it just happened. But also I know that you
know, into a more reading and the like that there's also a lot of
specific commentary, both historical about, you know, the American occupation that was
happening at the time and the Japanese government under the American occupation, but also
that you know, because in the in the movie, the government doesn't really
do anything except try to cover this up and try to like not let people
panic. And a lot of the Japanese commentary I've read has said that this
is also you know, again, you can look at it as a historical
piece, but the same way shin Godzilla is about the nuclear power plant,
this is a lot about COVID as well, and sort of what the Japanese
government did response to COVID and things like that. And I'm sure, like
any you know, in a world where Ronald Reagan can think that Bruce Springsteen's
born in the USA is on his side, I'm sure that this is one
of these things that, like any political movement can twist enough to say it's
supporting their political cause. But it's anything to dive into. Let me give
a quick political, quick plot summary, and then let's dive into some of
stuff we're talking about here. Oh, so the movie opens with a young
pilot landing on Odo island where there's a small airfield, and a lot of
this movie is clearly making reference to the original. Odo Island is the first
place that the Gojira attacks. In the original nineteen fifty four, we learned
that he was a Kama Kazi pilot, that there. Actually he landed here,
he claims because there's something wrong with his plane, but that actually there
wasn't. That he just didn't want to die and he didn't want to go
and be a Kama Kazi. And on the island he's met with kind of
you know, some folks are judgmental of him, but there's also a sense
of like, look, we all know the war is over. There's no
you know, what is the point of you being one more person to die
and sinking one more American ship when the war's basically over. And he's with
these mechanics, and while he's there, the Gojira Monster, a much smaller
version of it, but does attack, and he is ordered by the mechanics
to get into his zero fighter and shoot the monster with the twenty millimeters machine
gun that the monster has. At this point, the monster is supposed to
be The idea I think is that it's small enough that the machine gun may
well have made a difference. Granted, the plane is on the ground and
most of the shots it's pointing at its like ankles, so I don't really
know how much it would have done, but like its head bends down a
couple of times. But once again, he's paralyzed by fear. He's not
able to take action, and as a result, almost all of the mechanics
die except for him. And I had all these names written down, and
now the way I have my computer set up, I can't see them.
So please fill in the names. Yeah, I've got so. The the
pilot is Shikishima Koe yep. The one engineer who survives is Tachibana. Tachibana
yep. And he makes very in the next morning, Tachibana makes very clear
that he kind of thinks that, you know, uh, Shinasaki, I'm
sorry say that first one again, Shinsa Shikishima, Shikishima, thank you that
Shikushima was a coward once again, and that all the people are dead because
of him, and in a very kind of powerful but again not overdone the
way it often could have been. Give him this little folder with all the
pictures of the mechanics who died and their families as just kind of like you
have to bear this guilt. Shikishima goes home to a utterly devastated Tokyo,
and I really like that it's Tokyo here, It's not Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
It's a reminder that like as horrific as the nuclear bombings were, the fire
bombing of Tokyo actually killed more people and did even more destruction, as hard
as it is to imagine that, and the Tokyo there's rubble everywhere. People
are living in the rubble. Everyone is dead. And he meets a woman
one of his neighbors, who is at first very happy to see that he's
home, but then also realizes he's a kamikaze. He's not supposed to be
here, and accuses him again of cowardice and basically says like I've worked for
men like you, my children will still be alive, which is gosh.
Yeah, for anyone who historically knows the war, there's no truth to it,
but you understand just the harrowingness of it, and that looking for someone
to lame And there's a lot there about the sort of coma kazi culture,
which we're definitely going to discuss and its place in a society. And so
then he winds up taking in this young woman, Norico, who has a
baby Akiko. Again I think, if I'm getting in the names wrong,
please let me know, and they kind of become a family, and he
never sort of crosses the line into romance with Nuriko, ahough it's clear that
it's open to him in part because he is still carrying all of this survivor's
guilt and this feeling like he shouldn't still be alive and that all these people
are dead because of him. And we get over the next couple of years
in a quick couple of quick scenes, like pictures of the nation slowly rebuilding
and the neighborhood kind of slowly cleans up, but there's still a lot of
refuse. We're given reference to the American occupation, but there it's never seen.
We never see American soldiers on street corners, even though that would have
been very common, and I think that's a very pointed choice by the movie
makers. That will get into a second and then of course the Gojira monster
begins attacking again. There's discussions about how to kill it. He winds up
being out on a boat trying to get rid of all the mines, which
is another kind like if you think about today, one of the biggest sort
of justice issues is all of the mines that have been left behind in Korea,
in Southeast Asia, in parts of Central America. And here we're seeing
again, like all these mines were left and the Japanese, you know,
want to be able to fish and want to be left shipping, but all
the mines have to be taken care of. It's very dangerous, and he
assembles this great group of people, the sort of crusty old captain, the
doctor, things like that. We get a couple of other great scenes of
Gojura attacking and trying to figure out how to deal with it, and the
American occupation says they're not going to get involved at all. Douglas MacArthur says
that he's not going to do anything. It's in nineteen forty seven, when
the Cold War's really just kicking off, and the Americans claim they're too busy
with the Soviets. The Japanese government also seems to say that they can't do
anything, and so a group of civilians have to come together to try and
fight Gojira on their own. They come up with a great scientific way to
defeat it. They're going to surround it with free on and make it drop
to the bottom of the ocean and then rise it back up with the hope
that compression and the decompression will kill it. But Shikishira isn't sure that this
will happen. He winds up reaching out to that mechanic again to say,
hey, look, I need your help, and the way he convinces the
mechanic to help him is by saying, I will finally be the Kamakazi that
I was supposed to be. That he's going to load up his plane with
bombs, as would have been done. That was the whole idea of the
Kamakazi planes and fly it into the open mouth of Gojira in the hope that
that's what will destroy the monster because so many other things haven't. And it's
a really beautiful scene, and it left me at least really not knowing what
I wanted to happen or what would happen. I mean, I think the
film does a very good job of kind of leaving you in about where you're
supposed to be feeling this because on the one hand, there's the feeling of
he is doing what he was originally ordered to do and what so many people
have said he was wrong not to have done. On the other hand,
at least for me, not having grown up in the culture of that,
there is a whole sense of, like, you know, I would much
rather live live humbly for a cause than die nobly for it. So there's
just a natural reaction I have against the whole idea of the kama Kazi attack.
But at the end, and again big spoilers, we find out that
the Mechanic, on his own volition, without being asked by Shikashira, who
was ready to die, builds an ejector seat and sort of gives him the
possibility of you don't have to be a Kamakazi, you can live. And
in this just beautiful moment of that kind of first the Mechanic gives him that
permission, and then in kind of everything works out ending we had thought that
Nokia was dead, Noriko was dead, but it turns out she's alive,
and she kind of gives him a final absolution and asks him, is your
war finally over? And and that's where I just started sobbing because it's a
it's a beautiful, beautiful moment. And the movie ends with with Gojira dead
and everyone living happily ever after. And then of course the last scene that's
somewhere under the bottle of the ocean, Gojira's healing. Uh So we can
have more of these movies. That's I think I got most of the plot.
There's any big things I missed plot lies, No, I think you
covered it well. I just want to mention that some of the additional characters.
Uh Kenji Noda is the former Navy naval technician who's like the scientists character
with the crazy hair who comes up with the idea. The captain of the
mind Sweeping boat is uh Akitsu Yoji, although most of the characters just referred
to him as Captain had I had to look up his character name, but
he He's a fun character, probably my one of my favorites in the I
mean, yep, they are all amazing characters. There's also a young crewman
on the mind sweeping boat, Mizushima, who represents like the next generation for
Japan and specifically like they call out that he was too young to fight in
the war, and there's a lot of great characterization around that about his motivations.
I just want to say on that because I think it's kind of one
of the central themes is it seems like a lot of this theme is about
sort of moving on from the war and how do you get past this idea
that the most noble thing you can do is to die for the emperor and
all that. And in a great scene, the doctor and the captain tell
the younger man not to go with them, and they say, because you
know, not having fought in war is something to be proud of. Because
he's saying, like, I need to fight in this war. I didn't
get to fight in World War two, and they tell him, no,
you should be proud that you didn't fight a war, which feels like it's
a real sea change in the mentality. Yeah. I like this movie.
I cried multiple times. That was definitely one of the scenes, the scene
with Shikishima and you know, plot wise, not knowing if he's going to
actually die or not. I I saw that coming. I think that,
like all the clues were there, I definitely wanted him to live. And
the way they set up the scenes, especially when Tachibana says, like one
more thing, like they're they're checking out the plane. He says, one
more thing, and then it cuts away, and I think they showed the
back of the seat, the pilot's seat, and there was like German on
it, so it was very clear that that was not part of the original
of the plane and that he had done he had made some special modification.
So they were like there were clues there. It wasn't like hit you over
the head because you missed it, obviously, but it was very much hinting
at that direction. So for me personally, it wasn't a surprise. But
I think it was written well in a way that is like you wanted this
to happen, You wanted him to live, and they gave you some hints
that it was possible, but you still weren't sure because it was kind of
at the end, it's up to him and it was his decision, And
I think that's what made it so powerful, I would agree, and I
think I think I definitely had a sense of maybe he's going to figure out
how to jump out or something like that, but having it be Tojikira,
the mechanic, the one who had been on him and who only did this
because he was willing to die, saying like, no, you don't have
to die, It's okay if you live through this. That hit me so
hard because it really felt like it was not just him forgiving himself, but
the others, you know, the kind of representation of the culture or that
he thought he had failed, the military culture giving him that absolution. Yes,
Tachivana giving him permission, and then Akiko the young their daughter. I
mean this is a found family situation, right, Like Noriko is not Akiko's
biological mother, but they come together as a family unit surviving in Tokyo.
So then there are scenes where Akiko refers to Shikishima as daddy, right,
so if she sees them as her parents. So not just the permission from
Tachibana to live, but the motivation of wanting to live to continue to be
her father, like those are all like very important parts of this history and
his character, and it was just it just came together in such a beautiful
way. Yea. I will say the other thing too, like when Gojia
first makes landfall after being a Radi and becoming like super monstrous, he attacks
Ginza the Ginza district where Noriko is working, and that's where she appears to
die, pushing Shikishima aside into an alleyway and saving his life. And and
that I cried in that scene too, because his acting was so real to
me, Like he just like unleashes this primal cry slash yell to kind of
mirror when Gog uses the atomic slash heat breath and also does like that the
classic you know yell. He also yells like when he thinks Noriko is dead
and when he sees the devastation, and it was just gut wrenching. I
couldn't believe it. Like one of the most amazing acting performances I've seen of
just like raw emotion. Yeah, it's I'm very glad. I saw this
movie in subtitles, something I often struggle with, and I kind of medicated
myself proper. Least on ADHD would be under control. And I think that,
like, you know, I think dubbing can sometimes work, and dubbing's
got a lot better. But getting to see this the original, I don't
speak a word of the language, but the acting performances still came across so
so well, and in ways that would just I thought he was amazing so
much, and it's kind of funny. And I'm not even getting to the
politics of Hollywood and the oscars. But you know, when Oppenheimer came out,
I do think Oppenheimer is a phenomenally good movie. And it's not about
what a lot of people seem to think it's about. That it's not just
about the atomic bomb. It's much for his life and specific But a lot
of people were talking about, like how funny it was that, like this
is a movie about the atomic momb that there's no Japanese characters in it whatsoever.
And so the fact that now this and Oppenheimer are going to go up
against each other in the Oscar season, Yeah, like I think because I
think it really deserves I think, you know, best acting performances don't have
to be in English by any means. Yeah, let me well, let
me quickly the actor's name. Shikishima's actor's name is Juno Ski Kamiki, So
just want to shout out his name and then follow up real quick. What
I was saying about the Ginza attack scene, I actually like suspected that Noriko
was still alive. So even that to me was not a surprise. Okay,
mostly because you know, we talk like superhero ethics, we talk about
the concept of fridging, right, where that is when a lot in a
lot of comics from the eighties and nineties, female characters would die or like
suffer some horrible injury or something in order to motivate the male superhero character to
you know, attack the villain or whatever. And so when Noriko appeared to
die in the Ginza attack, I kind of had like, I was sad,
I was devastated, but I had in the back of my mind,
I was like, ah, that's you know, that's kind of a bad
fridging job. But the movie is so good, and the hype around the
movie was so strong, and I was like, no, I don't believe
it. I don't think they actually friged her, because that would make this
a bad movie. So I kind of had faith like in the production.
So yeah, it was like a weird oh, like she actually survived.
But did you notice? I didn't, But I read about this after because
I wasn't watching her in that scene. I was bawling my eyes out.
But apparently, like on the back of her neck there's like some movement to
suggest that she has been irradiated. Like there's debate about this because the movie
doesn't make it clear that she's been irradiated and or been infuse with Godzilla DNA.
Oh did you see this? Because I I did. I did not
at all. I was watching everything. Everything I was reading was all about
like the history and the Japanese culture and stuff like that. So no,
I didn't see any of that. But like they clearly are setting up a
sequel, so they're like, like I said, there's debate in the fandom.
It could just be radiation poisoning, but it was like visually weird enough
that some people believe that it's like Godzilla DNA infused her and that's why she
survived. So Okay, I don't know what's Yeah, who knows? Uh.
A couple of the quick things I want to point out, just in
terms of the Ginza again, this is very much I feel like a reference
to the original movie. In some ways, it's a prequel because it's happening
beforehand, but a lot of the exact same things happen. And also the
first thing I'd read said that the name minus one is supposed to be because
it's like a prequel to Godzilla, that's not actually true. The director and
writer have both got a record of saying it's because if you think of like
Japan rebuilding at being at like point zero, it's that after the war they
were at minus one because of the idea being that Japan wasn't even ready to
start rebuilding yet, because it was still wrestling with the ghosts of the war
and the past and the survivor's guilt and all of that. So that was
really a nice explanation of what the name is about. But the Ginza attack
Ginza is what's attacked in nineteen fifty four, and there's a number of specific
moments that happen exactly as they do, Godzilla picking up a train in its
mouth and sort of shaking it around, which is how Camigo is first endangered.
And also there's a beautiful scene in the original movie of these reporters standing
on the top of a building telling the story to the listeners on the radio
of what's happening as their own lives are becoming endangered, and they eventually all
die when their building is attacked. Pretty much that exact same scene happens in
this which I thought was just a in the later movies, the press often
becomes the enemy. It goes back and forth. The presses sometimes the enemy,
but often there's like there almost becomes a kind of a cast that you
have to have the young military guy who's disillusioned, the girl who he is
flirting with and who has some part to play, the old man scientist who's
a little crazy but has some good ideas, and the reporter. And sometimes
the woman is the plucky reporter, and sometimes the guy is and like,
but those parts are always there, and so it's nice to see again that
homage to the reporter characters, and just that again made me cry because they're
just they're scared out of their minds, but they're doing their job of trying
to make sure everyone knows what's happening, even as they're about to die.
Let me, I want to start getting into some of the deeper meanings of
this, and it's very interesting for me watching this as someone who it's clearly
about. It is a part of a conversation that I haven't been part of.
And so let me kind of give a little bit of my background in
terms of my understanding of Kama Kazi and this part of the culture, and
then kind of shirt from you because growing up, I think, you know,
it was the eighties and there was still an awful lot of racism about
Japan. I mean there still is, to be very clear, but you
know, this was the time when Japanese industry was really threatening American industry again
in the way it was posted. And so there's an awful lot of racism.
And I learned about Kama Kazi and just Japanese soldiers and Bonzai and all
this as this sort of like there was a strong degree of the noble savage,
the rousseau idea, as well as this idea of the kind of like
Western idolization of Eastern mysticism, you know, and that like the Japanese old
man on the mountain who would always give you great wisdom, and that a
part of it was this lack of you know, it could be treated as
the Japanese were so crazy because they would were so willing to die for their
cause, or it could be the oh, look how awesome Japanese were.
They were so fanatical, they were so dedicated. If only we had that
in westernness, and so much racism obviously tinged around all of this, but
that was what I learned about Kama kak the whole idea of the Kama Kazi,
as well as that it was all taking place after the war was basically
over, and the whole thing was just an exercise in futility. A lot
of this was also taught in the kind of American justification of the atomic bomb,
in that you know, Japan would fight to the last man, and
so we had to do this because there were else Millions of Japanese would die,
millions of Americans whould die in an invasion, et cetera, et cetera.
And since then I've learned to unpack a lot of that and undershit it
more as culture. But I'm curious for you obviously, I mean, you
grew up, you know, many many years after the wars I did were
about the same generation. But what what did you learn in terms of like
the these ideas of like the like this to die for the emperor and the
role of the kamikaze in the war and all this kind of thing. Yeah,
so, I mean, and so far as it was an empire,
you know, imperial Japan, the notion of the emperor, you know,
like a king as your leader, and in Japanese culture, the emperor is
considered divine, right, like the divine right of kings. That literally,
the emperor is considered to be a divine being. Whether you know today in
modern Japan, like people actually believe that or not, it's still a part
of that mythos and cultural impact and importance of the emperor, like regardless of
whether you actually believe in divinity. So the emperor, you know, continues
to be important. And it's hard to get into the mindset of people from
almost eighty years ago, right, but it's un standable, I guess,
not in a way that I would believe in, but that if you have
this culture that props up the emperor as a divine being, and you know
that people would do anything to save their country to save their emperor, it's
very sad and tragic. And I think that's the reckoning that this movie is
trying to have with Japanese history and a lot of people like are trying to
have And yeah, so like it goes to the divinity of the emperor and
also the Bushido, you know, the Samurai code. Samurai didn't exist anymore
at the time, but even today to this day, like Samurai is considered
a very important, you know, historical and cultural thing in Japan. So
even though like samurai is a class didn't exist, you know, you know,
people caring on swords or anything that ethos, just like you know the
I think the Knights of Camelot. That's the comparison I make for Western cultures
is like people see that as like an ideal, like we should aspire to
be like the Knights of Camelot in terms of honor and like fighting for what
we believe in type of thing. Samurai very much like occupy that space in
Japan, and so like the Bushido culture, like placed a high value on
honor and even even death in service of honor or, the idea that if
you acted dishonorably, you should die, right. The idea of seppuku ritual
suicide was often that if a samurai acted dishonorably, they then like agreed to
subject themselves to seppuku to kill themselves because of it. And you know,
for you and I I think we value life and think that that's not the
correct thing to do, but it's and we make our judgments, we judge
people, but I want to make it clear, like it I think it's
understandable how if you grow up in a culture like this, with these traditions,
with these ideals of the samurai bushid away, that young men could be
convinced could be lied to, in my opinion, to do this, And
it's it's unfortunate that that happened. And you're right, like, I think
there is racism to the narrative of kamu kase. So let me also like
historically or just like factually, in Japan, it's actually not referred to as
kami kase. Interestingly, the technical term for the units, the suicide units
was shimpou toku koiktai sometimes and in this movie shortened to toko tai and the
shimpoo at the beginning. If you change the pronunciation can be read as kamu
kase the way you read the kanji. And so I'm not sure like where
and how like that term got exported, imported and changed to kamu kase.
But it's interesting and I kind of want to like look into that, because
no one in Japan calls it that. To my knowledge, I studied this
like twenty five thirty years ago. I remember there was something about how like
in Japanese mythology that you know, way back in the day, there had
been like a fleet coming from China or Korea or whatever to invade the Japanese
islands, and a great wind, a divine wind had come, kind of
like the Protestant wind that's supposed to have destroyed the Spanish Armada. That some
great wind from the heavens came and destroyed this invading Armana and that that was
that the Kama Kase were supposed to be something like that. And so I
don't know if that's connected to the name at all. Again, this is
something I read twenty five years ago, but absolutely, Kamik i'ld say like
that that refers to the two Mongol two failed Mongol invasions in the twelve hundreds,
I believe eleven hundred and twelve hundreds. I can't remember specifically the dates,
but yeah, like there there is definitely a historical mythological belief that the
divine wind sunk Mongol fleets and prevented the invasion in kind of that Genghis kogle
icon era, right, and it's it is definitely a reference to that.
And like I said, the Shimpu part of the name of the unit there
there's always two ways to read kanji in Japanese, the on yomi and the
cunyomi, And basically it's like the Japanese way to read it and the Chinese
way to read it. So it's like the characters for kami kase are there
in the name, but to my knowledge, that's not how it's called in
Japan. So again, like it's weird. It's possible at some point historically
someone from the US or something and say, hey, like what is can
you read this to me? And someone just said, oh, it says
kami kase, when actually the Japanese reading of it is shimpu. I mean
when you try to think about like we used to think Beijing was pronounced peking
like pee king, and like Mumbai was Bombay, Like there's a long history
of horrible mispronunciations and anglicizations of words from this part of the world. Yeah,
I mean, to this day its parts of the world, I should
say, I'm I'm rather confused on why English speakers call the country Germany instead
of Deutschland, right, which is where they refer to themselves the same as
Japan, like we for ourselves as n So yeah, well, one other
thing I think that it's important there is. I love what you said about
Bushido, and I think it's important to understand this as a particularly Japanese story.
But one thing I think is always funny again in the kind of racist
retellings of the kama Kase or the like, is every culture that I think
of, and especially most of the movies that we talk about, have stories
of people who are willing to sacrifice their lives to as part of the fight
for others, you know. And this is everything from you know, Natasha
Romanov being willing to like you know, you know, die to get the
stone that's needed for the the the Affinity Gauntlet, to almost every war movie
has someone who does this too. I mean, I don't want to say
that this movie has the same message as The Last Jedi by any means.
Oh, but I have to think about you know, Finn wanting to wanting
to literally be a Kamakase, fly his plane into the thing to destroy it,
and Rose saving him with we don't fight, you know, we don't
die to kill what we hate. We fight to support, we defend what
we love. Absolutely, and I strongly thought of that connection while watching Minus
One, and I you and I love the Last Jedi. Yeah, but
I I think that scene in the Last Jedi with Finn and Rose is kind
of written a little fuzzi in my opinion, right, I think he maybe
should have done it like it was weird, Like I don't know if it
was fully earned. And that's why I love Minus one because I think,
like the parallel scene and this one like fully earns it, and it's just
like written much better and it's presented in a much better way. So yeah,
I thought of that comparison to The Last Jedi, and I thought this
movie just did that section of it much better. I think you're totally right,
I think, especially because the fact that it's it happens twice with our
main character, Shikashima, thank you so much, you know, because I
think, like, yeah, the war is almost over. One more plane
crashing into one more American ship. I have a ton of sympathy for someone
being like, oh no, my engine has trouble. I can't do this.
But I think the movie says it. What in the next scene though,
the fact that like he's in his fighter plane, he knows that if
he fires his guns, he's going to attract Gojira's attention and probably die.
He doesn't, and so the other people fire, they're much less effective guns,
and they all die. I don't know by any means that him firing
his gun would have stopped Gojira, but I think it's certainly I think he
would have thought that it's possible. And I do think that there's like what
I've absolutely probably done the same in his situation. I probably don't even get
in the plane. I'm way too much of a coward. It's not that
I'm holding him in judgment, but I feel like they're they're sort of very
able to be like, Eh, no one's really watching today going to feel
bad about what he does with not being a kama Kazi but not shooting,
then yeah, there is some real guilt to be had there. And so
this interesting thing of the culture blames him all for not being a kama Kazi
when him and the mechanical are the only ones who know. His real shame
probably comes from what happened on that island. And I thought it was such
a beautiful way of, like you said, of making it really earned,
because you really felt like his survivor's guilt was it was he was to it
was he was culturally programmed, but also this moment that happened where he probably
did fail. Yeah, it's very interesting. So I have not seen this
movie, but the director of Minus one, Takashiyamazaki, who is a very
acclaimed director in Japan. I believe he's on's like eight Japanese Academy Awards,
and one of the movies he won the Best Director award for is called The
Eternal Zero from twenty thirteen, and it is a movie about Kami Kazi Toko
Tai pilot. And in that movie, I believe if I wrote that the
synopsis correctly, he does make the sacrifice, but he all like not like
he does it, you know, because of all the reasons historical reasons we
talked about, but there's also like a friendship like he does it to save
a friend or something like that. And I've read that there's been criticism of
Yamazaki and this movie, you know, from Japanese critics that it's glorifying the
Topko Tai because I think culturally, like we have reached the point where it's
like, yeah, that they shouldn't have done that, like the government and
the military shouldn't have done that should not have asked young people to do that.
And it's it's very interesting because the movie The Eternal Zero was apparently beloved
by Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was assassinated, but also Yoko
Ono, who you know was John Lennon's wife and who I met once,
and so those are two very different people when it comes to war. When
it comes to opinions of war, yoko on No obviously is uh you know,
it was very anti war mm hm. And Shinzo they like, I'm
not going to say he's pro war, like I don't want to say that
of any politician, but he has a very troubling history, especially when it
comes to World War Two. His grandfather was actually prosecuted as a war criminal
for his what he did as I think a military governor in China, and
he Kishi was his name. He's still even though he was prosecuted as a
war criminal, became Prime Minister of Japan in the fifties, which as a
whole which is a whole thing. But Avi so like Ave's personal history and
his connection to that, like familiar with connection. He has always downplayed Japan's
history like criminal war criminal history because you know, it's very personal to him.
So I just want to jump in on that that like, as I
understand it, a lot of that is today, Like the context of it
today is like in the same way that you know, the American right wing
wants to really be like, no, we didn't you know, Vietnam,
like really downplay American criminal activity certainly, like they never want to acknowledge the
war crimes and the nuclear moms, but also like, no, we were
doing what was right in Central America and in Vietnam. And and thus see
everything America does today is you know, make America great. I think this
is that we are seeing this kind of thing happen all over the world of
nations wanting to kind of reclaim their national greatness and and really you know,
wash over all the crimes and all these different nations have committed and the like,
and so it just putting that in that larger context. Go on.
Yeah, and so like for those for Ave and oh No, like two
in my opinion, like polar opposites when it comes to the subject of courts
who both love the movie. Like that's you know, you said earlier that
people can draw all kinds of lessons and inspirations, you know, personally from
movies like this, and draw different conclusions about what the message is. And
I think that just shows like that previous movie of his, The Eternal Zero,
directly about Kamakazi pilots, and yet like people do very different ideas and
lessons from it. And I think that he learned from that, from the
controversy and from the criticism, and it seems much more clear in this movie
that he's driving this line of like this was wrong. And I think this
is why you and I having a conversation is so important, because you know,
I imagine most of our listeners are are more like me in terms of
being, you know, a couple of steps away from those conversations internal to
like Japanese politics and culture, both then and today. But I think it's
one of the interesting and possibly dangerous but also the important parts of looking at
a movie like this is this is a movie that I think has incredible resonance
of people outside of Japan because again issues of survivor's guilt, of PTSD,
of how do you come to terms with you know, post tragedy and post
national tragedy and all this, But also it does have a specific meaning in
conversations that I'm not a part of. And like a movie that originally I
thought I was gonna do some coverage of but decided not to, is another
phenomenal movie that I strongly recommend people watch r R R. It's a wonderful
It's not Bollywood, but it's what a lot of people think of it because
it's actually it's tom Ol made, so I believe it's off referred to as
Tollywood. It's not even tombl It's another kind of subculture in that area.
But it is this beautiful story of people in India fighting against British occupation and
includes everything from like romance and swashbuckling to song and dance and like defeating the
British at a dance off instead of a storage fight at one point, and
it's this incredible anti colonial story. It's also, as I read a lot
more commentary from people either in the Indian subcontinent or of that you know,
diaspora around the world, apparently like it can be read as having a very
strong pro Hindi nationalism and very kind of like pro like. It has some
very strong like religious iconography that often I think could be missed that apparently,
like in an internal Indian politics conversation, is making a very strong point that
a lot of people really strongly objected to. And that's not a conversation I
have any context for and decided not to cover, and probably would not have
done this movie without you or someone else who had at least more of that
background in Japanese politics, in Japanese understandings, because it's I think a really
interesting question in general about how do you approach a movie that both has a
lot of universal significance and meaning but also is making a point in a larger
conversation that you might not have any idea of. Yeah, I mean,
that's the beauty of art, and especially like movies and this movie and particicular
is that it can be multi layered, and I appreciate that on a basic
level, people are enjoying this movie a lot as a kaiju movie, but
as a human interest movie. A lot of the commentary I've said I've read
or watched, you know, YouTube videos is comparing this movie to the American
made you know, legendary Monster Verse Godzilla movies from the last decade or so
and saying like, look like this minus one was made on a budget of
fifteen million dollars. That's one five. Compare it to you know, Godzilla
versus Kong that probably costs like two hundred million. And like most of the
people are saying minus one is a better movie, and it's and not just
because the human story is better. The CGI the monster looks phenomenal and terrifying.
Yeah, yeah, the kind of like Jaws ish ish scene where Gozilla
is swimming behind the lines boat. I believe that's all CGI, right,
but it looks it looked as real as you can get, Like it looked
like it was a suit nation or like a model being like chasing the boat.
And there's a direct allusion to Jaws in that. For spoilers from a
movie that's fifty years old, forty nine years old, Jaws is defeated because
there's like an air canister in his teeth and our hero Rachneider shoots it and
it explodes, and they try to do the exact same thing with a mine,
but here it doesn't work. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Well,
I mean, I can't say definite, but it felt like a reference
or illusion, you know, yeah, just just short of Shikishima literally saying
smile you son of a bee. Yeah, which is the line from Jaws.
And they do kind of say, I don't actually funny, I hadn't
even thought of it. But they do say at one point, we're gonna
need a bigger boat. They don't say those exact words, oh gosh,
yeah something. Yeah. So I just love stuff like that. It's so
good. But yeah, all of it is is just wonderfully done, and
the human story of it is so good. And I think we've kind of
mentioned it a lot, but you kind of named at the beginning, you
know that in this one, you think the point of it is not clear.
What do you see as the point of this movie? Anti war every
one, anti imperial war, like specific to Japanese history, like a deep
criticism of the imperial government and military yea, And often like definitely like criticism
of the decision to use the kami kase it is a tactical weapon, you
know, going back to that conversation. In a lot of media, as
you've mentioned, it is shown as honorable to die for a cause, right,
right to sacrifice yourself for victory in superhero shows, in militaries, drama,
all of that. Like it's shown as an honorable thing for a hero
to do, and we often like those are our favorite moments where maybe like
a secondary hero a character makes that sacrifice so that the main heroes can win,
right, right. I think the criticism, especially historically, is that
a government should not make that an intentional strategy. It should be an individual's
decision in combat whether they want to do something like that to try to help
their cause. But for the government to intentionally recruit young people and you know,
in my opinion, brainwash them into wanting to do this in the service
of their country and Emperor I think is despicable. It was despicable. Then
you know that the notion of suicide bombers that happen like nine to eleven and
stuff like that's despicable terrorism strategy. So whether it's terrorism or like actual military
strategy in a war, I don't think like we should do that. And
yeah, you know, we talk a lot about on you and I about
how terrible war is, and at a certain point in combat, people do
what they have to do, right, But you know, that's my opinion
is that you know, criticism of Imperial Japan and of that specific strategy I
think is like the main thing I took away. I think that makes a
lot of sense, and I think that was definitely what I saw, as
well as a lot of real tales about how do you how do you rebuild
while holding onto ghosts to the past, you know, And that's both in
terms of a nation, but also just this for me as someone who's gone
through a lot of tragedy and trauma, some of my own making and some
of other things happening and had large there's is his life where I think,
like I wasn't I wasn't able to let go of that, and so I
couldn't move on this story of the man who can't let as they say it,
his war hasn't ended. Like the subtlety of the movie, the fact
that Nurico, like there's never a moment where Nurico tries to kiss him and
he pushes her away, like it is all in subtext, but it's fairly
clear, and the other characters later name it that she is waiting for him
to move their connection from kind of roommates and found family into a romantic one,
and that they all understand it's because he is he he doesn't believe he's
worthy of it. He doesn't believe his war is over, and so that
line at the end of you know, is your war finally over? And
he just breaks down in tears holding her or I think the very clear indication
that they get married later because his war is finally over is just yeah,
I think it's very anti war. It's very critical of that on a kamikaze
like raising people with the idea that their lives only have meaning and service to
the emperor. Like all of it is just there's so there's so many layers
to it, which is really fantastic. And the criticism of the government continues
on post war. The captain mentioned several times like he's he's very anti government,
and he mentions like when it goes you to attacks, I think he
says something out, well, they're just going to lie and cover it up.
Yeah, yeah. And and and the fact that it's not because in
the original it is kind of a government effort that pulls everything together. Because
again and again I think it's it's you know that is that is a movie
being told literally by a japan that's nine years away from the awful devastation of
the war, and it's literally a year after the American occupation has ended.
It's the first time they can talk about these things in a in public settings
like a movie. And so I think in a lot of ways, I
think this is a very interesting remake of sort of what's Japan's view of the
war nine years after and then now like now seventy nine years after, you
know, and you get to see a lot more reflection for that reason.
Yeah, and a very strong like for me, like this movie minus Onan
and Shin really like highlight not just the criticism of government of Japanese government,
but a bringing up like a celebration of civilian power, civilian like brain power,
and just like ordinary citizens coming together for each other in a strong way.
Because Yeah, like when they come up with the plan to defeat Gurjia,
they say, well, the government's not gonna help us, so they
basically cobble together volunteers of ex military naval shipment, right, Yeah, Like
most think all of those people were like they fought in the war, they
survived, so they all have this collective like survivor's guilt. Yeah, and
they say, well, if the government's not going to help us, if
they're not going to do anything, we have to do it ourselves. And
there was also that company that supplies the flotation device right, very much like
so that was like a civilian company coming in and helping them, and and
those were not military, those were just like civilian engineers who were saying,
we will also stay with the ex soldiers and help you and risk our lives.
And then Noda the scientist gives this very uplifting speech about like, our
goal is zero casualties. Yeah, in this con this is not about trying
to die nobly, which is why they're so upset when they think that Simashira
Shikashima is gonna die. Oh that's not what they want. Yeah. Yeah.
The captain like curses him out when he thinks that's what he's doing.
And I think also again it's again just how powerful this message is in that
meeting of all these like formal naval uh you know, enlisted men and and
and so, sailors and officers. The captain of the destroyer who's leading this
specifically says these are not orders. Yeah, you're asking for volunteers and if
you want to walk away, you can and it will do and there's no
shame. Yeah, no one says, why you know you're abandoning your your
duty, and I think they got to change. I think they could.
Some of them like nod to them understanding, like because one of them says
like I have family, like kids, like I can't do this, and
they're like, yes, we understand. Yeah. That was very powerful.
And the the young man right Mizushima I mentioned the young man who didn't fight
in the war. He's part of the mind sweeping crew, you know,
family, and they tell him he can't come on this mission. He's like,
why, you know, I didn't get to fight in the war,
like I want to be involved in this, and they just flat to deny
him. But then he shows up with all of the tugboats. So he
still went out and he enlisted all these tugboats to come, you know,
at the last second, and very like Dunkirky again, like civilian power.
I think it was the message civilians helping each other, citizens helping each other.
He still got into the quote unquote fight, but in a non military
way and got other civilians to join in the cause. And it's you know,
another comparison to Star Wars Rise of Skywalker. At the very Endlando Calarisian
shows up with that huge fleet of just random ships, from all across the
galaxy coming to fight. It's a very similar scene, and again I think
just done much better here than in Star Wars. Like I love Star Wars,
but this is taking like scenes, similar scenes from Star Wars and just
doing it better. In my totally totally agree. And the last this is
the last thing I want to say, but then also give you space for
last things. And as I said, we'll have member content we're talking about
some of the other movies. One of the things I was very struck by
is as someone who is American, you know, American all my life.
Let me start that again, as someone who was born and raised in Western
culture and with Western values and things like that, you know, I was
really and especially American ones. I was very early taught like the power of
the individual. You know, that the individual is everything and all this,
and I think a lot of people, myself included, have really grown to
be very critical of that and very critical of the you know, pick yourself
up by your own bootstraps kind of thing, and the idea that like each
man is a king and so you get to shoot in self defense all the
time, and you know that that I take care of me, and you
take care of you and we'll all be okay, And that that leaves very
little room for communal responsibility and the sense of, like, you know,
that there should be shame for people who you know, billionaires and people who
are hoarding money to the extent that it cast is harmed to everyone else.
Like that has no place in our culture. And I think that there is
a very powerful counterculture message that's happening now of like let's push back against that,
and let's let's look with some honor and reverence and see what we can
learn from cultures that do have much more of a communal perspective and a communal
aspect. And to me, this movie is also very powerful because and there's
a conversation I've had when I was in seminary, there's a lot of Asian
students there, and we often talked about this about how, you know,
American history is a real lesson of the danger of the cult of the individual,
but that Japanese history and some other Asian culture's history and in other parts
of the world as well, can also be a danger of when it goes
all the way the opposite of each individual life is meaningless in service to the
state, in service to the emperor, and that's Japanese, but it's also
that was a big part of fascism as well in Germany and Italy and Spain
and places like that, of you know, the individual, because that's everything
they say where they talk about how, you know, ships were built with
very little armor and fighter planes didn't have ejector seats and all this, and
because that, it was that idea of the best thing you can do with
your life is to die nobly for the emperor, for Japan itself. And
it's just a nice reminder I think of that, like there's a dialectic there
between like are we too focused on the individual or we're too focused on the
Every individual is meaningless in service of the leaders or the culture or the country,
and at finding some middle ground there is what's most important. Yeah,
I mean I think I agree with all of that. Let me collect my
thoughts on it real quick. Yes, I think you mentioned COVID earlier,
like COVID response, and yeah, there are definitely hints of criticism of government
COVID response in terms of like the whole cover up the government is lying to
you of thing and it's it's dangerous, like you and I like, we
don't want to get into just like straight up denialism or anti backs messages obviously,
like that's definitely not where we are. But I think we can be
critical of the way that many governments downplayed COVID to obviously to the detriment of
lives like death or like severe illness, and you know, like the whole
masking issue COVID, Like as of right now twenty January twenty twenty four,
COVID is still out there. It's still affecting lives, people are suffering from
it, people are dying from it. And the idea that it's over,
like the message that is over, I think that government's put out in terms
of like let's get the economy back on track, et cetera, I think
is too far in one direction. I think we should acknowledge that it is
here and still ask that people do you know, bare minimums to protect themselves
and to protect each other. And that's where I think your thing about collective
collectivism, I guess in Asian culture, Japanese culture is something that I still
admire and aspire to that in Japan if you go to Japan, especially in
the winter, especially now with COVID. If you go on trains, I
would say, probably like ninety percent of the people are going to be wearing
masks on trains, right, And I'm understanding is that that predates COVID at
least I played when I went to grad school. I played poker in casinos
all the time in California, and there was a large Asian population in those
in those poker rooms, and you'd often see about like ten to fifty percent
of them wearing masks. And I remember asking us, what about it,
Yeah, pretend it should Yeah, but like I would, it would have
never occurred to me, oh, if I have the sniffles, I should
wear a mask. Now it does, and I was idiot that it shouldn't.
But and especially like trains in Japan, like though they're packed, like
literally people get packed in, like there are train attendants whose job is to
push people onto the train. It used to be I don't know if it
still is now of COVID might be a little bit more social distancing, but
you still stand kind of shoulder to shoulder. During Russian War and so like,
especially under those circumstances, like wearing your mask is considered respectful right to
your neighbors to the people around you, and I think, yeah, like
that that could also be seen as a message of this movie, is everyone
fighting not just for the nation of Japan, because like again there's criticism of
fighting the war for Japan, but fighting for the people, like the your
neighbors, other other people around you. I think that's that's a very strong
message in this movie. Yeah, I can definitely see that. I definitely
see that. All right, Well, any last things you want to say,
I don't know, go see this movie. Yeah, it's very good.
It's very I would even suggest, like watch watch the nineteen fifty four
and then watch this because it's really a beautiful getting to see like what could
happen if they have good because the nineteen fifty four one's incredible, but it's
still a guy in a rubber suit and it looks pretty good for the time
but still ridiculous. But also a lot of things are very different, and
I think it's really powerful. Yeah. I think what my closing thought on
this is like, please consider like if you're listening to this again, like
I said, January twenty twenty four, it's still in theaters and in fact
seems to be picking up some momentum in terms of like the theaters that are
willing to screen it because of the strong word of mouth. Keep that going
because it's an amazing movie. I think you'll enjoy it, even if you're
not a Kaiju fan, if you're even if you're not a fan of this
franchise. My wife Sarah, I don't know if she's seeing any other Goji
movie. In its entirety, she enjoyed it. She loved the human element.
I think she enjoyed the Kaiju elements because those were well done, the
special effects. But the important thing is, like, especially for like a
US audience or worldwide, but you and I live in the US, having
a Japanese movie with subtitles in the original Japanese language, showing in US theaters
and having success is very important. Like from a culture standpoint, It doesn't
mean like we have to show every Japanese movie, but I think like this
we acknowledge that this is a very good movie that I hope gets some consideration
for an Oscar or multiple oscars and deserves all the praise and deserves your love
and your money. Yeah, that's a very cynical way of putting it.
But studios and movie theaters operate on making money, and if we show that
we are willing to come out for a movie like this and pay money,
then maybe we'll see more of them in the future. I mean, the
good ones, right, totally agreed, And I would just say, just
the one counterpoint to that is, I do think that they're as COVID numbers
rise, there are some very legitimate concerns that a lot of folks have about
going to see a movie in the theater. I know, for me,
I intentionally chose it. We went at like two in the afternoon when like
the theater was almost empty. But also it will what I'm reading is it
will probably be on streaming services within a month or so, where you can
pay like, you know, four dollars to rent it or fifteen dollars to
own it. Owning it online being a whole other thing. But you know
what I mean. And so I would just say, you know, if
you're not interested in going to see it in the movie theater, which I
think is a fair perspective for COVID reasons and all, definitely look at,
you know, try to spend some money on it in one of the streaming
services or just when it gets out to DVD or Blu ray or VHS if
you're still a you know, old fogie like myself for whatever you can do,
because lots of things like that. Yeah, yeah, I mean for
me personally, representation in media in movies isn't important. I mean I say
that it's important for everyone, I hope. Yeah. And so movies like
Crazy Rich Asians, Shuan Chi and The Lesson Lesson, a Legend of the
Ten Rings, everything everywhere all at once, like these have been culturally impactful
and important movies to me to see and support as Asian American, but specifically
as a Japanese person. This one, Godzilla minus one is like very deeply
personal to me, and I hope that it resonates, you know, continues
to resonate with audiences across around the world, and that Toho sees this and
recognizes recognizes as the studio and makes more movies like this, right, Like
this is such an exciting direction for this franchise to go and to make like
just better movies like this was such a good movie and it's so refreshing as
a fan of the like I'm a fan of the cheesy Kaiju movies. Yeah,
but This was amazing, and this is like a franchise changer. In
my opinion, I thought shino Jo was a franchise changer. This is like
even more so. Yeah, I'm just stunned and it's so good to hear.
And a couple of things that say. One is, I don't know
if you've seen it. I haven't seen it yet. I probably will wait
for it to be out on streaming, but I may see in the theaters
if monster movies aren't your thing. There's also what is quite likely going to
be Miyazaki's last and but the most recent Studio Ghibli movie is also in theaters
right now. And I remember I was reading an article about these two and
how it was kind of funny that like, the two of the parts of
Japanese culture that have most made it to America in terms of on screen movies
are the Gojuro movies and then the Miyazaki Studio Ghibli movies, which are aggressively,
aggressively anti war and very much kind of like much more wholesome content,
though with also a lot of darkness in them as well. But also,
just on what you said about the representation point, I think is so important,
because yeah, these are stories that, like I said, like,
if you're listening to this and you grew up in America or anywhere else that
you know Western, you probably did learn about Kamakazi's the same way I did.
You know, and I know that some anime have dealt with it,
but like, this is a really good opportunity to be part of a conversation
that you would not necessarily be part of, which I think is one of
the like representation isn't just for the people who are represented in that way,
And I'll use that to do as we wrap up a quick transition that another
I love hearing you talk Riki about how important this is to you as a
Japanese person, an American Japanese American person, because for me, that's how
I feel about the TV show Echo that just came out, and there already
is an Echo episode that I put up with Will Freeland that I think it
was last week's. There'll be another episode coming out pretty soon. Echo is
I think a master class in intersectionality because I watched it as an amputee and
saw myself represented as an amputee while also seeing it as a great story about
a Native American person and a person that about a deaf person two communities I'm
not a part of, and it really got me into a mindset of thinking
about what does it mean to be in one of these three communities, and
then getting to read the stuff that natives are saying and that deaf people are
saying, and then like I've made some great friends where like a deaf person
will talk about how much they see themselves represented and I'll say, like,
I hope it's okay to say, but I feel as an amputee the same
way, and that that person's like, yes, that's awesome and just and
even putting aside all the presentation, it's it's I think one of the best
Marvel shows we've seen. I think it's a reminder that although there are incredible
acting performances in the MCU as a whole, Vince Tonafrio, i think,
is just head of so so good, and this is returning his acting as
Kingpinn to the very best it was in Netflix. There's just so much to
love about it. But from the representation standpoint, if you're curious about any
of those three communities or all three, or just how these can be dealt
as part of a great story. Go check out Echo and check out my
podcast episode about it. Check out all the things that Rieky and I have
had to say. We will finally, finally, finally be finishing up with
rebels pretty soon over on the Star Wars Generations podcast. You can find all
that podcast stuff on the Ethical Panda dot com or going to True Story.
Let us know what you think. We'd love to know your thoughts in this
movie and Kaiju movies in general. You know on gojr Movies in general.
All the informations of the show notes. Please think about becoming a member.
We'll have bonus content for the members. You can find out more information about
how to find Wreky and the stuff Rieky does in the show notes, and
to anybody else, Thank you so much for listening. We have spoken.
I can't do is so iconic. Well, Mary, my partner, what's
complete exist? And one thing she missed Garry's the mitamonic almost kind of like
how the pics that Gesira make in the original that think gets repeated again and
again, and they didn't use that, which probably for the best, but
we missed it.