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Well, it's interesting to watch, because you can see how Japanese political and social culture changes over time. Initially, Godzilla represents (among other things; the monster contains multitudes) the United States. He's big, he's powerful, he kills indiscriminately (we did drop bombs on huge civilian population centers), etc. Then other monsters (Anguirus, later Rodan) show up and represent the Soviet Union, who had designs on Japanese territory. Godzilla becomes the "good guy" when an even more serious threat arrives in the form of King Ghidorah (China). After this point, Godzilla loses his association with the US and becomes much more clearly representative of Japan: he fights attempts at nuclear proliferation in the South Pacific (Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster), he combats pollution in the early '70s (Godzilla vs. Hedorah), he struggles against commercialization (Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla)... and then when the series rebooted in the '80s, he lost his political associations almost entirely, instead fully becoming the living embodiment of mankind's foolish hubris in a more general sense. It was with that second series of movies that Godzilla became the "hurricane" type of monster, except he's the hurricane we loosed. He's global climate change, he's nuclear winter, he's the arms race, he's the destruction we wrought on ourselves. Even in the 2014 reboot, wherein he's the "good" monster, he's the most destructive "savior" possible (and I think it's stupid the SanFran news hails him as the "Savior of Our City"... there's no city left you idiot goblins!!) and we're the ones who caused him to emerge anyway...Aaah Godzilla, the walking nuclear explosion that directors seem to forget is a walking nuclear explosion that the very ground he walked on became a radiation stockpile and would destroy indiscriminantly, as well as a tragic figure that was horribly scarred by the Pacific tests. Not some big defender of Earth, as they seemed to make him. Though the Ghidorah fights tend to be cool, I'll admit
Say what you will about Legendary's movie, but the fact is that its success revived the franchise. I heard rumors that Toho was actually going to retire Godzilla until this movie came along. Heck, Toho officially approved Legendary's take on Godzilla and was so happy with the result that they started working on their new Godzilla movie.Well, it's interesting to watch, because you can see how Japanese political and social culture changes over time. Initially, Godzilla represents (among other things; the monster contains multitudes) the United States. He's big, he's powerful, he kills indiscriminately (we did drop bombs on huge civilian population centers), etc. Then other monsters (Anguirus, later Rodan) show up and represent the Soviet Union, who had designs on Japanese territory. Godzilla becomes the "good guy" when an even more serious threat arrives in the form of King Ghidorah (China). After this point, Godzilla loses his association with the US and becomes much more clearly representative of Japan: he fights attempts at nuclear proliferation in the South Pacific (Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster), he combats pollution in the early '70s (Godzilla vs. Hedorah), he struggles against commercialization (Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla)... and then when the series rebooted in the '80s, he lost his political associations almost entirely, instead fully becoming the living embodiment of mankind's foolish hubris in a more general sense. It was with that second series of movies that Godzilla became the "hurricane" type of monster, except he's the hurricane we loosed. He's global climate change, he's nuclear winter, he's the arms race, he's the destruction we wrought on ourselves. Even in the 2014 reboot, wherein he's the "good" monster, he's the most destructive "savior" possible (and I think it's stupid the SanFran news hails him as the "Savior of Our City"... there's no city left you idiot goblins!!) and we're the ones who caused him to emerge anyway...
I have a lot of appreciation for the goofy '60s and '70s movies, and I think they're still important, but yeah, I also prefer the "hurricane" interpretation.
Funnily enough, I think all this is exactly why Legendary is fucking up the whole series. The original King Kong vs. Godzilla was hilarious and smart, but King Kong and Godzilla do not thematically mix. Kong is the monster we conquered, whereas Godzilla is the monster who conquered us.
It was more of a break, they were gonna leave the series be for a decade or two. Some companies do that, to let people have a break before bringing it back in a big blaze of glory.Say what you will about Legendary's movie, but the fact is that its success revived the franchise. I heard rumors that Toho was actually going to retire Godzilla until this movie came along.
With the ads aimed moreso at kids in Japan, it does feel like GameFreak or whoever is very much set on making this is a kids franchise, and a school-based move does seem to be a very firm statement on their thoughts on it. It is a missed opportunity though, given the renewed interest in the franchise. If they were to 'Westernise' their thinking around things, specifically such a huge milestone as 1000 episodes, it would benefit the franchise more. If they went all out and did a big anniversary thing, used it to retire Ash and relaunch the anime, and used the media to their advantage, it would be better than all the other animes that relaunched and they faded away into nothingness really.I think it's time that the adult fanbase accepted that the anime just isn't aimed at them. It's not going to transform into a standalone shonen longrunner overnight, no matter what big arbitrary milestones come along. I won't reprise my usual argument about assuming too much from forum demographics, but suffice to say, Pokémon isn't and has never been the exclusive province of twenty-somethings.