Godzilla Minus One Review

spoilers ahead!!

"Japan has barely recovered from the Second World War when a gigantic peril emerges off the coast of Tokyo. Koichi, a deserter traumatised by his first confrontation with Godzilla, sees this as an opportunity to redeem his conduct during the war."

Godzilla Minus One is the first Godzilla movie I have ever watched, and wow, what a story! The film follows former kamikaze pilot Kōichi Shikishima as he navigates the end of the war, post-traumatic stress disorder, and survivor's guilt. After an encounter with Godzilla on Odo Island during the war in which he was one of two survivors, Shikishima returns to the mainland to find that his family died in a bombing, but takes in a young woman and the child she agreed to watch after, Noriko and Akiko. He takes a job as a minesweeper to provide for the two people in his care, and encounters Godzilla yet again, still failing to kill the monster. Alongside his minesweeping crew and a swath of former naval officers, Shikishima joins a citizen's brigade to take out Godzilla once and for all, but will his survivor's guilt cause him to make the ultimate sacrifice?

This story was brilliantly told, and connected with me as someone who is in the lifelong process of recovering from trauma. Shikishima's journey especially captivated me, and I thought that the portrayals of his breakdowns were stellar performances by Ryunosuke Kamiki. The beginning and development of Shikishima's relationship with Noriko and Akiko were also great parts of the movie, and I thought that Noriko's own strength in navigating life after losing her parents was powerful. Another performance I particularly loved was Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda, the minesweeping crew's engineer. Kenji was a delightful character to watch, and his plan to defeat Godzilla using the power of the ocean had me on the edge of my seat during the movie's climax.

And about that climax — what an amazing scene! The tension when plan after plan didn't work, the hope when Mizushima showed up with a horde of civilian ships, the tragic few moments when I thought that Shikishima had succeeded at the cost of his own life. And of course, my favorite moment, the reveal that Shikishima had ejected before the plane exploded, choosing to live for his daughter and community rather than die for his perceived failures during the war. Takashi Yamazaki's direction was brilliantly effective, and I really enjoyed the entire final fight.

As a trans person, choosing to live is an especially poignant theme in my life right now. I have recently begun the process of coming out to friends and family, and I couldn't be happier. I have, for so long, been denying myself the chance to live, and, like Shikishima, I am just now learning to be alive despite how the past has treated me. Trauma does not have to be an event; trauma can be both a response to a war or the fallout of the violence of coercive gendering. But trauma doesn't have to define who or what one is, despite how looming it may feel. When Shikishima reunites with Noriko at the end of the film and says that his war is finally over he is rejecting his ptsd the chance to control him, and stepping into a new kind of self-determined existence.

Well I've successfully made this movie about being trans, so that's a success. This was seriously an amazing film, I can't thank enough my friends who recommended it to me. While Godzilla was certainly a present threat (and likely a metaphor for the Japanese perspective of nuclear war), the heart of the story lies with Shikishima, Noriko, and Akiko. It was an excellent movie, and I would recommend it to probably literally anyone. But bonus points if you're trans, you'll really like it. 9/10!