Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

This is for discussion pertaining to Hideaki Anno's live-action "Shin" films, such as Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider.

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby robersora » Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:14 am

View Original PostZeta_One wrote:Is anyone willing/able to read Japanese? I have an interview from Anno about this film that needs translating.


AnnoCinema often starts Kickstarters to translate interviews. He has enough reach to gather enough people. Ask him! I'd happily chip in a few bucks.
https://twitter.com/annocinema
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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby Zeta_One » Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:55 pm

I recently acquired The Art of Shin Godzilla and it's filled with information and neat images. Here's part of the interview with Anno.
Image

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby kuribo-04 » Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:22 am

Art of Shinzilla is one of the best books I own.
Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."
Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby Zeta_One » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:16 pm

Where do you guys fall on the nationalism/propaganda debate surrounding this film?

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby Arcadia's legacy » Tue Mar 05, 2019 6:35 pm

Eh, not really seeing it. Not only do we get a significant critique of the Japanese bureaucracy, during the films climax it takes the cooperation of multiple nations for the operation to work. If this were nationalistic propaganda, i'm pretty sure the goal would be to have Japan be the sole country stopping Godzilla
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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:42 pm

Shin Godzilla isn’t even in the same hemisphere of smelling slightly like something that sorta resembles a propaganda piece. It is as far away from propaganda as could be. Comparing it to Nazi propaganda like Triumph of The Will might be a little too heavy handed, so let’s compare it to The Great Wall instead.

While it isn’t as obvious as other examples, The Great Wall is most definitely an example of government propaganda, this time by the Chinese government, attempting to win global audiences over and convince them that “See? China’s actually pretty cool, right? Just trust us.” (The italicized actually being one of the more apperent themes in the movie.) Seriously, every non-Chinese person’s arc in that film centered wholly around whether or not they were doing a good job trusting the Chinese governing powers in the period that film (fantastically) depicts. The ones who can trust the Chinese actually help save the day for the glory of China. The ones who either don’t trust China or are going along with China for their own selfish/alternate loyalties gain get eaten by monsters.

Now compare that to Shin Godzilla, where Japan is constantly looking to other counties for help, the biggest helps coming from USA and France, while proving that they don’t even need their own Defense Force in order to defeat Godzilla. None of this is done for the glory of Japan, rather it paints a very wide brush addressing universally held human tendencies and strengths. How is that nationalistic at all? Well, it isn’t. It doesn’t parade the might of their armies like Triumph of the Will or The Great Wall did, rather in the end it eschews large shows of military strength in favor of the strength of a society as a whole. Godzilla was defeated with trains, chemical trucks, and the city buildings themselves (the only known instance where Tokyo itself literally stomped on Godzillla for a change), not with tanks, fighter jets, and nukes from any country. (Not even their own!) It’s a very un-pro-nationalist way of dealing with conflict shown in that film, and Westerners get too tripped up over the part where American non-nuclear weaponry couldn’t even stop this creature to realize that greater picture.

TL;DR, Shin Godzilla as nationalist propaganda is a very poor argument. 0/10, would not stand under scrutiny.
Last edited by FreakyFilmFan4ever on Wed Mar 06, 2019 6:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby kuribo-04 » Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:19 am

The propaganda thing for me falls under "meme that ain't even funny".
Don't think anybody ever actually believed it.
Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."
Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work."
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Postby Zeta_One » Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:55 am

The "scholars" of the Godzilla community were really outspoken about how nationalistic this movie is back when it came out. In the recent biography for Ishiro Honda, the authors took a jab at Shin Godzilla. They said something to the effect that it trades Ishiro Honda's universal and pacifistic message for nationalism. Critics love to cite Prime Minister Abe's support as proof of the movie's sinister intentions.

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby kuribo-04 » Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:09 am

Prime Minister Abe's support

Don't know how that factors in really.
Trump loves Citizen Kane lol (ironic, right?).

SPOILER: Show
Also knowing Miyazaki's personality I doubt he'd be as friends with Anno as he is if their political views differed so much.
Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."
Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work."
~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:21 am

If Shin Godzilla were truly nationalistic, then they wouldn’t need France’s supercomputers, and their own military would have defeated Godzilla.

Seriously, name a single Japanese Godzilla movie where Japan killed Godzilla with military force. (Also, name a single nationalist film where the conflict isn’t resolved by military force.) If anything, the ‘98 Godzilla is the most nationalistic Godzilla movie ever made because the US military were the ones who actually killed the creature. That doesn’t happen in Godzilla films!

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Postby Zeta_One » Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:38 am

Here's an example:
With its Fukushima response metaphor, Shin Godzilla isn't critiquing the Japanese government as a whole. It's criticizing the previous administration that was in power during that disaster. It represents an indictment of the DPJ. The incompetent Prime Minister and government bureaucrats who are in charge at the beginning represent the DPJ, while Rando Yaguchi and his team of "real Japan" civilian recruits are meant to represent the LDP pulling Japan out of its mess and leading the nation into a bold new future. A number of plot points present LDP-based ideals as solutions for dealing with the threat posed by Godzilla. The LDP wants to rewrite Japan's post-WWII constitution to allow Japan to partake in international military operations with its United Nations allies. Shin Godzilla presents Article IX of the constitution as an inhibitor in Japan's efforts to respond to invasive threats. It also emphasizes that Japan's military ingenuity can emerge triumphant if the country is allowed to engage in the same kind of offensive or retaliatory operations as its international allies.

Yes, there are also key points that the movie doesn't touch on and that selective omission is also in line with LDP orthodoxy. The party is notorious for pushing a revisionist view of Japanese history which absolves Japan of any historical wrongdoing while also positing it as the perpetual victim nation. The LDP doesn't want Japanese schoolchildren to learn about historical events like the Nanking Massacre or the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Japan's history of imperial aggression is what led to its post-WWII pacifist constitution so of course the LDP prefers to deny that history. It's a conservative party that wants the Japan of the future to be a lot more like the Japan of the distant past. The current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is a champion of this revisionist movement and it's an appealing outlook for a great number of Japanese people. Just as it is in America, many Japanese people are uncomfortable even acknowledging the atrocities of their nation's past, much less denouncing those atrocities out loud or daring to see any parallels with their country's present trajectory. As the thinking goes, they weren't alive back then, they didn't commit those atrocities themselves, so why should they have anything to learn from that unpleasant history? Same old song and dance.

Shin Godzilla pushes the idea of Japan building up its military might while becoming a player on the world stage, and it avoids any acknowledgement of the abominable deeds perpetrated by the Empire of Japan in decades past, but it makes a point to use historical photographs to remind viewers that Japan was the victim of two atomic bombings during WWII. It cherry-picks from the past to push a specific vision for the future, one which is very much in line with the LDP vision for Japan.

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Postby Arcadia's legacy » Wed Mar 06, 2019 9:20 am

It also emphasizes that Japan's military ingenuity can emerge triumphant if the country is allowed to engage in the same kind of offensive or retaliatory operations as its international allies.

Even though again, that Military ingenuity got them nowhere, and even made things worse in some cases, and had to rely on said allies for the threat to actually be neutralized
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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Wed Mar 06, 2019 9:29 am

I have never seen a nationalistic propoganda film kill its national leader. (The Prime Minister’s death depocted in Shin Godzilla.) That would be like if Triumph of the Will depicted the death of Adolph Hitler. These arguments are ludicrous.

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby robersora » Wed Mar 06, 2019 1:40 pm

I think it's a amazing that this movie invites so many different reading. I personally don't think it's nationalistic in a dangerous sense, maybe it uses the concept of "Japan" to invoke community or social cohesion, but as I'm not Japanese, maybe I missed some subtle clues?
It's really hard for me to get a hold on Anno's political stance, I get that feeling like he might a humanist first and foremost.
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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby Mr. Tines » Wed Mar 06, 2019 3:52 pm

Let's not forget the interesting bits of settei for GunBuster that were not explicitly surfaced in the OVA. Those have been taken as an indication of Anno's political stance, at least at the time. AFAIK nothing similar has come out of what has been translated in the way of Shin Godzilla behind-the-scenes material.
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Postby kuribo-04 » Wed Mar 06, 2019 4:19 pm

Gotta take that stuff with a grain of salt.
I might also jokingly say "In my story Spain dominates the world".
Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."
Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"
-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...
Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work."
~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby

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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Wed Mar 06, 2019 6:44 pm

I believe most people are confusing Shin Godzilla’s patriotism with nationalism. There’s a difference. Japanese nationalist films don’t warn of the nationalist hubris of pre-WWII Japan, admit that the US has better weapons, or that the French has more viable computers, or kill their leader on screen, or show their acting leader bowing before foreign powers. They just don’t. All of these things happen in the film, though.

Gunbuster definitely has some nationalist leanings, though, but I don’t know how serious they are.

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Re: Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence)

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Postby ErgoProxy » Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:37 pm

Yeah, I was already about to ask, is patriotism outdated there in the free world. :irked:

Anyway, what Zeta_One quoted, for me is the sweetest, the fluffiest display of the cultural supremationism - I don't know if such notion exists - devised to disgrace the Other, to strip him out of his dignity, and to kick him down to the level of spoiled brat, who must be cared for by Us, The People Who Know About Stuff, forever and ever. Truly disgusting, but whatever - God Bless Academia and so forth.

kuribo-04 wrote:I might also jokingly say "In my story Spain dominates the world".

Then stop joking and start writing, you. :tongue:
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Postby Zeta_One » Mon Mar 11, 2019 10:51 am

I guess some people are still sensitive about Japan being left to its own devices since they still haven't properly apologized (many people aren't satisfied with how Japan has handled the matter and the war crime denials/downplaying by some politicians don't help) to the victims of its imperial ambitions.

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Postby FreakyFilmFan4ever » Mon Mar 11, 2019 11:05 am

Japan never declared peace after WWII, either. And you know what? Neither has Russia. And both Russia and Japan are still quarreling about who own which islands between the two countries since WWII, so the legal ramifications of them having an offensive military as opposed to a purely defensive one is still a hot issue.

On the other hand, North Korea is right across the sea from them, and is currently launching rockets, so...

Either way, arguments about disputed Japanese territory would have certainly been used in any sort of Japanese nationalistic propaganda, since, you know, a nation tends to pride itself in the territory it owns. But no. Shin Godzilla doesn’t really care about nationalist rhetoric like that, because Shin Godzilla isn’t a pro Japanese nationalist film. It’s just a patriotic one. And patriotism tends to be discussed in the same way sexuality is. It’s great that you got it, and use it, and even take pride in it, but it will always feel weird to certain people with other patriotism/sexualities to hear you going on and on about yours. And then, instead of being a patriot/sexual being, you’re labeled as a nationalist/pervert, simply because you made other people feel uncomfortable with your discussion of the topic. (It’s a dumb metaphor, sure, but not a useless or forgettable one.)


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