Godzilla

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is a reflection of postwar trauma and cold war anxiety, involving nuclear fear and Japan's uneasy relationship with America.

Film studies specialist Chon Noriega's 1987 essay, “Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare: When Them! is U.S.,” emphasized the series' origins in postwar trauma and cold war anxiety, eclectically blending Freudian analysis with observations on nuclear fear and Japan's uneasy relationship with America.

is a set of films that moved in step with the moods and fortunes of Japanese society in the decades after 1954. The monster itself was “tamed and transformed” in the 1960s, reflecting not just the swelling national self-confidence of the “economic miracle” years but also the changing demographics of the Japanese moviegoing audience and the creeping infantilization—the cute- ification—that is a distinguishing characteristic of postwar Japanese pop culture.

As Yoshikuni Igarashi has skillfully delineated, the tone and message of the Godzilla films moved in step with the moods and fortunes of Japanese society in the decades after 1954. The monster itself was “tamed and transformed” in the 1960s,11 reflecting not just the swelling national self-confidence of the “economic miracle” years but also the changing demographics of the Japanese moviegoing audience and the creeping infantilization—the cute- ification—that is a distinguishing characteristic of postwar Japanese pop culture.

is representative of Japan's own status as deformed monsters, deformed insofar as it is unable to master the shadows of war, define an independent identity, or overcome subordination to the United States.

At the same time, some might well argue that Godzilla's transformations (from dark and vengeful to goofy and heroic, and then eventually back again) and the monster's increasing identification as “Japanese” may have reflected economics-induced optimism far less than a kind of cultural resignation, an acceptance of what Murakami Takashi describes as Japan's persistent postwar deformity. The inclusion of Godzilla among wareware Nihonjin (we Japanese) may thus symbolize an embrace by the Japanese of what Murakami characterizes as their own monstrosity: “We are deformed monsters,” he declares, bemoaning postwar Japan's inability to master the shadows of war, define an independent identity, or overcome subordination to the United States.12 In a way, then, Godzilla may even have provided a fundamental metaphor for the expression of Japanese identity in the nation's long, unre- solved postwar.

is widely accepted as a displaced version of the atomic bomb with his links to nuclear testing and radiation.

Many scholars, myself included, believe that the initial Godzilla—with his links to nuclear testing and radiation—may in many ways be seen as a displaced version of the atomic bomb.5 His story and its ulti- mately happy outcome—Godzilla is vanquished through Japanese science— may, therefore, be read as a form of cultural therapy, allowing the defeated Japanese to work through the trauma of the wartime bombings in the scenes of panic or destruction and, with the film's happy end, giving them a chance to reimagine and rewrite their devastating defeat.

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