Finally, after years of rumors and teases arguably stretching all the way back to when Takashi Yamazaki snuck a version of Godzilla into Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007), and certainly with greater credibility and excitement after Yamazaki further produced the epic Godzilla the Ride, Godzilla Minus One is in theaters, and is garnering firework-level praise all around. I have seen multiple remarks online about fans breaking out into tears for the first time at a Godzilla movie, others (including Godzilla [2014] director Gareth Edwards—who seemed to sneak a snide reference to G14 in his recent astonishing The Creator) hailing the movie as a contender for best Godzilla film of all time. Naturally, as a long-standing fan of Yamazaki’s (having greatly enjoyed the Always films, the Parasyte films, his adaptation of Ghost Book/Yokaipedia and generally appreciating his Destiny: A Tale of Kamakura, among others), I was excited to bomp down in my seat opening night at a local theater in Kokura (unwilling to shell out the extra cash for a plane ticket and hotel in the Tokyo area for the Godzilla Day festivities). And the movie…

It’s good. It’s a signature Yamazaki film from start to finish. Some of the sequences are lightning, and the movie packs in fan-clap callbacks, and a surprising amount of solid character moments. Those who stepped out of Shin Godzilla (2016) numb from the antiseptic tone and lack of warmth will find in Minus One a healthy rejoinder.

Though I didn’t quite join in the highest levels of elation alongside the more ebullient fans. This particular brief article will just be a quick set of impressions, and I plan to follow it up later with a longer, more thorough piece after I finish reading the Godzilla Minus One novelization which I picked up today. Thus, I am going to try to avoid spoilers for now, but I mean, for those eager to spare themselves even a hint of what is to come, it’s best not to read even the spoiler-free ramblings like this one as they may include minor character details and hints at sequences not fully apparent from the trailers.

That said, let’s start with the positives. Godzilla Minus One captures the milieu of post-war Japan with a sort of focused hyper-realism even better than Yamazaki’s Always films, as the technology of his Shirogumi VFX house has greatly advanced since 2005. Yamazaki presents a dark and desperate world, but never with a similar level of cruelty as (say) Barefoot Gen or Tombstone for Fireflies, nor even the viciousness of the bleaker scenes from Yamazaki’s Parasyte adaptations. The effects for Godzilla in my estimation are, if not on the same level of the best Hollywood kaiju sequences, are nevertheless more consistent than any of the Shin films, and as hinted at in the trailers, the boat-chase sequence is already bordering on iconic in visuals and execution. Godzilla’s attack sequences further pack a real punch. Also, our new cast with Ryunosuke Kamiki as a fighter pilot, Minami Hamabe playing a streetwise grifter, Hidetaka Yoshioka as a quirky professor, and others provides an energetic and game set of performances—with minor surprises and emotionally-charged character arcs. The battle sequences are at times unique, with a novel twist to the anti-kaiju measures taken in the frantic climactic action.

On the downside, at least for me, I sometimes found the Godzilla effects lacking in dramatic heft, with a hint of the off-kilter weight that often plagues CGI-leaning effects on both sides of the ocean. Also, while the cast of characters are certainly more interesting than the average homo sapiens from a G-film, the melodrama doesn’t always work, with several maudlin sequences feeling overdone. The soundtrack, too, did not resonate with me—the themes didn’t connect or leave much of a strong impression, and its use of classic Godzilla music also felt poorly integrated to me. If there is one last aspect of the movie that slightly left me disappointed, it’s simply that the movie didn’t feel as daring in some ways as Shin or Godzilla Singular Point (2021) or the anime trilogy, which all seemed to swing for the fences with wild ideas.

Perhaps the most notable part of Godzilla Minus One could be the way it deals with history, with the American occupation, and the symbolism of Godzilla. The setting and some of the choices in the film will probably spark fan debate for years—and I am already drooling to wax at length about those choices. Still, I came out of the movie a little subdued, being over a thousand kilometers away from the raging publicity machine of Godzilla Fest. Godzilla Minus One is absolutely a solid and memorable reinvention of the Godzilla mold, even if some aspects of the tale, effects, and music didn’t quite latch fully with my kaiju-loving soul.