Over the years the question of what kaiju eat has often remained largely a mystery. Tsuburaya cut the scene of Godzilla eating a cow in the original Godzilla (1954), and he has been mostly left hungry ever since—except when he starts snarfing radiation or, in the case of the American Godzilla, piles of fish. However, it’s hard to imagine just the enormous amount of food necessary to feed these modern day behemoths—the film Daigoro vs. Goliath (1972) attempted an answer and showed that feeding the beasts can be quite the hassle! While some kaiju definitely eat people (Rodan originally munched people meat, for example, as did Gyaos), and some eat livestock (such as Baragon), by and large the question of what makes a good monster lunch has been left largely open to interpretation.
After some investigation, the answer appears to be “lots of snacks and sweets!” So let’s dive into another item: The Godzilla Cookie, or the Godzilla Print Cookie (ゴジラプリントクッキー). This is yet another confection from Sawarabi STK, which to me feels like perhaps the most quintessential Godzilla omiyage, the most balanced, kind of the obvious choice.
Unlike, say, the Godzilla Yaki or the Godzilla Pie, the Godzilla Print Cookie comes in several varieties. The Godzilla Gaufrette also comes with several designs, but the Godzilla Cookie has more cookies (14 instead of 10), so you can share the cookie with more people. What’s more, the Godzilla Cookie has at least two different versions—the straight up Godzilla Cookie box and the special edition Shin Godzilla vs. Namja Town box. Namja Town is an amusement park created by Namco, and they did a big cross promotion with Godzilla Resurgence (2016) last year, including multiple Godzilla-themed foods and desserts as well as a pretty dang cool augmented reality game. I bought the Namja Town special edition cookies there back in September I believe, but let’s get back to the snacks.
The actual flavor of the cookies is pretty simple and mild, sweet, with a nice buttery taste with a touch of almond. At first I thought they were kind of bland, but they have really grown on me as I have continued to eat them. Of course, these Goji-cookies are meant to be shared, and most lucky schlubs will only get a chance to snack on one or two. I greedily have too full boxes which I have shared with, err, no one so far. Does anyone want a Godzilla cookie?
Speaking of the boxes, the original box and the special edition are pretty much identical, the only difference being an image of Namja Town mascot Najavu wearing a Godzilla costume in one corner of the special edition version (the text says “Namja Town Only! Shin Godzilla vs. Namja Town. Godzilla invades Namja Town!”). Other than the cosplaying cat, both boxes are the same, with a big shot of Godzilla from The Return of Godzilla (1984) on the cover (the same shot that appeared on the Godzilla Gaufrette) with text declaring, in effect, “Godzilla has landed/come ashore,” as well as “Godzilla Cookie” in shaky font.
As a side note, with the advent of Godzilla Resurgence (2016), many goods have been using three kanji to write out Godzilla’s name, instead of writing his name in katakana—so we get 呉爾羅 instead of ゴジラ. What I find interesting about this is that they use a different set of kanji for Godzilla here than they do in China–哥斯拉.
Anyway, I have gotten off track again. I forgot to mention the coolest part of the Godzilla Print Cookie box—the pop up Godzilla 1984 inside! Both boxes feature a flap top that you can open to reveal a huge foldout Godzilla, a black and white image of G84 growling and lifting a menacing paw! For G-fans like me, it makes for a great addition to an already pretty sweet (yuk yuk) box of goodies.
The cookies have designs, too—they ain’t called print cookies for nothing! The normal box has four different designs with Godzilla feet, the name Godzilla, and silhouettes of Godzilla in various combinations. Some of the same designs could also be found on the Neapolitan wafers in the Godzilla Gaufrette box. These cookies are seen at the top of the review.
The Namja Town special edition cookies are somewhat more interesting. There are three designs—one celebrating the 20th anniversary of Namja Town with a G-force logo, and two with Namja Town mascots dressed as Godzilla and Kiryu. This is pretty cute stuff, and if you dig a little to find out more about the Namja cast of cats, you will find there was a reason they chose these particular characters to don the scales or metal plates of their respective kaiju counterparts. Najavu, who is dressed as Godzilla, is the main character, the “hero” if you will, of the Namja Town mythos (yes, there is a back story). Najavu is a calico cat who is fun loving, likes reading humorous Japanese poetry, and has a thing for Najami, the heroine kitty cat. The Kiryu-cosplaying Mojavu, on the other hand, is the mischievous villain, leader of the MojaMoja Gang, who is always trying to defeat Najavu. (Mojavu also has a pet cat named Ootama—a cat who owns a cat for a pet? I would say it’s because Mojavu is the villain, but honestly Hello Kitty has her own pet cat in the unrelated Sanrio universe, so…) At any rate, given that some versions of Godzilla are fairly feline in their design anyway, it isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine cats donning Godzilla outfits and duking it out.
At least, I don’t think it is.
Look, do you like sugar cookies? Do you like Godzilla? Then basically these cookies are for you. I think the cookies are pretty delicious, and their designs are great fun, especially the cats dressing up as Godzilla characters—if only they had had more of them! I would have been really thrilled to see, say, King Caesar or Gabara as cats, or, to go really weird instead of really obvious, how about cat Destoroyah? Catnip Biollante? The possibilities just go on and on!
