Review |
| By: Nicholas Driscoll |
Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) is one of the most beloved Showa Godzilla films, coming at a time when Toho was flourishing, fresh off their most commercially successful Godzilla film of all time (which, adjusted for inflation, still remains King Kong vs. Godzilla). Directed by Ishiro Honda, bringing back Akira Takarada from Godzilla (1954) in a major role, with Rodan’s Kenji Sahara taking a villainous turn, as well as a colossal clash between Godzilla in his fourth film and Mothra in her second appearance (before she became oversaturated) and written by legendary kaiju scribe Shin’ichi Sekizawa in one of his early efforts, special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, music by Akira Ifukube, what else can you ask for? While certain aspects of the film have always kind of fallen flat for me (particularly the shoehorned-in “kids-in-peril-on-the-island” shtick at the end), I also find the movie delectably rewatchable, fun, exciting, even touching. The film also had several adaptations, including a novelization by Takamasa Ueda, and the subject of today’s review, the manga version by Fumio Hisamatsu (the reprint version from the Godzilla All Movies DVD Collectors Box Vol. 3), originally published as a supplement to the May 1964 edition of Bouken Ou (“Adventure King”) magazine.
Fumio Hisamatsu should be a familiar name by now for those following my reviews. The artist, most famed for his non-fiction historical manga as well as several series adapted into anime (Super Jetta and Adventure on Gaboten Island), Hisamatsu was a productive powerhouse, creating numerous titles—from adaptations of television properties and classic folklore, to original children’s works, horror stories, adventure tales, and Westerns. As part of my preparation for this review, I wanted to familiarize myself with more of Hisamatsu’s rich oeuvre and perused a wide variety of his works through Kindle Unlimited in Japan. His style is often very action-heavy, generally with sparsely detailed but dynamically staged panel layouts—a particular trademark seems to be characters that break through the panels to create an exciting pop-out effect. Many of his titles feel derivative, such as his Silver 77 (which is a total James Bond rip-off, even apparently stealing scenes from Takao Saito’s official 007 manga) or Invisible Man X, an uninspired remix of invisible man tropes. However, Giant Atolanta feels like a missed opportunity, a title kicking above its pay grade. The manga, which ran from April to November 1967, is basically a Tetsujin 28 clone about a boy gifted with a giant robot by the alien-like residents of Atlantis. Initially, the boy protagonist rides in Atolanta, a conceit that wouldn’t become popular until the groundbreaking Mazinger Z some years later… but it also seems possible Atolanta may have influenced the more-remembered Giant Robo (the manga that became Johnny Sokko in the west), given the similarity of their designs. Giant Robo was released a mere month after Giant Atolanta, and given their striking similarities, it isn’t hard to imagine there might be cross-pollination. Hisamatsu also has a shockingly downbeat Robin Hood adaptation that ends in Hood’s defeat and the deaths of Little John and Maid Marian, as well as a wild reimagining of Aladdin (called Advance, Aladdin) in which a boy is gifted a kaiju-sized wish-granting monster in order to take down the king of hell—which he utterly fails to do, having been seduced by a lower female demon!!! One of Hisamatsu’s manga I read in preparation for this review repeated a gag from his Gorath adaptation; in Robot Dog Ginga, the young boy protagonist excitedly runs to see an elderly fat professor, who is eating spaghetti at a table. The boy overturns the table in his excitement, spilling spaghetti everywhere. Protagonist Hayao performs the same stunt on Prof. Tazawa in Hisamatsu’s adaptation of Gorath (1962), perhaps illustrating a lack of imagination. It should be said, however, that my observations here are based mostly on lesser works by Hisamatsu, given that his more popular (fictional) series were not included on Kindle Unlimited. Still, it’s clear the fellow was a talented and versatile creator with a specialty for child-oriented adaptations and electric, eclectic kiddo action spectaculars.
Let’s run through a summary of Hisamatsu’s manga adaptation of Mothra vs. Godzilla, which is generally the same as the film, just greatly truncated. A typhoon strikes Japan, beaching an enormous egg. Reporter Sakai and his sidekick, fat cameraman Nakanishi, investigate, followed soon after by chubby and balding Prof. Miura. Miura uses a series of instruments to break into the egg (a hammer, a drill, a saw, even a pair of scissors!), only to be stopped by Kumayama. Kumayama is a rich businessman who claims ownership of the egg. Soon afterward, Sakai and Nakanishi find a strange scale in the wreckage caused by the storm. Miura determines the scale is radioactive, and upon further inspection the land where Sakai picked up the scale also appears to emanate radioactivity. Suddenly, Godzilla bursts from under the ground, and Nakanishi tries to make a run for it. Godzilla rampages through an electric barrier, seemingly unstoppable. Our protagonists discuss what should be done next, only to be confronted by the Twin Fairies demanding the return of their egg. Miura, Sakai, and Nakanishi attempt to follow through on the Fairies’ request, asking Kumayama for the egg, but are rebuffed—only for Godzilla to suddenly grab the evil businessman through the window. Kumayama offers to pay off the kaiju king, who ain’t having none of it, and throws the villain into the far distance. Godzilla then picks up the Mothra egg before putting it down and attempting to squash it with his butt. Mothra soon arrives, resulting in an extended fight sequence culminating in Mothra’s fiery death. Mothra drapes her smoking corpse over the egg, the heat seeming to finish the incubation, and two enormous caterpillars emerge. The caterpillars are nearly as big as Godzilla and have astonishing burrowing capabilities, popping in and out of the ground like extra huge Graboids before engaging their trump card: sticky thread that gums up the kaiju king and sends him tumbling into the sea. The tiny twins then ride the much larger bug twins out into the ocean, the end.
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| Godzilla being webbed up by the larva |
The manga version certainly has its strengths, even occasionally improving on the original. One of my pet peeves with Mothra vs. Godzilla has always been the climactic action. In the film, Godzilla finishes off Mothra and then incredibly just wanders away, completely forgetting about that egg he had been attacking just previously. Godzilla then wanders through the high voltage towers before getting sidetracked by an idiotic piece of manufactured peril: Suddenly there is a school bus full of kids (whom we have never seen before, and who have no story or connection to anyone) that are trapped on an island where Godzilla and the Mothra larvae stage their final showdown. The entire bus-full of kids always struck me as truly random—Godzilla never evinces any interest in the bus nor has any particular reason to fight on the island, and since we don’t know who any of these yahoos are, it feels disconnected from the main action. The manga ditches the school bus, and Godzilla doesn’t just waltz away from the free Mothra omelet, with the truly gargantuan caterpillars achieving a more believable win given their incredible size.
On the other hand, almost everything with the human cast is a step down. Sakai in the manga is fine as a serious-minded reporter, but he doesn’t make much of an impression beyond his stoic good-guy wherewithal. Nakanishi, originally a cameragirl with delusions of artistic grandeur in the film, is now essentially Yu Fujiki’s egg-chomping Mr. Nakamura with a camera, repeatedly depicted in the manga as food obsessed and lacking any pretensions for art. Like Hisamatsu’s Dr. Tazawa in Gorath, his Dr. Miura is a rotund buffoon. Manga Miura’s central personality trait is jolly anarchy, gleefully attempting to break Mothra’s egg or yukking it up when Sakai and Nakanishi are forced to take anti-radioactivity showers. Miura in the movie, by contrast, was a serious figure, a man of scientific and moral integrity, and not a humorous sidekick.
Outside of character changes, however, the manga version suffers from limp themes and dramatic anemia. Because the characters never visit Infant Island to rhetorically grapple with the natives, they also never see the devastation of nuclear weaponry, nor face their own selfishness and the humiliation of begging the nuclear-ravaged Infant natives for help against Godzilla which provided a beating, bleeding heart to the movie version. Also, while I definitely enjoy seeing Godzilla grab Kumayama and overhand him into purgatory, it seems unmotivated in the story and against character for Godzilla. Why would Godzilla be interested in grabbing a human at all, let alone the coincidence of the Big G snitching the one evil human character and killing him in a pre-justice-hero appearance. Godzilla is characterized as an unapologetic villain in the movie and manga versions of Mothra vs. Godzilla, so the targeted assassination (?) of Kumayama comes across as tonally daft… though admittedly pretty amusing.
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| Godzilla grabbing Kumayama |
As I mentioned in the previous short review I penned on this manga as a larger part of the Battle History of Godzilla vs. Mothra, overall Hisamatsu’s style has a great sense of action and panel variety. He works in repeated large panels and flexible panel progressions, providing visual interest—Hisamatsu even includes one instance of Godzilla bursting through the border of a panel wherein he is scuffling with Mothra, that previously mentioned Hisamatsu trademark I often found in his other work (including repeated panel breaks in his adaptation of Gorath).
Outside of panel layouts, Hisamatsu’s art leans towards oversimplification for the human cast, which is worsened by a poor reproduction of the original pages. From the looks of it, I doubt the publishers had access to the original art, and likely resorted to reformatting and cleaning up pages from a surviving published booklet. The art just isn’t clean enough to have come from the original pages, and I have seen the difference in some reprints I own (Jiro Sawada’s Ultraseven manga includes examples of both manga reproduced from original art and reproduced without the benefit of original pages, and seeing them side-by-side is striking, with reproductions based on published work looking markedly worse). It’s never difficult to follow along with what’s happening, but everything looks a bit grainy, a little indistinct, and some of the text is hard to read. I am wondering if this is just an issue that plagues many of Hisamatsu’s extant manga, as the Kindle Unlimited library included many examples of poor restoration—even to the point of warped edging, as if the publishers were photocopying bent pages, occasionally requiring awkwardly inserted text to make the book readable. Given that the Mothra vs. Godzilla manga is also reproduced as a small manga booklet rather than in full-sized manga magazine pages, the above issues are only exacerbated. Interestingly, if you go back to the Battle History of Godzilla vs. Mothra reprint, the pages of Hisamatsu's Mothra vs. Godzilla manga are clearer and the text is easier to read. If one looks closely at the reprint included in the collection, it becomes apparent that they must have replaced at least some of the text.
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| 2016 reprint on the left compared to the Battle History reprint on the right |
Occasionally the font is slightly different or the placement is shifted. Perhaps they also cleaned up the images so that they pop more as well. Finally, they reprint from Battle History does not include the advertisements nor the text that runs down the side of the page, and while the later 2016 reprint includes numbering in the panels, that numbering has been removed in the older reprint. Overall, I recommend reading the Battle History reprint as it is just easier on the eyes.
A word on the monster art. I personally really enjoy old-school takes on Godzilla and company on the manga page, as they very often go completely off model without bothering to mimic the costumes. That is certainly the case here, and even the version of the Big G on the cover differs from the creature we get in the pages (the latter has more warts, more jagged spines). Hisamatsu’s Godzilla in this comic (as opposed to the goofy hero of his original Godzilla adventures, published some years later) has a constant scowl and toothy, reptilian visage. More wild are the larvae, now sporting far bulkier bodies and a design reminiscent of rhinoceros beetle grubs (the oversized beetles can be and often are hunted down like Pokemon in the woods of Japan). However, I don’t think these designs are Hisamatsu originals, and neither are the anthropomorphic hand-to-claw battle scenes. All of these seem inspired by the storyboards for the movie (I have a smattering in an old non-fiction book, Toho SF Tokusatsu Movie Series Vol. 2: Mothra/Mothra vs. Godzilla), which include similar grub-adjacent larvae, and battles showing Godzilla bear-hugging Mothra or whipping the kaiju queen with his tail, posing with a rock above his head (much like he does with the egg in the manga), even head-butting Mothra (this last one doesn’t happen in the manga). Heck, even the burrowing of the larvae can be seen in old storyboards for the film. If you compare the storyboards to the second page of the manga (which is a page explaining Godzilla and Mothra's attacks), some of the images look as if they were practically traced directly from the storyboards.
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| Storyboards in contrast to the manga's index page and interior art |
I like Mothra vs. Godzilla the manga, but the tale is overly short and thematically thin. If only Hisamatsu had two or three times as many pages, he could have included deeper depictions of the broken capitalist system or the heroes’ personalities or the Infant Island sequence (man, I want a proper manga Skeleturtle). Still, as it stands, even with the dodgy reproduction of the art, Hisamatsu’s Mothra vs. Godzilla takes the already droll humor of the film and kicks it up to gut-wobbling levels. It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s silly, it has hilarious Godzilla and kaiju co. artwork. It may not be a stand-out adaptation with great artistic merit on its own, but it’s a fine digest version of one of the greatest kaiju films of the 1960s.
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| By: Anthony Romero |
Fumio Hisamatsu, known for works like Big Adventure Science Manga: Suspicious Star Gorath and (the unhelpfully titled) Godzilla, also penned a manga version of Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). Like many manga tie-ins of the era, it compresses the story into a brisk 33 pages, making cuts to the cast and streamlining the narrative, although to the detriment to the flow of the story.
Diving in, the most notable change comes with the human characters. Female lead Junko Nakanishi is removed entirely and replaced with a male photographer who coincidentally shares her surname. With this switch, the only women (excluding Mothra) left in the story are the Shobijin. While this decision robs the story of some balance, at least the author avoided the common manga pitfall of inserting a child protagonist. Speaking of the cast, some characters look strikingly different from their film counterparts. Chief example is Professor Miura, reimagined as a balding older man rather than the suave figure portrayed by Hiroshi Koizumi.
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| Professor Miura examines the egg |
Other changes here are often attributed to the shorter length, which causes the overall pacing to suffer as it moves too quickly. Key moments fly by without buildup or breathing room. For instance, the cast pleading with businessman Kumayama for the return of Mothra's egg happens almost immediately after the Shobijin's introduction. What's even worse is that within the same two-page conversation where businessman Kumayama dismisses them, he is then yanked out a window by Godzilla and flung away in a cartoonish "Team Rocket" fashion. Overall, the story beats just move too fast.
As for the artwork itself, it's a mixed bag. Human characters are at least visually distinct, but Godzilla fares worse as he is drawn more like a generic cartoon dinosaur than the King of the Monsters. His behavior matches the exaggerated look: at one point he tries to smash Mothra's egg by sitting and bouncing on it. During battles, his movements are oddly humanized, throwing punches, bear-hugging Mothra, and even karate-chopping her larvae. These choices give the action a comical, almost parodic tone.
That said, the manga doesn't skimp on action despite the short length. Both Mothra's imago and larvae battles are present, as are the military's clashes with Godzilla. The Artificial Lightning Generator also gets a redesign, now resembling a hybrid of the Markalite Cannon from The Mysterians (1957) and a power transmission tower. It's actually a more imaginative look than the original's somewhat bland design.
In the end, Hisamatsu's Mothra vs. Godzilla manga is more of a historical curiosity than a stellar adaptation. It rushes through the story in a way that really undermines what is one of the better Godzilla movies from a narrative standpoint. Still, it offers an interesting look at how one of the franchise's best films was reinterpreted for the page... even if it will be remembered more for Godzilla's antics than its storytelling.
As a side note, interestingly the inside of the cover lists stats for Godzilla and Mothra. While Godzilla's stats are correct, they use the stats for the much larger 1961 Mothra.
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| The sizing chart found inside the manga's cover |
However, despite this, Mothra isn't depicted any bigger inside the manga, which would be easy to spot as each of her wings would be more than twice Godzilla's size.
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| By: Sean O'Leary |
Many kaiju enthusiasts consider Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) to be one of the defining films of the tokusatsu genre. In addition to the fantastical monster action that pits the titanic Godzilla against the underdog Mothra, the film delivers a sobering commentary on the dangers of uncontrolled greed. It also devotes considerable time to explore the impact that nuclear testing has on the fictional Infant Islanders in ways that parallels the real-world events of nuclear testing in the Bikini Atoll. Mothra vs. Godzilla is a wonderful film that delivers on spectacle while also being directly relevant to the issues of the era it was made in.
Like Matango (1963) and other Toho productions of the time, it was adapted into comic form. Unlike other comics, one thing that immediately stands out is the writer of the comic, Shinichi Sekizawa. Sekizawa was also the screenwriter of the film, making this a little more “official” as an alternate take than some of the other contemporary comics. The art, done by Hisamatsu Fumio is simple but effective at portraying the action. The comic resembles Tezuka Osamu’s work, which should be no surprise considering Hisamatsu was an assistant to the legendary mangaka. It was interesting to see how Hisamatsu Fumio’s cartoony artwork contrasts to Sekizawa’s traditionally somber and reflective storytelling.
Like most manga adaptations from the time, the story of Mothra vs. Godzilla is a severely truncated version of the original film. While the story beats are mostly identical, many sections of the film are absent in the manga, such as Godzilla rampaging in Nagoya, or the build-up to Godzilla’s arrival. Most notably, the journey to Infant Island and much of the conniving by the villainous Torahata are cut. This combined with the manga’s comedic tone make it much more farcical and lighter hearted.
The emphasis on comedy becomes obvious in how the characters are drawn in the manga. Rather than Professor Shunsuke Miura being portrayed as a handsome and respectable “Akira Takarada-type”, the adaptation portrays the professor as a knowledgeable but excitable and rotund oaf. In a genuinely funny scene, the professor tries various tools—from saws to scissors—to cut the egg open with no success. He’s the complete opposite of the wise and methodical portrayal of Miura by Hiroshi Koizumi. Despite this, the scene of him trying to cut the egg open was so humorous it won me over.
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| Professor Miura trying to crack the egg |
This “cartoonification” extends to the rest of the cast. The characters of Kunayama and Torahata have been consolidated into one hybrid character. Unlike the smooth sunglass-wearing Torahata played by Kenji Sahara, or the weasel-like Kumayama, this version of the villain is just generic businessman. The dynamic that those two had in the film was very entertaining and it’s a shame that the entire thing has been watered down. At least his comeuppance is interesting; unlike in the movie where he’s merely killed by a rampaging Godzilla under rubble, in the comic Godzilla picks him up and chucks him. It’s a rare instance of Godzilla directly attacking someone with intention, and it’s a reminder of an era where rules and restrictions of how Godzilla could be portrayed were a lot looser. It’s a goofier visual gag and suits the tone of the comic more.
Unfortunately, the other cast changes is where the comic suffers the most. While the comics main cast fills the role of propelling the story forward, they’ve all become extraordinarily generic other than the professor. The lead is a boiled down version of news reporter Ichiro Sakai and contributes little to the story. Likewise, the slightly iconic character of Junko Nakanishi has also been replaced by a male reporter with zero personality. Since the scenes with Infant Island are cut, this relegates the reporter cast to generic do-gooders and removes the interesting dynamic, and slight disagreements, they have amongst each other.
The Shobijin’s role has been cut down, and they never spend any time bonding or debating the cast. One of my favorite elements of Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) is how the main cast, despite being well-meaning, cannot excuse or pardon the nastiness of humanity that Torahata exemplifies and the damage done to Infant Island by nuclear testing, when pleading their case for help to the Infant Island chief. Since the comic has severe limitations on the amount of space and time it can portray things, so these cuts can be forgiven.
As an aside, the foreshadowing of Godzilla through Junko finding the scale in a flooded field is replaced by a bizarre scene where one of Godzilla’s scales has punctured a car tire. It’s just another moment that makes me appreciate the way that Junko finds the Godzilla scale in the original film.
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| Finding the Godzilla scale |
In fact, many of these cuts have made me really appreciate Mothra vs. Godzilla a lot more. The opening to that film, with the typhoon, and the revelation of the egg, as well as the accompanying music, is perfect. Likewise, when Godzilla first makes a proper appearance out of the ground, the way that the cast begins to notice the earth move before recoiling in horror at Godzilla’s appearance is amazing. Instead of blaming the manga for failing to capture this, I’m going to argue that the comparison to the manga allows one to really recognize how so many visuals throughout it are perfected.
The monster cast has also changed considerably. Like many other comics and non-film portrayals, Godzilla is much more dinosaurian and “animated” in the manga than his on-screen counterpart. Godzilla looks much scalier, has larger more muscular arms and his dorsal spines are much more uniform. While he’s still clearly the villain of the comic and intended to be feared, this incarnation lacks the “scowl” that the Godzilla 1964 design has. He’s much sillier, and this is representedbest when he does a victory dance after killing Mothra.
I should mention though that the way Godzilla fights is very entertaining. At one point during the brawl, after punching Mothra in the face, Godzilla suplexes her. It’s something that Godzilla never does in any of he movies, and it’s a sight to behold. While I may have misunderstood what the intent was, I also found it hilarious that Godzilla seems to kill Mothra by “sneezing” atomic breath after getting hit by Mothra’s poisonous scale attack.
Moving to Mothra, she’s mostly the same. Strangely, her egg looks less like an egg and more like a cocoon. The most notable design changes of the comic are the Mothra Larva. In this manga, they look less like giant caterpillars, and more like grubs. Their “beaks” are significantly larger, and their heads are less bulbous. They appear to lack eyes, and all around seem much more aggressive and swifter. They’re also considerably larger than their film counterparts.
This difference is really good at showcasing the changes that Mothra’s design and portrayal has had over the years. While Mothra has become progressively cuter and more emotive since the 1990’s, it’s important to recall that Mothra was originally portrayed as more of a gigantic and monstrous insectoid beast from it’s inception. Mothra in the original Mothra (1961) was an unrelenting force of nature, with the larva crushing everything in its path. Even the imago form, while beautiful, flittered about more like a real insect when it destroyed New Kirk City. Mothra was originally portrayed as a vengeful insectoid creature. Seeing the depiction of the Mothra Larva as two large monstrous maggots, is a sobering reminder of that original change though.
If I may complain about this change though, it does change the tone of the fight significantly. Because the Mothra twins are much more of monsters, and there isn’t a pause between the adult Mothra’s death and the larva confronting Godzilla, there’s much less emotion behind the final confrontation. It doesn’t feel like two monsters avenging their mother and saving humans from Godzilla’s wrath, it feels like merely a continuation of the fight that came before. I could see this as being an improvement for some, but for me it’s more evidence of why the original film’s climax is so fantastic on a storytelling level.
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| The egg hatching right after the Imago form is defeated |
Despite this, I’d like to praise the fight as an alternative take on Mothra vs. Godzilla’s climax. I think the original 1964 movie is one of the best in the franchise, but there’s no denying that the final fight of the film, the two newly hatched larva vs. Godzilla, is not the most visually interesting brawl the series has to offer. A lot of it is the larva popping in and out behind rocks spraying their silk. It’s repetitive, but still works due to the heavy emotion backing it. The climax of the comic, of both the imago Mothra and the two larva is the opposite; it’s more straightforward, and both incarnations feel more equally matched to Godzilla. It’s no longer an underdog fight and moves swiftly.
Overall, I enjoyed this manga adaptation of Mothra vs. Godzilla. Bizarrely, the streamlined nature of the comic and shift in tone allows it to work well as a companion piece to the film. It allows for the reader to enjoy a retreading of a familiar story by having just enough changes to make it unique. It’s a fun read for any die-hard Godzilla fan and is an interesting time capsule from the franchise’s early history.
The comic ends with an advertisement for the film, and I can easily imagine a child in the 1960’s getting excited for the film after reading the comic. Alternatively, I can see someone enjoying reading this comic after just having seen the film in an era where home media was non-existent. I’m glad that manga like his was published and continues to be preserved by fans. |
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