Unavailable legally in the United States, this movie makes a welcome appearance in the PAL market, Australia and New Zealand in particular, thanks to Madman, who has released a number of Toho movies on DVD. This particular release isn't grand or anything, but offers a solid way to view this production with good video and audio quality that is supplemented with English subtitles. The extras found here are pretty minimal, sadly, but do make the overall package a little more interesting.

The video offering on this disc is pretty similar to the one found on Toho's region 2 release, which was likely the source used. The disc contains two video tracks, each attached to their respective version of the film. The first is for the movie in Japanese. This version is in great condition, with no noticeable scratches or other inconsistencies. The color also looks good, but like many of Toho's own region 2 releases is a little too subdued and should have been more vibrant. On the downside, the image is also badly window boxed (the black area around the image), in order to accommodate older TV sets, and looks to be slightly compressed, which is probably on account of the two video tracks present. Still, faults aside, it's a pretty good presentation of the movie.

The other video track is a cut version of the English dub. Or at least that's what the audio is. The source is the same as for the Japanese video track, Japanese title and all, and has the exact same quality found between the two. The only difference are the numerous edits made to line up the footage with the audio. This includes removing the Toho logo segment, the after title credits, Rokuro being kidnapped, the death of the Seatopian agents, and a few other scenes. This is a bit unfortunate since the movie is dubbed in uncut form, and such a track could have been used to remove the need for two separate video presentations on this disc, saving valuable space outside of being something more appealing to viewers as well.

Godzilla vs. Megalon is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is Anamorphic for widescreen TVs.

As a side note, this is a PAL release, and the speed up is the reason for the discrepancy in running times which is the standard 4% difference, although no actual footage has been lost.

The disc has three audio tracks in total. There are two for the Japanese audio, one of which is in mono and the other in 5.1 channel surround. The mono is good, without any inconsistencies and with all of the dialogue being readily audible. The 5.1, however, sounds very forced. There is almost a echo-like reverberation heard in order to achieve this added directionality in the audio, and doesn't work all too well.

Finally, there is also a mono English track, which is attached to the edited version of the film. Regretfully, this track sounds pretty dreadful. Everything sounds rather subdued in the track, especially the score which has a habit of drifting a little too well into the background. Clearly the source that this track came from was in fairly poor condition. All the same, if one yearns for the movie dubbed it is an available option.

The audio is complimented by removable English subtitles that are available for the Japanese cut.

This disc is pretty light on extras. First up are two posters which count as a "gallery" that is hardly impressive. The second offering is actually a rather nice collection of trailers. This includes one for the title movie along with the three movies that proceed it in the series, Godzilla vs. Gigan, Godzilla vs. Hedorah, and All Monsters Attack which play in that order. The trailers are all fully subtitled and in good quality. Fans who purchased the region 1 discs of these titles should be especially pleased, since they were absent on those releases.

Bottom line, this isn't a great release, but I was fairly impressed by Madman's offering all the same. Fans of the Godzilla character itching to add this one to their collection, and have both a region free player and a setup that can watch PAL movies, would be well advised to search out this disc to fill in that gap in their collection.