English Dub Review: Godzilla City on the Edge of Battle

IT’S MECHAGODZILLA TIME

Overview:

Haruo’s team realizes that they might have a chance at defeating Godzilla with Mechagodzilla.
You might want to take a look at the review for the first one before proceeding.

Our Take:

I went into this movie expecting nothing, and came out less disappointed than I expected to be.

As much as I wouldn’t trust Urobuchi even if you paid me, he actually made the Mechagodzilla mythos here pretty interesting. In the original, Mechagodzilla isn’t a kaiju technically, but a giant mecha made to combat kaiju. It’s brought to Earth by aliens, who disguise it as regular Godzilla to throw people off. As one of the most well-known characters in the franchise (barring Godzilla himself, Mothra, and Ghidorah), Mechagodzilla is a popular kaiju. The new adaptation keeps a couple of facts, like Mechagodzilla being an alien creation that was brought in as a method of conquest, and like in later incarnations, it is supplemented in power through the use of alien brain cells. In the more recent movies, Mechagodzilla retains a degree of autonomy, and leaving it alone in this movie made it create a whole city, complete with cloaking systems and self-defense mechanisms. It also keeps the fact that Mechagodzilla gets decapitated a lot, and this variant’s Mechangodzilla had its head blown off in the initial attack. This Mechagodzilla is a Mechagodzilla that’s left to its own devices as a pure weapon of war, and even has the ability to self-repair.

This Mechagodzilla has been destroyed in the past by Godzilla, but its still surviving on its own. On a planet constantly defined by Godzilla,  Mechagodzilla has adapted itself to become a landscape rather than a single being, staking out land to survive long-term. Its nanometals consuming everything necessary to survive was also a really interesting concept. Quite honestly, it’s the coolest part of the whole movie… but we were still robbed of the awesome looking Mechagodzilla shown from the concept art.

There’s also finally, a divide between alien and humans. It was already strongly hinted from the last movie that the two alien races couldn’t care less about humanity, and only want to colonize Earth for their own reasons. The Bilusaludo can’t comprehend humanity’s reliance on emotions, and only see emotions as a thing for inferior races. They highly value logic and using logic to its utmost power, no matter the conclusions. As a result, they don’t tire, and are willing to sacrifice their lives for Mechagodzilla. They don’t rely on emotions, but they still hate Godzilla, and are willing to throw everything away to see it defeated. This includes assimilating themselves into the nanometal and Mechagodzilla itself, so their information can aid and become part of a mechanical, logical system. While it’s something on a volunteer basis at first, when a crisis occurs, they expect everyone else to follow their logic, not realizing that they’re the only ones that think that way. It’s a difference in perception, especially in dire times, that creates the divide.

That being said, on the side of humanity, Haruo is slowly distancing himself from being the single-target stubborn person he was in the first movie. He manages to realize that his bitter vendetta against Godzilla isn’t for the greater sake of humanity, but because he is still angry and traumatized from losing his family before takeoff. If it was just himself on a suicide mission, he’d be fine with it, but now he has a position of responsibility, and is dragging everyone into a personal vendetta. Instead of being blindly angry, he’s taking the time to watch over those he is responsible for, and thus he earns his respect, instead of how it was just handed to him in the first movie for some reason.

Not written well was Yuko, which isn’t really a surprise. Urobuchi’s track record in writing women has never been a particularly good one, and Yuko, with all the potential she has, fares no differently. She is younger and less experienced, as she has no concept of Earth, but she is still a highly capable military pilot. She’s chosen to be on the offensive, being one of the people best suited to pilot one of Mechagodzilla’s aerial Vulture units. She’s a stellar soldier, but she’s also a woman so–quick, kill her off before she becomes too important! Because women’s stories are only worth telling as romantic interests to the protagonist, or to be fridged for manpain. Stellar. Yuko truly deserved better.

In the end, Godzilla wins out, thanks to humanity choosing to live from its emotions, and not be subject to losing themselves completely. At the same time, this is probably for the best, for a few reasons. The first being the most prominent- that no matter how much Haruo rambles about how much he hates Godzilla, the entire planet is completely dependent on Godzilla’s existence. He isn’t entirely malevolent, but he is shaping the planet as a whole. If he was to be destroyed, then the entire ecosystem would collapse, and who will take that up- a small spaceship? Unlikely. The second is that- and as we know from the poster for the third movie– Ghidorah is out there, and coming. Ghidorah is a planet-killing kaiju, and Godzilla’s nemesis. The only thing that can stop Ghidorah is Godzilla, and Haruo doesn’t come close to having the amount of manpower necessary to stop Ghidorah. Third is that as they finally touch upon- humanity is responsible for Godzilla waking up. As I discussed in the last review, all of humanity’s need to take back their planet is a dull point when they were responsible for the whole problem in the first place. The only plan of action seems to be ‘kill Godzilla’ and then… nothing else.

Altogether, this movie was still not that great. While it’s much better paced and isn’t completely intrenched in making humanity the greatest thing ever, it still suffers from a lot of strange moments. Regardless, it’s still eons better than the first one, which is a relief. Overall, it’s just okay- not standing out, but definitely not a Godzilla movie.

I’m still watching the third movie for Ghidorah anyway.