The first time I set out to watch Godzilla, I remember wondering how long it would take for the series to forget the sombre tone of the original. Well, you do not need to wait long, because a year after they made Godzilla Raids Again (1955) and it is deeply silly in comparison.
It is not the whimsy that would come to characterize the Showa era Godzilla movies. While Godzilla (1954) feels grand as a movie production, Raids Again feels cheap. It comes off as a case of »Well, we spent money on the suit, might as well reuse it«. Everything is scaled down compared to the original. Less sets, less characters, less narrative.
The plot follows a pilot for a private firm that does… something? He flies around the ocean with his best buddy and wingman — while his fiancee back at the head office works as a radio operator. Her father is the boss of the company, and that setup seems like it would be a springboard for all sorts of dramatic scenarios that simply fail to manifest.
I will be honest and say that the plot itself has always been quite hard for me to follow. Not because it is complex — but by being both staggeringly boring and kinda inconsequential. Watching Godzilla films as a non-Japanese speaker, you do run into a slight disconnect from the language barrier — which is only amplified by being made a generation before I was even born. Most of the »human plot« of Godzilla movies are based on dialogue. Watching actors stand around without doing much other than talking, means it is harder to pick up on contextual clues.
So I will admit that there might be nuances of the plot that eludes me. We could never quite figure out if the main trio were wrapped up in a subtle love triangle or if everyone was just acting awkward. At the climax, the best friend dies from what seems to be an heroic sacrifice — again, it can be a bit hard to tell. A plot element like that feels like it should have some narrative resonance, but it is hardly commented on in the script.
Something important that this movie does teach you as a fan, is that continuity between entries was never a big focus for the series. While there is not anything that directly contradicts the first movie — they even bring back Professor Yamane for a short scene to bridge the gap — there is made no effort into qualifying this as a continuation of the previous story. Why is Godzilla back you might ask? Did the monster not famously die at the end of that movie? Was the entire moral dilemma of the third act not dependent on killing off the creature for good? So how is it back again?? Well, there is an easy answer to that.
There was a second Godzilla.
A contributing factor to the cheap feel of the movie is the staggering amount of stock footage. The 1954 original used what is clearly archival material from the Pacific War — something I have always found to be part of the je ne sais quoi atmosphere of that movie. But here it is just laughable. When the exact same shot of a squadron of fighter planes is shown three times back-to-back, you are not drawn to the historical context of the production. You just think »Damn, they were really running on a shoestring budget here, huh«.
The only cool part about this movie is the introduction of another giant dinosaur monster — Anguirus. You might ask why there is another giant monster rampaging around, but this is treated with the same handwaving as Godzilla’s return. The movie makes it clear that you do not need to care about hows and whys. You are here for the spectacle and not much else. And for what it is worth, the best part of the movie is the spectacle. Seeing Godzilla and Anguirus go at it is entertaining — although coming off as crude compared to what is to come. And ultimately, Anguirus is just another ill-fated part of the movie. I forget it is even here, because his appearance makes no impact on the plot.
Part of what sours me on Raids Again is that it is utterly dependent on the first movie to be dramatic — but its own climax is entirely divorced from it. At the end of the movie the army manages to bury Godzilla alive in an icy grave. While they might not be able to kill it, they find a way where they can bomb the issue away. Praise be for our boys in the JSDF!
There is not an overt jingoism to be mad at. Raids Again just seem completely unwilling to engage in what made the first movie interesting. If they had not kept making more movies, this would ironically be the movie that killed off Godzilla.
Raids Again is not the worst Godzilla movie, but it is the most inconsequential. Should you watch this movie? Only if you are really curious about the history of Godzilla, because if the big guy had not been in this movie, I do not think anyone would remember it.
Godzilla is one of those ethereal pop culture icons. I got into the movies explicitly to get into it — to learn what the big deal was. Godzilla is the archetypical kaiju, the platonic ideal of a big-ass monster that rolls into Tokyo to destroy skyscrapers. Just from pop-cultural osmosis most people probably understand the deal intuitively, without ever having watched a single Godzilla flick. But they have made like 30+ of these movies, it can’t possibly be as simple as that — can it? So exactly 10 years ago, I sat down together with a friend of mine to actually do the legwork. Watch every Godzilla movie in release order and see how this beast came to be.
What you quickly realize is that Godzilla is less of a movie series and more of a genre on to itself. Godzilla as a monster is not really a character — more of an action figure you can throw into a movie script to shake things up. From a sinister force of nature to a jovial defender of Earth. There is no set “true” nature of the atomic lizard. A clear tell of not actually having engaged with the movies, is claiming a depiction of Godzilla is unfaithful. For all the criticism you can lob at the American made Godzilla movies, them being at odds with the tone of the original movies is not one of them. The notion that Toho produced these cerebral pictures that were all about the horrors of nuclear warfare is simply untrue.
From their earliest incarnations, Godzilla movies are about guys in rubber suits getting shot at by model tanks. Even when the subject material is dark, there is always an inherent silliness to the endeavour. What makes it work is that the filmmakers never shy away from it. The special effects are not hidden away, made to be as imperceptible as to not take away from the action or plot. No, it is right there in your face. Seeing the seams is part of the charm.
I have not delved into the wider Tokusatsu genre, but from what I can gather it has a similar energy. It is like professional wrestling in that sense. If you buy into the premise from the get-go, you are free afterwards to lean back and enjoy the ride. You watch Godzilla to see a big fucking monster run amok. So when Godzilla destroys a large building you cheer like if he had dropped an elbow from the top rope.
As I have gotten older I am less able to get pumped up by depictions of wanton destruction. Something in the back of my mind cannot help but think of how much it would cost to rebuild a modern city. How many people are left homeless or without a job after the villains are defeated. It is a dumb part of adult life never to be able to set your mind free from the necessities that arise from needing to live and breathe in a material world. But I can kinda let my shoulders down with Godzilla, because it is so easy to look behind the curtain. I still cheer at the special effects and awe at the intricate model sets — maybe even more so because I have been lifted of the burden of judging whether or not it looks real enough.
The sole exception is actually this movie. I have gone from thinking »How are they going to be able to rebuild that?« to »How did they rebuild that?«. Tokyo getting demolished has almost become a trope at this point. But there is a sting to it in this movie, because of the knowledge that at this point they have just finished removing the real-life rubble. Knowing the movie was made right after the allied occupation of Japan ended, certainly colours how you engage with the motifs of the movie.
Godzilla (1954) is arguably the most distinct entry in the series. Here on my second rewatch, I would even go as far to say that it is hardly a Godzilla movie at all. In every entry except this one, Godzilla is treated with a reverence and mythologizing that is completely absent from this incarnation. The titular monster is hardly the focus plot. There is nothing inherently special about Godzilla in this movie. It is for all intents and purposes just a monster — a product of the hubris of man.
What caught my attention on this rewatch was how much time the movie spends on completely regular people. When I try to recall the plot of this movie, my mind immediately goes to the two scientists, the young and tortured Dr. Serizawa and the melancholic paleontologist, Professor Yamane. Together with Yamane’s daughter and assistant, I had thought of those four as the core cast of protagonists, but that is hardly the case. Sure, they take up the primary screen time in the back half, but they are mostly absent for most of the runtime.
The opening of the movie depicts a mass of relatives to missing fishermen — demanding the authorities to do more to find the cause of the disappearances. And when Godzilla rampages through local islands to metropolitan Tokyo, we are not seeing it through the viewpoint of plucky protagonists, but completely regular citizens. The parts of this movie that really strikes a chord are these snapshots of mundane people with no attachment to the larger plot. A particular memorable scene is a small moment where a mother is holding her children. As Godzilla destroys Tokyo she tries to to calm them down. In their final moments, the mother tells the children that soon they will be reunited with their father.
This is not a random remark to pull at your heartstring in a tense moment. A lot of attention is put on the people left behind. As said, the initial horror of Godzilla’s awakening did not come from the people on the attacked boats, but from their families on shore, desperate to find out what happened to them. On the small island where Godzilla is finally tracked down, a emphasis is put on a boy who loses his home and family due to Godzilla. The boy is then used as a witness to the government on the existence of Godzilla. And in another movie, that would be his sole function in the plot — exorcized from the script thereafter to tighten the viewers attention on the immediate plot.
But in this movie, the boy gets adopted by the Yamane household and sticks around — seemingly for no real purpose. When I first watched this movie, I found this hilarious. It seemed like such an odd detail to keep having him there in the background in pivotal scenes, but with no lines or real role to inhabit. But that is — of course — entirely the point. The destruction of Godzilla is only made significant because of those left behind to live with the aftermath. If everyone was killed — if there truly was nothing left — then it would not be scary at all. There would only be nihilistic emptiness.
Part of the reason why the depictions of survivors hit so hard is the knowledge that while Godzilla is fictitious, the people on screen are not. It is hard to ignore that this movie was made hardly a decade after the Pacific War ended — an event that would have felt apocalyptic to many Japanese citizens. There is melancholia that emanates from Godzilla (1954). It does not wallow in the horrors of destruction, but instead there is this ever-present sense of sadness and loss. Part of the tragedy of the movie is the need to kill Godzilla. Kill a wonder of the ancient world, the last survivor of a lost age.
A turning point in the movie is Professor Yamane falling into a stupor caused by his objections to killing Godzilla. He argues in favour of studying the beast, to turn Godzilla from a disaster to an opportunity to further the knowledge of mankind. But with the mounting casualties he is shot down. People are dying and you want to turn it into a research project? Yamane does not even have a real counterpoint. What inherent value that could be found from keeping Godzilla alive crumbles in face of the abject loss of human life. So he withdraws to his room, wallowing in self-pity for not being able to stand up to his ideals, lashing out against the people around him.
It is a haunting portrayal of the hollowing that war brings. The true casualty is not lives lost or material damages, but the loss of our capacity to work for beauty and good. What does abstract ideals matter with survival on the line? And so, the final dilemma of the movie is presented through Dr. Serizawa. The haunted scientist has invented a tool with the capacity to kill Godzilla, but at what cost? Godzilla itself is the product of technology that was similarly used to solve a do-or-die situation. Out of the atomic bombings a literal monster was born. Will the solution be another figurative bomb? Will we have to keep inventing bigger bombs to solve the troubles they birth? The reflection of this tragic cycle is part of the deep melancholia of Godzilla and what elevates it from a comparatively simple monster movie.
In the end, what motivates Dr. Serizawa to use his invention is not the rational arguments of his peers. My friend noted, that what actually convinces him is not the principal characters, but the unknown masses. At the pivotal moment of the climax, a broadcast is made of a school assembly, singing a song of peace. While adults are wrapped up in all this bullshit, the children are not. Godzilla was not just born out of the atomic bombings. What caused the monster to rise, was the continued test bombings that disturbed its natural habitat. The Japanese government itself inadvertently ends up attracting Godzilla to its shores by provoking it. Might the tragedy have been avoided if the authorities had been less hellbent on seeing Godzilla as an obstacle to be removed? Serizawa’s rejection of the cycle comes at an ultimate cost. When the invention is deployed against Godzilla, he sacrifices himself in the process. With his research notes gone, so is the possibility of recreating the technology — along with any good it might have been able to herald in a better future.
Godzilla as allegory for the atomic bombings is common knowledge. But as any good thematic motif, it is not as simple as thing=bad. Godzilla is a cautionary tale — not just of the horrors of war — but of seeing the world as a series of nails that needs to get hammered down. As a collection of problems that can be solved by dropping bombs on them. Even if it is foolhardy, moronic and out of touch with reality, insisting on what is good and beautiful is the only thing that will truly save us.
And what touches me watching Godzilla (1954) is precisely the sad realization that we are still trapped in that cycle — that we are still led by people seeing the world as problems to be hammered down. That bombs are still the ultimate solution when all else fails.
But this movie was made — grand and beautiful as it is — by people who lived through the bombs. And if they could keep hope for a better tomorrow, then so can I.
Esoteric Ebb is a highly enjoyable narrative-heavy RPG — the type of game that has become colloquially known as a »discolike«. The main creator of Ebb — the Swedish solo dev Christoffer Bodegård — has happily invoked the term himself, as a descriptor for the style of his game. As a massive fan of Disco Elysium, I’ll admit that it was this comparison that initially drew my attention to Ebb. Despite actively being on the lookout for a successor to the 2019 hit RPG, this had not been on my radar at all until a demo dropped with good word of mouth.
And Esoteric Ebb makes a great first impression. The art style is charming and the elevator pitch for the plot is sleek and enticing:
»The first ever election is in five days and a tea house has just blown up. The city is sending its worst cleric to find the cause. They send you. «
It is a great setup and the promise of an esoteric adventure about political intrigue in a kitsch fantasy setting got me stoked.
But here is the thing about Ebb. There is a steep drop-off from the first to the second impression. When you hit New Game you’re hit with a character creation screen where the standard D&D attribute array has been restyled as figments of your personality. Okay sure — your skills speaking to you in their own voices was a highly recognizable part of Disco Elysium. No harm in giving that another spin.
Then the game starts properly in a dark void with a disembodied voice. You wake up in a morgue with no clue on how you got there — gotta pay your dues to Planescape Torment. The locals are mad at you for being late and you’re handed a straight-faced partner because of jurisdictional issues. This is all eerily familiar, because it is beat-for-beat Disco Elysium. You have even lost your gu- erhm spellbook. The early hours of Ebb has a liminal quality where this prior game has been superimposed over a Dungeons & Dragons session. Throughout my time with Ebb I kept mentally cataloguing all the elements that felt lifted from Disco Elysium. The player character’s unresolved trauma related to women. My dexterity stat trying to convince me to be a libertarian. The reoccurring option of introducing yourself with a self-made title. It just kept coming.
Was this a conductive state of mind? Not really, no. I was actually pretty self-conscious about how silly I was for deducting points from Ebb, when the thing that had explicitly grabbed my attention was its nature as a disco successor. Early on a lot of the hallmark traits were indeed kinda reassuring. The distinct UI and sound design, the skill checks and snappy writing. I instantly felt in good hands — because this game was clearly made by someone who loved Disco Elysium as much as I. But then it just kept on washing over me, like a tidal wave of inspirational baggage. And at that point I couldn’t help but think:
How much disco is too much?
For what it is worth, I do think that after a while the obvious references blend into the background and the unique quirks of Bodegårds setting — The Esoteric Coast — eventually pulled me in. When I got genuinely moved by an ancient snailman wizard vowing to save his wife from eternal torment, I knew that Ebb was more than just a knock-off. But in a similar vein I also knew that the plot failed to quite stick the landing — for the simple reason that it did not match up to the masterful climax of Disco Elysium.
Of course this is unfair. Every piece of media falls flat if you constantly compare it to your literal favorite. But Ebb invites that comparison so freely that it becomes exceedingly hard to ignore. I cannot help but notice that the general response to the game has been a »Well, it’s not as good as Disco Elysium, but…«. What comes after that then depends on whether you could see past the metaphoric forest.
The main question for me is: would I have played this game if not for the disco-styled wrappings? I am honestly not sure. The sheer amount of narrative heavy RPGs I do not play is evidence of that. As much as I hate to admit it — the real reason I picked up Esoteric Ebb was because of its reputation as a disco-successor. But still, during my adventures in the city of Norvik the best moments were when the game deviated from the formula. The new encounter system is a great innovation — if a sleight bit undercooked. I ended up surprisingly invested in the esoteric lore of the setting. And the Discworld x European comicbook style aesthetic was captivating. I did not miss the avant garde Estonian flair that worked so well for Elysium. I liked this bumbling homebrewed D&D campaign made by my new favorite DM.
The answer to my question is that I probably would not have played a non-disco Ebb. But paradoxically, there can in fact be too much disco and Ebb is arguably over that limit.
I think of myself as a fairly typical disco fan: obsessed with Elysium, but found peace with the fact that it will never be continued by its original creators. Instead, I put my faith in the neigh mythic birth of a new genre. The fabled discolike — the term Bodegård used to describe his game.
There have been plenty of games that has taken inspiration from Disco Elysium, without being discolikes proper. Obsidian’s Pentiment (2022) and the two Citizen Sleeper games (2022 & 2025) immediately spring to mind. But — while good in their own right — they never quite scratched that disco itch the same way Ebb did. While clearly derivative, it is still the only game that has really succeeded in capturing that magic. So, if we want discolikes as a proper genre, then Ebb is arguably a necessary steppingstone. In the event of an Esoteric 2 (please please), then I am certain that Bodegård will not need to pay such clear homages again. He has proven the viability of a 1:1 disco game that is not Elysium.
My hope is that we will look back at Ebb in the future and see it as a weird, nascent attempt at a genre piece. Because — Urht Be Blessed — I sincerely hope this will be the first of many.
