Top Photo: Production still of either Haruo Nakajima or Katsumi Tezuka portraying Godzilla via suitmation in Godzilla (1954). Toho Company Ltd., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Seventy years after his first appearance in 1954, Godzilla is still an international icon . The star of 38 films produced in both the United States and Japan, he has spawned two genres of Japanese film and influenced television, music, literature, and video games. Godzilla has crossed oceans, visited the center of the Hollow Earth, and even traveled to space, but his roots remain firmly planted in the world created at the end of World War II and Japanese experiences of the war. 

A 50-meter-tall dinosaur doesn’t come out of nowhere, though, and there are three men who are pivotal to his creation. The first is the producer of 28 Godzilla films , Tomoyuki Tanaka. Tanaka was born on April 26, 1910, in Osaka. After graduating from Kansai University in 1940, he joined the staff of Tohō Studios. The first film he produced on his own for Tohō was Three Women of the North in 1945, a drama focusing on the air traffic control crew of an isolated airfield in northern Japan. In 1954, Tanaka was in Indonesia, making arrangements for a Japanese–Indonesian co-production called Behind the Glory. Those plans ultimately fell apart, and the film was never made. However, fate would intervene. 

Japanese film producer Tomoyuki Tanaka (April 26, 1910 – April 2, 1997) on the set of Battle in Outer Space (1959). Scan from the original work, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On March 1, 1954, the United States unexpectedly detonated its largest nuclear explosion. Conducted in the Marshall Islands, the Castle Bravo test of a hydrogen bomb yielded a 15-megaton explosion instead of the intended six. This miscalculation on the part of the Americans resulted in the irradiation of local Pacific Islanders as well as a Japanese fishing vessel named the Lucky Dragon No. 5, killing one crew member. Flying back to Japan over the Pacific Ocean, Tanaka considered the effects—real and otherwise—of a hydrogen weapon detonating in a large body of water, Tanaka let his mind wander. He thought to himself, What if this kind of explosion accidentally awoke some prehistoric sea monster and caused it to morph into a larger beast?

The challenge of bringing that creature to life fell to Eiji Tsuburaya. Born on July 7, 1901, in Sukagawa on Japan’s east coast, Tsuburaya’s early passion was flying, and he spent much of his childhood building models of planes before entering a flight school. But after the school closed following a fatal accident, Tsuburaya turned to another childhood interest: movies. He began working in the film industry in 1919, taking his first job as an assistant cameraman. A turning point came for the young cinematographer when the movie King Kong was released in 1933. Tsuburaya was so enthralled by the special effects of the film that he acquired his own 35mm print so that he could study it frame by frame. When Tohō Studios was formed in 1937, Tsuburaya headed the new company’s special effects department. 

As World War II began, Tohō started producing propaganda films, most notably Hawai Mare Oki Kaisen (The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya). Tsuburaya’s involvement in the film, which features a depiction of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona, led to him being blacklisted during the American occupation. Not until the end of the Allied occupation in 1952 was Tsuburaya able to rejoin the staff at Tohō. As an homage to King Kong, Tsuburaya planned to use stop-motion for Godzilla, however time and budget constraints would not allow it. Instead, by using a rubberized suit worn by a stunt actor, building sets to scale, and filming at a low angle, Tsuburaya not only brought Godzilla to life—he pioneered a new genre of film and television known as “Tokusatsu.”

Eiji Tsuburaya (in front of Godzilla costume) with his special effects crew on the set of Godzilla (1954). Toho Company Ltd., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tsuburaya worked closely on this pioneering project with director Ishiro Honda . Honda was born on May 7, 1911, in Asahi, a small agricultural town. He saw his first film in a school assembly when the family moved to Tokyo, sparking a lifelong passion for film. After being one of the first graduates of the fledgling Nihon University film program, Honda began working as an assistant director in 1934. During this time, he learned every aspect of film production, from camera operation to editing. But his film career was interrupted by the war: Honda was drafted and served in the Imperial Army in China, where he would spend six months as a prisoner of war shortly before Japan’s defeat. 

In 1951, he finally got the chance to direct his first film. Called The Blue Pearl, his directorial debut centered on a village of pearl divers caught between tradition and the modernization of Japan brought by the American occupation. Honda’s next two films, and his first with Tsuburaya, were war dramas Eagle of the Pacific and Farewell Rabaul. When assigned to Godzilla in 1954, several directors had already passed on it. Many claimed the premise was entirely too ridiculous. However, given the record budget that Tohō was investing in the film, Honda approached the project in a serious manner. He insisted the rest of his cast and crew adopt such an attitude as well, something that helped turned Godzilla into a success. 

Japanese filmmaker Ishirō Honda at the National Museum of Nature and Science, in Tokyo, during the filming of Frankenstein Conquers the World. 1965. Honda Film Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This same professional mentality was also necessary for some of the real-world topics tackled by the film. At the very beginning of the 1954 film,  Honda and Tsuburaya recreated the Castle Bravo nuclear test, setting the tone for the rest of the film. When Godzilla destroys the boat in the opening sequence, he is preceded by a bright flash of light. During his rampage through Tokyo, Godzilla wreaks destruction with fire just as much as with his massive size. The people who manage to survive this rampage are then left to contend with radiation. Honda makes it clear that Godzilla is meant to be an allegory for nuclear weapons: The film’s main character, a paleontologist called Dr. Yamane, explicitly blames the disturbance of Godzilla and the destruction he causes on hydrogen bomb testing. 

One of the other main characters is a physicist named Dr. Serizawa, whose secret project is the Oxygen Destroyer. This device disintegrates oxygen atoms in water, killing all living organisms through asphyxiation while dissolving the bodies. Although Serizawa hopes to harness the device to create energy, he has been unsuccessful, and his greatest fear is that its existence will be revealed. Such a device would become the next frontier of the nuclear arms race. Serizawa is adamant about never using it, and while he eventually relents to stop Godzilla, he ensures it will never be used again by destroying his notes and committing suicide at the end of the film. The anxieties expressed in the film about nuclear weapons reflect Japan’s unique experience as the only nation ever to be targeted by such weapons, and, at the time, its position caught between two superpowers rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenals.  

The Castle Bravo nuclear test, the detonation of the most powerful thermonuclear device ever tested by the United States. Taken on March 1, 1954. United States Department of Energy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Beyond commentary on the burgeoning Cold War, many of Tsuburaya’s and Honda’s production decisions are meant to reflect the Japanese experience of World War II. Godzilla’s booming footsteps and scream heard in the opening credits mimic the detonation of bombs and air raid sirens. The bombing of Nagasaki is directly mentioned in the film prior to Godzilla’s destruction of Tokyo.  During the attack, another character comforts her frightened children by reassuring them that they will soon be reunited with their father, presumably killed during the war, before they are killed themselves. While Godzilla is figuratively akin to a nuclear bomb, the destruction he wreaks from above with fire also evokes the firebombing that leveled Japanese cities during the war.

In the years since 1954, the world Godzilla inhabits has grown immensely. He’s added allies like Rodan, Mothra, and even Tsuburaya’s great inspiration, King Kong. He’s defended humanity against Mechagodzilla and Ghidorah. However, in 2023, he returned to his roots with the release of Godzilla Minus One. 

That film, which follows a disgraced former kamikaze pilot named Koichi Shikishima, brings its audience back to the end of the war and the immediate postwar period. When Shikishima returns to his family’s home he finds it destroyed by American bombing raids—65% of all residences in Tokyo were destroyed during the war, and an estimated 30% of the city’s population was left homeless. With so many Japanese displaced by the destruction of the nation’s cities, people built communities and families with whomever they could. This is reflected in the relationship between Shikishima and his girlfriend Noriko. While unofficially a married couple, Noriko rescues an abandoned baby named Akiko, who becomes the couple’s adopted child. Their neighbor Sumiko, although initially disgusted by Shikishima, becomes something of a maternal figure. What is more, much of the early friction between Shikishima and Sumiko comes from the sheer exhaustion and depression both suffer from the loss and hardship of the war, something that doesn’t look to be improving in the destitution of the immediate postwar period, a feeling the Japanese call kyodatsu.