So, as one might be able to easily discern, I decided to take up the films of Ishiro Honda, most famous for being the father of the kaiju Godzilla. Well, looking ahead, he directed just under half of the Showa Era of Godzilla films, and there seemed to be no reason to limit myself to just his output from that series.
So, this is just a quick note that I’ll also be doing the eight Godzilla films that he didn’t direct between the first film in 1954 and the end of the Showa era in 1975 with Honda’s final Godzilla entry, Terror of Mechagodzilla.
So, let’s get stomping!
So, the first question is: will I do the rest? Yes, eventually. This was a lot, and it represents almost half of the entire Japanese Godzilla franchise. I need a break. In a few months, we’ll see.
That being said, I was really not looking forward to this. When I decided to do the career of Ishiro Honda it was despite his connection to the famous kaiju rather than because of it. I wanted to explore everything else. Well, having invested my time and energies into watching the whole Showa Era, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised. I still didn’t like the original Godzilla (a film I had seen previously and didn’t like, hinging my opinion on the rest of the franchise, of which I’d seen very little), but there were modest charms to be had as the titular monster grew from nuclear terror to protector of humanity.
A lot of that credit goes to Eiji Tsuburaya who supervised the special effects on most of the franchise until his health declined and he eventually died in 1970. His work was almost never realistic, but it was consistently entertaining and charming. He provided a lot of the entertainment to be had when the human sides of these stories failed to deliver much beyond basic plotting mechanics (which was pretty often).
Starting tomorrow is the definitive list, ranked definitively. And don’t forget to check out all the other definitive rankings for their definitiveness.
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English (US) · 