I may have spoiled my feelings a bit about Godzilla’s second film last time (“may have”?), but it’s not quite as cut-and-dried as you might expect. Not even a year after Gojira barnstormed the Japanese box office, Toho pushed out a sequel, this time without director Honda Ishiro, called Godzilla’s Counterattack, or, as it would become known the world over, Godzilla Raids Again.
The plot centers on a pair of pilots who happen upon a pair of monsters duking it out on an uninhabited island. It’s later confirmed that one of them is a second iteration of the Godzilla species (thus making the titles not entirely truthful, y’know?), while the other is a similarly irradiated ankylosaur that’s given the name Anguirus. These two seem to really dislike each other, as their battle continues later on in Osaka (see, fellow Americans, it’s not just Tokyo that feels the brunt of the Big G and his compatriots), resulting in Godzilla laying out his adversary in the shadow of famed Osaka Castle. Rest easy, chillens, Anguirus will find his way back onto the scene in a few years. Spoilers, I guess, for decades-old films. Anyway, Godzilla is later spotted near an ice-covered island, whereupon a squadron of fighter planes buries him in an avalanche of ice and snow, ending his rampage for the foreseeable future.
With Oda Motoyoshi at the helm in Honda’s place, the difference is immediately palpable. Gone is the incredibly foreboding and dark atmosphere of the first film, and Godzilla is no longer the beastly force of nature he so recently was. Indeed, many of the attack scenes in this film take place in broad daylight, sapping the circumstances of their mid-night darkness, and even though this destructive monster is on the loose, the citizenry feels free to party it up without a care in the world. Soto Maseru replaces Ifukube Akira, and the difference in score is felt right at the start, with the opening theme feeling more like an adventure flick set in the jungle (where’s Johnny Weissmuller when you need him?) than a brooding allegory on the horrendous power of atomic weapons, and the lack of Ifukube’s other stirring themes is quite the overall loss.
The best thing this film has going for it is the monster-on-monster battle that lasts a decent chunk of the runtime. This is undoubtedly the best creature brawl since King Kong stuffed a tree down the maw of a tyrannosaur in his eponymous debut, and they take full advantage of the novelty here. The editing is rather loose, though, and there’s a bit of hokey fast-motion that just looks awful, but it’s quite the fight. A precedent is set in this film, and the world has been all the better for it.
Unfortunately, the lighter tone, the lack of tangible stakes, and the decidedly simplified ending (it took a special weapon to take out the first Godzilla, but this one succumbs to only some ice and snow!?) hinder this film from living up to the example set by its predecessor. Just like Gojira, American studios didn’t want to release the film in its original form. Rather than re-editing the film like they did with King of the Monsters, the plan was to forge a mostly new movie based around the special effects of the Japanese base (think a slightly more involved take on the process that gave us the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers), including a set of monster suits made just for the occasion. Things fell through with that plan, though, so the Japanese film was simply dubbed over and re-edited, released as Gigantis the Fire Monster. I’m not gonna get into that version here, as it’s not so majorly different from the Japanese version (I mean, yeah, some names and situations are altered, but the crux remains intact).
The first sequel of Showa era, Godzilla Raids Again falls quite short of the original, but it begins the tradition of monster battling that will color the series for decades. And up next is the marquee matchup we’re still waiting to see again!
Allusions of Grandeur 