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pinkflamingcreatures · 3 years

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“King Kong vs. Godzilla” (1962) vs. “Godzilla vs. Kong” (2021)

One of the top reviews on Letterboxd for the new Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) movie reads “I think this movie is good but also I saw it in Imax after not setting foot in a movie theater since March 2020 so honestly ANYTHING would have made me indescribably happy.” Peter: I’m glad you had a good time. Unfortunately, I also saw Godzilla vs. Kong in IMAX after not setting foot in a theater for a year, and the film did not make me indescribably happy. In fact, it did the opposite. What could’ve possibly gone wrong?

For one thing, I was upset that my friend made the decision for me to see the movie in IMAX instead of the regular theater - the screen didn’t look any better to me, and the seats were less comfortable. What did I pay six dollars extra for? The extra loud sound? Petty complaints aside, I had just seen the 1962 version of the film which I had a lot more fun watching. Tastes differ; here is why I liked the original more.

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) was directed by Ishirō Honda who also directed the original Godzilla film in 1954. Honda’s version of the battle between these two monsters recognizes that what the viewers want to see is a fight, but also jumps on the opportunity to make a mockery of its human characters. The framing of the fight between King Kong and Godzilla is an ad campaign by a pharmaceutical company, who found some berries on the island where King Kong lives that have a “non-habit forming narcotic effect.” Discovering King Kong, and dissatisfied with his current television ratings, the head of the pharmaceutical company kidnaps Kong from his island and brings him back to the mainland. Coincidentally, American submarines have just accidentally unleashed Godzilla from an iceberg, and he’s also headed for the mainland!

Indisputably, King Kong and Godzilla are natural enemies, although no one really understands why. One commentator gives “the best explanation” for this, saying, “It appears that King Kong … is determined to destroy Godzilla. Thus: a battle of the giants which may or may not have taken place millions of years ago, may be recreated soon.” The human characters in this movie are dull, greedy businessmen who basically just take up runtime until we get to see the monsters. This is a classic formula for kaiju movies (taken to its mind-numbing extreme in Hideaki Anno’s 2016 Shin Godzilla): the audience isn’t really meant to care about the human characters, and, if anything, the monsters are there to reveal something unlikable within humanity.

The best part of King Kong vs. Godzilla is, unsurprisingly, the fights. Yes - it is just two men in suits, and the use of miniatures is obvious, but, for me, there is undeniable charm in those aspects of old monster movies. The focus cannot be on the special effects so the filmmakers have to make these scenes entertaining in other ways. Cuts to the television producers with binoculars - shamelessly enjoying the interactions between Kong and Zilla, trying to predict the outcome and rooting for their favorite fighter - inform (and mirror) the audience’s reactions. This isn’t scary stuff; it’s fun! King Kong beats his chest and Godzilla does some weird stuff with his arms in intimidation: it’s cheesy, but it successfully builds tension.

Fast-forward to 2021: King Kong and Godzilla are no longer played by men in suits, they are computer generated. We can see every individual hair on King Kong’s body blowing in the wind. We’re not afraid to zoom in really close on these monsters. We have the technology to make them look really cool, and they sound cool, too. Shouldn’t that be enough to make the fights cool? It’s been nearly sixty years since the original King Kong vs. Godzilla movie came out, and you can tell. But does all this new technology necessarily make for a better movie? I’m not so sure.

All of my criticisms of this movie are inherently personal, but one of my biggest ones comes down to unabashed preference: I love Godzilla. I think Godzilla is really awesome. To my disappointment, the new Godzilla vs. Kong doesn’t seem to share this opinion. The opening scene shows us King Kong lounging around, swinging on branches and being cool and likable. This movie doesn’t want you to forget that King Kong is a monkey, and monkeys are a lot like humans. Now, I’m not opposed to some King Kong humanizing! I’m not immune to his charms. But for god’s sake - show me Godzilla every once and a while!

Godzilla vs. Kong also features a television crew who films King Kong in some sort of Truman Show situation(?). I didn’t really get it, but the important distinction between this movie and the 1962 version is that the newer one tries to make human characters that the audience is supposed to like. This was annoying. Not one, but two storylines followed different groups of people - one of them featuring Millie Bobby Brown, of Stranger Things fame. Unfortunately, I found all of these characters to be uninteresting, and even the best of these characters, Jia - a young girl, native to Kong’s island - felt like a tired cliché.

And then there were the fights. This is, of course, the most important part of the film - all you know, going into either of these movies, is that King Kong and Godzilla are going to fight - and where, I think, the 2021 version failed miserably in comparison to its predecessor. Maybe they looked more epic or more “real” (they were certainly flashier and louder), but it was, at times, hard for me to tell what was going on. These fights were so focused on the special effects - how cool CGI King Kong and Godzilla looked (not that cool, really) - that the actual choreography of the fights were lacking. The zooms were so frequent that I couldn’t get oriented in the scene, and, sadly, Godzilla and Kong mostly just punched each other in the face.

Contrast this with the second and last fight scene in the 1962 film: King Kong is transported to Godzilla’s location using balloons, and dropped from the sky - he falls down a hill and takes out Godzilla while he tumbles. Kong knows that hurling rocks at Zilla do absolutely no damage, so he hides under a ledge and waits. When Zilla shows up, he can’t see Kong (he’s right behind you, silly!), and Kong takes a chance at grabbing Zilla’s swinging tail. It’s a failure! Kong gets swung around by its pendulum-ic power. In a desperate stupor, Kong forgets that hurling rocks is no good, and starts throwing, but Zilla turns around and uses his tail to launch a boulder back at Kong!

Okay, so I won’t detail the entirety of this fight, but needless to say: it’s creative. Coming off of the high of this epic battle, I was majorly disappointed to see Kong and Godzilla’s lacklustre brawls, even in IMAX. The creators of Godzilla vs. Kong knew that the technology had improved majorly since the last Honda version, and relied on that fact to make an exciting monster movie, but there is more to a film like this than special effects. The popularity of the kaiju movies of the 50’s and 60’s are a testament to that: sometimes, less is more.

#godzilla #king kong #king kong vs godzilla #godzilla vs kong #ishiro honda #kaiju

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Godzilla vs. Kong: Comparing the 1962 and 2021 Versions

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he following article contains Godzilla vs. Kong spoilers.

After three movies of build-up, the battle lines are drawn. The mighty Godzilla goes toe-to-toe with the titan gorilla King Kong over who is the alpha of the MonsterVerse. While the movie doesn’t have the epic, apocalyptic feel which came with its predecessor Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong does deliver on the crazy fight scenes and makes good on a rivalry that has long had its foot in pop culture—if only because of an incredibly silly film from 1962.

The original King Kong vs. Godzilla is not a movie that’s aged well, but there’s something so fitting about seeing a giant ape trade punches with a giant lizard, then and now. It’s surprising it took this long to get a real rematch, but at least now we don’t have to deal with the heresy of seeing Kong depicted as a guy in a rubber costume.

Now that we have our second chance at this titanic showdown, let’s see how the two incarnations compare.

Place in the Kaiju Series

King Kong vs. Godzilla, despite its marquee crossover title, was actually very early in the line-ups for its respective franchises. Well, sort of. King Kong and its sequel Son of Kong both came out in 1933. The King Kong series wasn’t all that prolific, so there wasn’t another installment until the versus movie, nearly 30 years later.

The idea of King Kong being part of Toho’s kaiju continuity would also continue with one sequel in 1967’s King Kong Escapes, this time introducing Mechani-Kong, the robot double of the iconic ape. Interestingly enough, King Kong beat Godzilla to the punch with that gimmick as Mechagodzilla wouldn’t be introduced for another few years, in part inspired by Mechani-Kong.

After that movie, King Kong was pulled away from Toho’s hands and nothing was done with the franchise until nine years later, when the original was remade by Dino De Laurentiis.

As for Godzilla, he had yet to really find his footing before stepping into the ring with Kong. Oh sure, the original Godzilla film is a stone cold classic, and the sequel Godzilla Raids Again was decent enough, mixing the original’s atomic terror with the introduction of giant monster vs. giant monster action. But that was all the beast had going for him around that time—and in each of these previous appearances he was still the heavy. All those ridiculous battles with Mothra, Rodan, Gigan, and the like would happen after 1962. Thus King Kong vs. Godzilla was not the culmination, but the event to kickstart decades of “Godzilla vs.” films.

As for Godzilla vs. Kong, the film marked the (first?) climax of Warner Brothers’ latest attempt to mimic the shared universe model which has made the Marvel Cinematic Universe so successful. And even with only four movies under its belt, the MonsterVerse is shockingly one of the more successful and coherent attempts to pull off one of these in Hollywood in the last decade. (See the Dark Universe for when it goes disastrously wrong.)

At the very least, the lead-up is perfectly done. 2014 gave us the initial Godzilla film; 2017 brought Kong: Skull Island, which took place decades earlier but was connected due to including the monster-studying organization Monarch; and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters built on the 2014 film by adding more recognizable kaiju, throwing in a couple Kong cameos, and even loosely setting up the confrontation in the end credits.

While King of the Monsters didn’t do great financially, Warner Bros. was already too deep in the creation of Godzilla vs. Kong to stop. So they lucked out in getting at least one more chapter out of the pile.

The Folly of Men

I was going to compare the human characters from the two movies, but… I barely recall anything from King Kong vs. Godzilla and I just rewatched it.

But whatever. These elements are just padding that we have to power through. The stuff in the new movie about Millie Bobby Brown and the husky kid from Deadpool 2 sneaking around for the sake of exposition isn’t worth talking about. Instead let’s consider how each movie deals with man’s hubris.

Godzilla vs. Kong has Walter Simmons (Demián Bichir) as the big villain, playing a cross between Lex Luthor and the Most Interesting Man in the World. The idea that Godzilla exists to protect mankind is an insult to him. He feels that it belittles the human race. Hence the creation of Mechagodzilla. By building that robot, Simmons feels that man will once again be the apex predator and ruler of its own destiny. This foolish point-of-view not only pushes the destructive plot that winds up killing countless people, but his supposed control over Mechegodzilla turns out to be his undoing.

Back in the 1960s, King Kong vs. Godzilla plays with a more comedic version of hubris that still feels relevant. Mr. Tako, the head of a pharmaceutical company, decides he wants to capture King Kong. Why? Because he’d make great publicity for his product in commercials. What does King Kong have to do with medication? Who cares! It’s sensationalism, baby!

In the end, this titanic clash happens in part because a CEO wanted to sponsor it. Mr. Tako doesn’t meet a fate as dark as Simmons, but that’s mostly because he’s too much of a goofy dork for us to really want to see him get murdered by a giant beast.

Introducing Godzilla

One of the most amusing things about King Kong vs. Godzilla is the differences in storytelling between the American and Japanese versions released in 1962. In both versions, an American submarine gets stuck in an iceberg and when it gets loose, it accidentally unleashes a pissed off Godzilla. Being that this is only Godzilla’s third movie (well, this Godzilla’s second if we’re being technical), it would be pretty easy to just say that Godzilla was buried in an avalanche in Godzilla Raids Again and now he’s free. However, the dubbing in the American version suggests Godzilla’s been there since prehistoric times.

Since Godzilla had yet to befriend any benevolent, squealing moth larvae, Godzilla was all about being a giant, destructive asshole at this time. The iceberg probably didn’t help. To paraphrase Dennis Leary: imagine taking a cold shower and multiplying that by fifteen million times. That’s how pissed off the Zilla’s gonna be. So in either edit of the film, King Kong vs. Godzilla’s lizard is the villain.

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Godzilla vs. Kong: Where The MonsterVerse Should Go Next

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The Legendary Pictures Godzilla of the MonsterVerse is also pissed off in his first appearance in Godzilla vs. Kong, but that’s considered an actual surprise. Filmmakers had just spent two movies establishing Godzilla as some kind of noble protector of humanity. Having him show up and wreck everything is considered out of character. While Godzilla isn’t the most developed character in this film, he at least comes with a sense of intriguing mystery at the start.

Introducing King Kong

Just like in the original King Kong, Kong’s deal in the 1962 movie is that he’s just chilling on his own island when foreigners have to come over, disturb him, and drag him off for their own entertainment. Actually that’s him in both of his Godzilla movies, although it’s a bit more complicated in Godzilla vs. Kong.

In the new movie, his original home of Skull Island is toast, so they put him in his own version of The Truman Show and create a fake habitat. Kong hates this, but it’s for his own good, as leaving will certainly annoy the hell out of the already-irritated Godzilla, and outside the habitat is a perpetual typhoon.

So moving Kong in this movie is a tale of necessity. In the original, it was a decision made out of greed. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of a neat touch that in King Kong vs. Godzilla, it was the Japanese who unleashed the American creation while the Americans unleashed the Japanese creation in Godzilla vs. Kong.

Round One

The main thing both first fights have in common between the two movies is that Kong gets absolutely wrecked. In the new movie, Kong is drugged and taken away on a ship, something that also happens to him in the Toho original (and the original, original from 1933 for that matter). But this time, Godzilla comes for him and goes for an immediate throwdown. Even if Kong wasn’t already the underdog on paper, he is also bound by metal chains, drugged, and in the water. Godzilla is seaworthy. Kong is not (and likely smells really, really bad when wet). Kong’s very survival is a miracle.

As for the original showdown, their first meeting in 1962 is very brief. Godzilla has the high ground and Kong tries throwing rocks at him. After getting a chest-full of radioactive fire breath, Kong decides to step away and consider his options. He’s smart enough to nope on out of there.

Bulking Up for the Rematch

Taking a break from the fisticuffs, both incarnations of Godzilla continue to just wreck shit. Good for them.

The two versions of Kong go on their own diverging adventures, however. The 1962 Kong kidnaps another woman and climbs up a tower, only to get captured again again. Consider it a slightly more humanitarian version of the 1933 movie’s ending. The 2021 Kong goes on a Legend of Zelda quest to the center of the Earth, discovering the catacombs of his ancestors and getting equipped with a rocking axe ready to chop up Godzilla.

Just… remember to go for the head. Trust me, it can make half a universe of difference.

Round Two

Give credit to the folks from the original, they are actually able to set up the kaiju brawl in an area that is relatively lacking in human casualties. Using electric cables to guide Godzilla and a collection of balloons to carry a drugged King Kong (sort of recreated in the new movie at one point), the big fight occurs near Mount Fuji.

Initially, Kong tries to make up for his lack of fire breath by just throwing rocks over and over again. Godzilla is able to knock one of them back with his tail, but Kong persists. He also starts using his superior agility, which turns out to be his undoing. Kong rolls circles around Godzilla until slamming his own head into a boulder. That spells the end for the gorilla, as Godzilla stomps an absolute mudhole into his hide.

Kong has a far better second round in the remake, using his axe to absolutely ruin Godzilla’s night in the bright lights of Hong Kong. Despite Godzilla’s breath being treated like a level three Street Fighter super, Kong is able to evade it and prove that he was absolutely on Godzilla’s level after all.

After putting Godzilla through a building and dazing him for a bit, one of the boring human protagonists refers to Kong as the winner of round two. Then again, Godzilla isn’t finished by a long shot.

Final Battle

Funny thing about King Kong vs. Godzilla. Originally, it was meant to be Kong fighting a kaiju version of Frankenstein’s Monster. Although they switched it up, the writing of the fight was only slightly finagled. That’s why when King Kong looked to be ready for a dirt nap, he was revitalized by suddenly being zapped by a bunch of random lightning. Supposedly, King Kong getting strength through electricity was just an unused idea from the original movie concept.

Electric Kong went full Hulk Hogan on Godzilla, throwing him around like a rag doll and powering through his offense. It would have been more awesome if it didn’t look so damn silly, to the point that they briefly depicted the fight with puppets.

In the end, King Kong and Godzilla tumbled into the sea. In this continuity, Kong was able to overcome any watery advantage Godzilla would have had and rose up victorious. Then years later, that stupid, orange Godzilla book from my elementary school library claimed the Japanese version had Godzilla win and–due to it being a pre-internet age–so many of us believed the lie.

Those of you who know, know.

Godzilla v Kong has Godzilla spring back up from taking his lumps so he can absolutely demolish Kong. It’s like he’s insulted that Kong got some licks in and makes Kong’s final run in the old movie look weak. Eventually, Godzilla almost mortally wounds Kong with some stomps to the chest and walks off while Kong can only defiantly roar back at him.

Here’s where things get similar, but different. In a plot device reminiscent of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Mechagodzilla shows up in the third act. It’s a fairly clever take on another previous incarnation of the robot duplicate. In the Toho Godzilla continuity of the 2000s, Mechagodzilla was built atop the original 1950s Godzilla’s bones, which caused the first Godzilla’s ghost to gradually take over. This time around, Mechagodzilla is possessed by the mind/ghost of King Ghidorah from King of the Monsters. That’s why Godzilla has been in a mood. He senses the return of his old nemesis and it’s driven him into a frenzy.

Kong, meanwhile, is once again revived by being electrocuted back to health. This time it’s by the human characters and not random lightning, but the reference is definitely deliberate. Kong and Godzilla beat up the metal pretender, growl at each other, and go their separate ways. Maybe they’ll meet again if we get some kind of modern adaptation of Destroy All Monsters.

Who’s the Winner?

In the end, we’re left with two very different stories, even if the newer movie tries to reference the former a few times over. In the ‘60s, we received a wacky movie featuring Godzilla getting an overall 2-1, but losing in the third and most important battle. The modern one is silly in its own way and also gives us 2-1 in Godzilla’s favor, but it’s pretty apparent that Godzilla absolutely owns this matchup. It isn’t a victory for Kong to so much win a fight as it is for him to stand up and prove that he’s able to draw blood against the best.

It’s not a better version of the story, but a better version of the idea. Having these two behemoths duke it out is such a rich concept that’s only really been done well in unofficial video games like Rampage, Primal Rage, and King of the Monsters. King Kong vs. Godzilla from 1962 was merely okay, and charitably good enough. Now we get a real cinematic crossover brawl that makes good on what we really want?

Let’s see Legendary remake Frankenstein Conquers the World. Seriously.

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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Celebrating the Birth of a Legend with Hideaki Anno's Top 10 Works!

Whether you’re a casual anime fan or a diehard follower, chances are you revere, worship, or at the very least know the name of Hideaki Anno. As an eclectic and ambitious director and one of the founders of GAINAX studios, his career has had no small part in revolutionizing anime as we know it. His influence persists through some of the most memorable mecha anime and monster animation, dating back to Hayao Miyazaki’s classic, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, where he received recognition for helping animate many of the more complex scenes in the film's climax. His style makes him a certified nerd genius, meaning he knows exactly how to make some of our favorite franchises and genres great because he grew up with them much in the same way we did.

To celebrate Hideaki Anno’s 59th birthday, we’re listing off our top 10 favorite works as we fondly look back on a filmography that is as timeless as it is visionary.

10) Rebuild of Evangelion

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It’s difficult to gauge how good something is when it hasn’t finished yet, especially when its conclusion has been more than eight years in the making. So we’re settling with the reimagining of Anno’s most influential work at number 10. Whereas the original Evangelion broadcast lacked the budget to achieve Anno’s true vision, the Rebuild movies were able to capitalize on its popularity and create visual spectacles that were closer to his ambitions. The new story may take some controversial twists and turns, but Rebuild is certainly an experience that Eva fans shouldn’t miss out on.

9) Love & Pop

In 1998, Anno made his first venture into live-action filmmaking, which expanded his passion for pop culture, and comes in at number 9. This harrowing coming-of-age story follows a group of Japanese high school girls who are embroiled in the seedy industry of compensated dating. In the transition from animation to live action, Love & Pop loses none of its creator’s creativity. The film was reportedly filmed almost entirely on handheld cameras, and uses odd perspective and camerawork to convey emotions. As a poignant commentary on Japanese society and the importance of self-worth, Anno succeeded in carrying out his patented brand of visual philosophy in his first live-action project.

8) His and Her Circumstances

This 1998 anime comes hot off the heels of End of Evangelion, but represents a departure from Anno’s usual beat up until that point. Whereas he told very humanizing stories through the lens of sci-fi, His or Her Circumstances brought his drama back to much more realistic settings. The show focuses on a young girl who feigns perfection in high school despite her numerous personality flaws, and the relationship drama that she and her friends face.

According to Animefringe writer Adam Arnold, Anno did research on actual high school students in order enrich the anime’s plot and characters with a touch of realism. His introspection into the sociology of people’s relationships was supplemented by a unique art direction that featured scenes depicted using panels from the original manga, and lines of dialogue that featured little to no animation. Anno’s sense of style and storytelling is in full force, even without giant robots or monsters to complement the character drama, earning His or Her Circumstances a comfy seat at number 8.

7) Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

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For a series inspired by Jules Verne, conceived by acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki, and directed by Anno himself, is it any wonder that 1990 anime makes number 7 on our list? The show revolves around the titular Nadia and her inventor friend Jean who join up with Captain Nemo and a host of other characters to try and stop the Neo-Atlanteans from taking over the world.

The series earned several Anime Grand Prix Awards in 1991, including “Best Work” of that year. It also placed at #72 in a 2001 Animage list of top 100 anime productions. It’s been lauded for its dark and mysterious narrative undertones being expertly woven into the show’s charming and upbeat nature.

6) Cutie Honey (2004 Live Action Film)

As another one of his live-action films, Anno took on the sizeable task of adapting Go Nagai’s classic and influential magical girl series. That’s a winning combination for number 6! The 2004 film stars award-winning actress Eriko Sato as the titular outfit-changing superhero, and features a ton of original character depictions, such as making Honey’s best friend,Natsuko Aki,a police inspector. Various scenes featured wacky visuals and magical action that oftentimes likened the movie more to a glorified motion comic than a film. However, a stylistic choice like this could be traced back to Anno’s love for classic Japanese pop culture stories, and a desire to bring that charm to life in its purest form.

5) Re: Cutie Honey

Of course, Cutie Honey shines as an anime, and Anno succeeded in bringing the project back to its roots. Re:Cutie Honey is a three-part OVA that came out only two months after the live-action movie. While the story remains the same between the film and the OVA, its characters received more development and many scenes retained the charm that Cutie Honey is known for.

Though Anno is credited as the director, he worked with three different directors across each episode, each of them bringing their own style and polish to connect with Anno’s vision. Its stylized visuals, quirky anime dialogue, and homages to other classic anime make Re:Cutie Honey one of the more memorable works that Anno had a hand in.

4) Gunbuster

This classic mech mini-series marked Anno’s directorial debut back in 1988. Inspired by 1986’s Hollywood film Top Gun, Gunbuster tells the story of Noriko Takaya, a clumsy but determined young girl who enrolls in a mecha pilot training school in order to follow her father’s footsteps in the battle against malicious aliens.

As Anno’s breakout directorial work, this already featured many hallmark elements that we know him for today. From unique mecha and monster designs to a compelling and emotional narrative with a dash of fan service thrown in there, Gunbuster remains a pillar of 1980s anime and truly set the precedent for what Anno had in store for the world. The show’s final moments also featured his patented “vision exceeding budget” technique of having to cut corners on action sequences during the finale.

3) Neon Genesis Evangelion

You probably saw this coming a mile away, because Neon Genesis Evangelion deserves no better place on this list than in the top 3. Anno and Evangelion are practically synonymous, as his show remains one of the most influential and memorable works in anime history. Evangelion dared to tell a harrowing and visceral introspection on depression and the human condition through the trauma of young and immature mecha pilots, reflecting Anno’s own depression at the time.

Since its premere in 1995, it's been widely credited for revitalizing anime during a time where the industry was in dire straits. In a 2009 interview, anime producer and current AT-X President Keisuke Iwata once posited that it even played a major role in anime's initial global appeal. It challenged other creators at the time to tell stories of psychological depth and gave rise to more impactful and emotional anime. Acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai himself stated that anime as it is today owes a great deal to Evangelion. There’s really not much else to say about how revolutionary Evangelion is, or how imaginative Anno was in creating it.

2) End of Evangelion

Of course, Evangelion literally wouldn’t be complete without End of Evangelion. With a proper budget and a reputation as one of the most popular and memorable creators of his time, Anno was able to transcend Evangelion’s controversial final episodes and deliver something truly special within this 1997 feature length film.

End of Evangelion marked a major achievement in Anno’s career by allowing him creative catharsis. The trauma and development behind the main cast is brought to a head as Anno’s vision is fully realized. Shocking and intense visuals and a healthy dose of Anno’s trademark psychological and existential drama made for a much more direct, if not considerably surreal, conclusion to Shinji Ikari’s tale.

1) Shin Godzilla

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In his most recent 2016 live-action film, Anno adapted one of Japan’s most iconic pop culture characters, and he did it rather perfectly. Known as Godzilla: Resurgence in Western theaters, Shin Godzilla received critical acclaim in Japan for Anno's unique yet faithful take on the classic kaiju. Though the monster was generated with CGI, its visceral organic design was made to emulate the feel of a traditional tokusatsu monster suit as an homage to Godzilla’s roots. However, he also implemented his own twists on the character, showing off a gradual evolution of the monster and displaying considerably epic upgrades to his classic Atomic Breath.

The film won an abundance of Japanese film awards, including the 40th Japanese Academy Prizes for Film of the Year and Director of the Year for Anno and Shinji Higuchi, a close friend of Anno’s who worked previously worked with him on several of Anno’s projects, including Evangelion.

Reportedly, Anno initially turned down the project while he was in the midst of a depressive episode after completing Evangelion 3.0, citing that he didn’t feel confident enough that his film would meet the standards that previous Godzilla films have set. But with the love and dedication he put into the film along with the accolades it built up, its place as on our list one of Anno’s best works is a no-brainer for us.

Honorable Mention: Anno as portrayed in Blue Blazes

While Anno certainly didn't direct this 2014 Japanese drama, this endearing depiction of the acclaimed director deserves a shout-out on our list. Based on a semi-autobiographical manga by Kazuhiko Shimamoto, the show provides a fictionalized record of his student years at the Osaka University of Arts, which he attended alongside Anno and several other notable anime creators in the 1980s.

Anno was portrayed by Ken Yasuda, who presented a hilariously-dramatized version of Anno who would act out his favorite kaiju battles with his friends and flaunt his eclectic knowledge of animation techniques, character habits, and tokusatsu suit actors. The show also showcased many of Anno’s impressive animation assignments and even recreated his charmingly-homemade Ultraman student film project.

Hideaki Anno is nothing less than an iconic anime visionary, whose imagination and deep appreciation for pop culture knows no bounds. As a creator, he's spent his career constantly climbing out of the depths of depression to create impactful and outstanding work in both anime and live-action filmmaking. It's no exaggeration to say that anime as we know it wouldn't be the same without Anno and his boundless creativity!

Which of Anno's work is your favorite? How would you rank his shows and movies? Drop a comment and let us know!

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Carlos is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their satirical work on The Hard Times.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

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