(Originally published in KAIJU-FAN Issue #5 Spring 1997)

 The Beginning

    Tomoyuki Tanaka sat in his seat during the flight back to Tokyo a worried man.  Ordinary looking, having inherited the short stocky build characteristic of many Japanese men, he had just celebrated the passing of his forty-fourth birthday, and was about to celebrate his tenth year as a producer at the Toho Motion Picture Company.  Until now he had done quite well for the studio.  "On the plane ride back to Tokyo, I was desperate," Tanaka recalled.  "I was sweating the whole time1."  The year was 1954, and the film was to have been In The Shadow of Glory, co-produced in cooperation with the Indonesian government, the plans for the film fell through when Tanaka could not get work permits for the film's stars.  Having a budget for a war film, but having no film to shoot, Tanaka agonized at the prospect of loosing face in the eye's of his company.  But it was during that plane ride that "desperation became his fried...and would lend him an idea that would develop into something far larger and more enduring than the project he left behind.2"
     Fans of the Japanese science fiction/fantasy genre around the globe celebrated the "King of the Monsters" 40th anniversary on November 3rd, 1994, for it was on that date in 1954 that Toho Studios unleashed Godzilla on an unsuspecting public.  However, one could argue that the true date of Godzilla's birth was not November 3rd, 1954, but August 6th, 1945, the day the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
     At the end of the war Japan was devastated, physically,  politically and financially, and although the Japanese reaction to this defeat is evident in their present anti-nuclear policies, their feelings have never been fully understood.  But perhaps a partial understanding can be achieved by looking into two important Japanese films released in 1954 and 1955, Gojira, and Gojira no Gyakushu3.  Japans post war industries made one of the most remarkable recoveries in the history of the modern world.  One of their most vital was their film industry, which started back in 1896 when the first Edison Kinetoscopes were imported into the country.

The Background

    In 1912 the Japan Cinematography Company was founded, and by 1932 a man named Yasuji Uemura founded Shashin Kagaku Kenkyu-jo (Photo Chemical Laboratories), which produced Japan's first musical Intoxicated Life (1933), directed by Sotoji Kimura and sponsored by the Dai-Nippon Beer Company (thus a film to drunkenness).  P.C.L's success at musicals attracted the attention of Japanese railroad magnate Ichizo Kobayashi, who in 1935 absorbed P.C.L into his own expanding entertainment empire.  In 1936, after having acquired J.O. Studios and Osaka Mainichi Talkie Newsreels, Kobayashi united the three film companies into one distribution company, Toho, which was the abbreviation for Tokyo Takarazuka.  Then in 1937 the Japanese Imperial Army invaded China, and Japanese films became an extension of Japan's fascist propaganda unit, the Office of Public Information.  Now Toho company's facilities would be employed to produce such propagandistic smash hits as The War At Sea from Hawaii to Malay (1942).  The company's facility with the war genre was thanks in large part to the efforts of Iwao Mori, who was instrumental in developing the studio's visual effects department.  Upon Japan's defeat, and the following American occupation, Mori was exiled from the industry by the U.S. Army's Civil Censorship Division (SCAP), due to his involvement in Toho's war propaganda films.  But in 1950, plagued by strike and tax difficulties, Toho was tottering on its last legs.  Something had to be done, and that something would be the rehiring of Mori.  Mori was once again a chief executive at the company, and had almost single handly reverse the company's postwar fortunes entirely.
     In March of 1954, Japan suffered from another nuclear disaster, though far smaller in scale than the 1954 bombings.  Tuna caught off the coast of Japan were found to carry high levels of radioactivity after a fishing ship, the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon), accidentally sailed into an American test site, contaminating the entire crew.  One crew member eventually died of what was reported as radiation poisoning and the Japanese press pointed the finger towards American irresponsibility.  The debate centered on whether the ship's crew was at fault or whether the radius affected by the test far exceeded the estimated range and had in fact caught the ship.  The incident was dubbed "The Second Atomic Bombing of Mankind" by the Japanese press.
     It was this situation which inspired the Toho Company to make its first movie monster a radiation-mutated sea creature terrorizing mankind, and planted the seed in Tanaka's mind on how to replace In The Shadow of Glory.  Tanaka had impressed Mori with his idea to replace In The Shadow of Glory with his idea about "a monster that invades Tokyo the way King Kong attacked New York," and without Mori's support it is doubtful that the project would have ever have gotten off the ground.  With Mori's support, the task of accomplishing this was assigned to Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya.

The Production Team

     Eiji Tsuburaya was a veteran cinematographer Mori knew was the expert who could produce extravagant films.  Few technicians in the field of visual effects have ever achieved his notoriety or respect.  Tsuburaya's particular knowledge of special techniques far outstripped that of any of his contemporaries.  Mori knew that, and chose Tsuburaya to head Japan's film industry's first special  effects department.  "I was the only one in the department," Tsuburaya wrote.  "That was pretty weird."  Tsuburaya would  work, usually alongside director Kajiro Yamamoto, on highly ambitious war pictures.  His special effects being of such high quality that following the war, the American Occupation forces frequently mistook the surviving fictional films for Japanese produced newsreel footage.  Unfortunately, like Mori, Tsuburaya would also be exiled from the industry by the SCAP.  When the occupation lifted Tsuburaya was invited back to Toho, where he and Mori took up where they had left off, with the first Japanese war picture in eight years, Eagle of the Pacific, which was directed by Ishiro Honda.
     Tanaka's choice for director, Ishiro Honda, had served in the Imperial Army during the war.  Before the war Honda had worked under director Sadao Yamanaka, co-directing such work as  the subtly antiwar film Humanity and Paper Balloons, (1937) and Tojuro's Love (1938) under director Kajiro Yamamoto, before being sent to China.  Yamanaka died a common soldier but Honda survived to become a sergeant.  In 1944, between his second and third hitches in the Impearl Army, Honda returned to Tokyo to work with Yamamoto as second assistant on Colonel Kato's Falcon Squadron, a wartime-spirit picture made at the time when Tokyo was being fire-bombed by the American Air Force.  Eventually he returned to China just as the Japanese regime was collapsing, and spent the last part of the war as a POW in China.  In 1946 he returned to Japan, passing through the atomic-bombed shell of the city of Hiroshima.  It was then that he became interested in publicizing the horror and devastation of war through his chosen medium.  When examining Gojira, it is important to remember that Japan was the only nation in history to have been the victim of nuclear weapons.  "When I returned from the war [in China], and passed through Hiroshima," Honda said, "there was a heavy atmosphere, a fear that the world was already coming to an end4."
     Also as important to Honda were Japan's attitudes and fears of the early 1950s.  The Second World War was less than ten years ended and the Japanese were still laboring under the consequences of their failure and defeat.  America had influenced the rebuilding and restructuring of  Japan, affecting everything from industry to the political structure.  Around Japan the Cold War expanded and nuclear test took place, adding to Japan's fears for its people, country, and for the world.  The shaky post-war situation and the "heating up" of the Cold War, combined with certain specific incidents in the early 1950s, that set the stage for Gojira.
     With special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya, and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka, Honda accomplished a feat unequaled at the time.  In the guise of a typical Hollywood style monster movie, they made Japan, and ultimately the world, experience the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki all over again.

 The Film

     The monster Godzilla is the United States' atomic bomb, devastating Tokyo and reducing it to a radioactive cinder all in one night.  Originally conceived by Tsuburaya as a giant mutated octopus, producers Tanaka and Iwao Mori felt that a giant dinosaur-type creature, mutated through the effects of atomic testing, would have more appeal and be more threatening to land locked civilizations.  Honda felt the same, "Every since I was little, I have been fond of the fact that there was once an awesome era of the Earth, when dinosaurs were living in the Jurassic and Cretaceous.  When word went out about the production, images of dinosaur-monsters were already brewing in my head5."  To Honda's conception, the monster Godzilla would not merely be awakened by the bomb,  "He would be twisted and mutated by it, into a rampaging uncontainable force; the A-bomb made flesh6."
     To this, the task of designing and constructing the main costume went to Ryosaku Takayama.  The result was one of the most inspired creations in film history, combining the appearance of a therapod dinosaur with the distinctive oriental look of a dragon.  But it was not only the monster, but the story behind Gojira which set the production apart.
     Takeo Murata and Ishiro Honda's screenplay is a subtle retelling of the Second World War through the eyes of Japan.  Unlike typical monster films of the time, the strong character-driven plot and the special effects combined to present a glimpse of the Japanese psyche in a time of war.  Gojira opens as the Japanese merchant ship Eiko-Maru disappears below the surface of the ocean as a blinding flash of light explodes from the sea, accompanied by searing heat and an unearthly, deafening roar.  As rescue ships are deployed into the area they too become victim of this unseen force.  Japan is threatened and the country gears up to defend itself as the suspense builds.   Japan "entering" the war is represented by these numerous ship disasters at the beginning of the film.  "Many such merchant vessels were literally wiped from the face of the sea by American submarines, and this fact was greatly played upon by Honda7."
     The conflict quickly escalates as a fishing village on the small island of Ohto is attacked, the horrors of war having hit home on the innocent is portrayed as the faceless enemy destroys the village.   Takashi Shimura, a regular member of Akira Kurosawa's stable of actors and star of Kurosawa's Ikuru (1952), and Seven Sameri (1954), is introduced and gives a great performance as Dr. Kyohei Yamane, Japan's leading paleontologist.  It is while this disaster is being investigated by Yamane that the face of the enemy is finally revealed.  Assisted by his daughter Emiko (played by Momoko Kochi), and her fiancee Hideto Ogata (played by Akira Takarada), the three stumble upon Godzilla's hulking bulk peering over the mountain tops.  Although a product of atomic testing, Godzilla's symbolization of the atomic bomb is not yet evident.
     Japan is now at war; the military buildup, and  their attempts to destroy Godzilla with depth charges, are all symbolic of Japan's military might.  Yamane is a scientist torn between his desire to study Godzilla and learn about the creature's ability to survive radiation, and the need to see Godzilla destroyed before Japan is devastated.  This dichotomy is symbolic of Japanese feelings during the war, not everyone was fond of the war time government's militaristic views, represented by the Japanese Self Defense Force's quick response in trying to destroy Godzilla.  The point is brought further home by the revelation that the love interest between Dr. Yamane's daughter, Emiko and Naval Officer Hideto Ogata, conflict with an arranged marriage between Emiko and Dr.  Daisuke. Serizawa, a long time friend of her family.  Their characters represent the many young wartime couples struggling with the often conflicting demands of honor, duty and love.  The conflict between Emiko's engagement to Serizawa, her love for Ogata and her desire to honor her father's wishes to study Godzilla (even though her own feelings are to see the monster destroyed), symbolizes how the old ways of Japan are coming to an end at the same time as a new and possibly terrible era is about to be born.  "Japan was changing," Tanaka said, "the world was changing, and the youth reflected these changes in abandoning the old ways8."

 The Sequel

         As Gojira is to the bombing of Hiroshima, then Gojira no Gyakushu (1955), is to the bombing of Nagasaki.  Although technically inferior compared to the first film, as this time Honda was not in the director's seat, the second film in the Godzilla series explores the reaction of the Japanese public both during and after the time of war.
     While sequels were as commonplace in Japan as in Hollywood, the success of Gojira took everyone at Toho, especially Tomoyuki Tanaka by surprise, and plans were quickly made to rush a sequel into production.  This time Takeo Murata and Shigeaki Hidaka were to pen the script and the special effects were once again supervised by Eiji Tsuburaya.  Motoyoshi Oda was given the task to direct, as Ishiro Honda was committed to the company's Jujin Yukiotoko (Half Human) film project, although Honda was involved briefly in developing the Godzilla sequel.   Mere months after the release of the original film, on April 24th, 1955, Gojira no Gyakushu burst upon the Japanese public.
     In Gojira no Gyakushu (Godzilla's Counterattack), the basic plot once again follows the lives of three people, and how their interaction with each other, as well as Godzilla, effects their lives.  Employed by the Osaka based Kyo Canning Company, Shoichi Tsukioka (played by Hiroshi Koizumi), and his friend Koji Kobayashi (played by Minoru Chiaki) are spotters for the company, searching the ocean in their planes for schools of fish, radioing the position to the fishing fleet when a catch is found.  Tsukioka is engaged to Hidemi Yamaji (played by Setsuko Wakayama), a radio operator at the company who also happens to be the daughter of company president Koehi Yamaji (played by Yukio Kasama).  It is Tsukioka and Kobayashi who discover the existence of another Godzilla on a small island, as well as a new creature, Angilas, which roughly resembles an Ankylosaurus with no real powers when compared to Godzilla.  That Angilas never has a chance is likely the reason why the creature is so beloved.  "Other than David and Goliath battles, the Japanese are also fond of characters who are doomed from the start.  Often how Japan views itself, especially after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but probably going back as far as the arrival of Commodore Perry's ships in 185319."
     Concerned over what happened to Tokyo the year before, the military calls in Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura reprising his role form Gojira), who informs the officials of Osaka that there is no way to stop this new Godzilla, especially as the plans for the Oxygen Destroyer perished with Dr. Serizawa.
     Japan is once again at war, only unlike the first film, this time the film follows more closely the effects the threat that Godzilla (i.e. war), has on the personal lives of the main characters.  The first half of the film represents Japan's war preparations, and how the threat of war impacts on the lives of the Japanese people.  However, unlike the first film, where the bombing of Hiroshima (in fact the destruction of all Japan), is represented by Godzilla's attack on Tokyo at the end of the film, the bombing of Nagasaki is represented by the battle between Godzilla and Angilas in Osaka, about halfway into the film.  And now the characters are left to pick up the pieces again.  In fact the focus of this film is much more on the aftermath of the "bombing," so much so that Godzilla is not even shown being driven out or leaving Osaka after killing Angilas.  Instead, Oda uses a scene of Hidemi, simply watching the burning ruins of the city from the window of her family's faraway country house.  The dead silence of the land and the night contrast eerily with the unearthly light hovering over the beleaguered city.
     The focus now is on the Japanese principle and work ethic to pull together and start rebuilding, instead of focusing on the dead and dieing.  The "war is over," and it is time to rebuild.  We are shown scenes of total destruction, but also see workers toiling to clean out and rebuild Osaka where the characters all work for their living.  This is just as it was when the Japanese accomplished the most speedy and thorough economic recovery of the century.  These scenes are especially moving and add a sense of realism to the story.  Certainly, Japan's kaiju-smashed cities are rebuilt over and over, but this is the first and only film to show the reconstruction.  Godzilla is all but forgotten.
     The film also conveys the sense that life goes on, as Kobayashi and the rest of the Kyo Canning Company are relocated to the company's Hokkaido branch to continue work.  Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, is pictured as a winter wonderland, with the workers enjoying themselves and the threat of war long since past.  The mood is so happy and serene that Bing Crosby singing White Christmas would not seem out of place.  The arrival of the company executives, including Tsukioka, Hidemi, and her father, illustrates the joy of life returning to normal.  The fishing fleet is out, the executives are enjoying themselves and Tsukioka and his Air Force buddies are reunited and trading war stories.
     Then disaster strikes; Godzilla destroys the fishing fleet, and the threat of war again looms over Japan.  "Just as the Cold War had followed the Second World War, and just as the specter of worldwide nuclear destruction had haunted the world in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla remains a force to be reckoned with20."  However, unlike the first film, Godzilla is no longer a threat to Japan and he becomes the hunted instead of the hunter.  Military forces track Godzilla and he is eventually trapped on Shinko Island, representing Japan's determination to never again suffer the horrors of atomic devastation.  This determination is never more evident than at the end of the film, when it is revealed that Kobayashi is in love with Hidemi.  Her betrothal to Tsukioka sets up another love triangle as in Gojira, but this triangle is never given the chance to develop.  As naval forces approach the island with the intention to destroy Godzilla, Kobayashi sacrifices himself, kamikaze style, in an attempt to keep Godzilla from leaving the island until the military arrives.  This again marks one of the rare times that a main character and hero of a Godzilla film dies21.  Witnessing his friend's sacrifice, and seeing the effects the falling ice has on Godzilla, Tsukioka convinces the military forces to bomb the mountain side, causing an avalanche, and burying Godzilla under tons of ice for all time22.
     It is the combination of many unique symbolic and narrative aspects that make Gojira and Gojira no Gyakushu the best films in the Godzilla series.  It is unfortunate that the American versions of these films lose some of their impact when compared with the Japanese originals, but if looked at them objectively the intended premises can still be found.

The America Versions

     Several companies showed an interest in releasing Gojira in the United States after screenings of the film in Los Angeles received rave reviews.  Samuel Z. Arkoff, founder of the company which would become American-International Pictures was among Toho's suitors.  While A.I.P. would eventually release the bulk of Toho's Sci/Fi films in the 1960's (including the ever popular Destroy All Monsters in 1969), it would be Joseph E. Levine's Embassy Pictures that Gojira would go to.  Levine would be one of Hollywood's top producers, pioneering the practice of "saturation booking," opening a film in as many theaters at once that, no matter how lousy, the film was bound to make a profit.  After sitting on the rights for almost two years Levine finally got started, using Gojira's special effects and the skeleton of its story to put together Godzilla, King of the Monsters23.  Levine was understandably worried about showing the Japanese version to American audiences, and thus the concept of an American "host" for the film became an necessary evil.  But when considering the care that was taken by director Terry Morse to blend the American footage with the Japanese footage, the changes become insignificant.
     Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) actually holds up quite well when compared with its Japanese counterpart.  American footage featuring Raymond Burr as newspaper man Steve Martin replacing most of the footage of reporter Hagiwara, blends in quite well with the original footage, both because of the use of black & white film and the careful staging and costuming which made it seem as though Burr was interacting with the Japanese cast.  The result is a film that retains its Japanese feel.  One can readily imagine Burr's character standing off to the side or in the crowd when watching the original version, and the American version provides the rare experience of seeing the same story from two different perspectives.  However, gone is the strong "Japan at war" feeling one gets from the original, and Godzilla's representation of the American A-bomb is downplayed.  The most drastic changes come in the character of Dr. Serizawa, who is converted from an enigmatic scientist to an old college buddy of Steve Martin's.  Also certain mistakes are evident throughout the American print.  Godzilla is referred to as being "over 400 feet tall," when in reality he is only 167 feet (50 meters).  In the scene depicting the departure to Ohto Island, Dr. Serizawa can be seen standing on the dock amid the crowd of well-wishers even though he is reported to be "away performing field experiments;" did Steve Martin not notice his friend standing there?  When Dr. Yamane is called to a conference to discuss the reason for the strange ship disasters near Ohto Island, the scene is actually taken from later in the Japanese film, when the scientist is pleading his case to study Godzilla.  In the American version this footage is un-dubbed and the scene works quite well, as Steve Martin is told that Dr. Yamane is suggesting the natives of Ohto Island may hold the answer to these disasters.  However, if you understand Japanese you would hear Dr. Yamane discussing Godzilla before the creature is even discovered!  There are many other scenes of inappropriate Japanese dialogue in the film which were incomprehensible to the U.S. audiences.
     Godzilla, King of the Monsters was released in Japan in 1957.  Ironically, the Japanese audience watched a Japanese movie dubbed in English and then subtitled in Japanese.  This time, everyone knew Martin's interpreter was totally off the mark in his translations and that what the Japanese characters said often made no sense, a source of much humor during Japanese screening of the film, even to this day.
     Although the American plot is weakened by these and other flaws, the story otherwise remains intact with most of the inner struggles between the characters unaffected by the American frame.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Gojira no Gyakushu (released in the U.S. as Gigantis the Fire Monster in 1959, and recently on home video as Godzilla Raids Again).
     It is unfortunate that what was one of the best installments in the Godzilla series was completely changed by its American distributor.  Released in America by Warner Brothers four years after its original release date of 1955, any similarities between the Japanese plot and the America one were purely accidental.  Originally, Godzilla's Counterattack was intended to be completely  reworked; retaining only the monster scenes, the footage of Japanese actors was to have been scrapped and replaced with new footage filmed in America.  The new story, titled "The Volcano Monsters," involved a volcanic eruption uncovering the bodies of two hibernating dinosaurs.  Discovered by a joint U.S./Japanese science team, the monsters are returned to the United States only to break free and run amok in San Francisco's Chinatown.  Plans for this version were in such advanced stages that Toho even sent new Godzilla and Angilas suits to America for additional filming24.  However, as Rodan had been released (in 1957) to decent profits without an American setting, the plans were eventually dropped, and Godzilla's Counterattack was released as Gigantis the Fire Monster25.
     Unlike its original version, the dubbing, along with an added narration, turned the film from a serious look at the bombing of Nagasaki to "Godzilla Meets Abbot & Costello!"  Stock footage is tossed into the film; scenes of Japanese commerce, crowd scenes, people praying, American war propaganda footage (complete with sloppily censored swastikas!), and animated cartoon graphs of the Imperial Japanese government's plans for world conquest (used in the film to illustrate the military mobilization), pad the film but add nothing.  The opening sequence is a montage of ominously narrated, thrown together A-bomb test footage, making one expect to see a typical run-of-the-mill 1950's "giant-insect-on-the-loose" flick.  This footage replaces the original opening credits, shown over a cloud bank, which included Masaru Sato's stirring original score.
     The worst stock footage used in the entire film occurs in the early stages where, at the meeting of military and scientific authorities, Dr. Yamane explains the destruction wrought on Tokyo by the first (so called), "Gigantis."  Dr. Yamane begins a lecture on the creation of the world, "as science has been able to reconstruct it for you" and the age of the dinosaurs.  What follows is a montage of film clips featuring silly special effects and stock footage from other movies to explain the birth and evolution of the dreaded "fire-monsters."  Shots showing men in awful monster suits, real lizards suffering with glued-on plastic frills, and truly awful stop-motion animated dinosaurs precede footage of Gigantis destroying Tokyo.  If the horrible haphazard "lecture" does not drive you mad, then Dr. Yamane's voice will.  Sounding fine in the beginning, he rapidly ends up sounding like Elmer Fudd.  In the Japanese original, only the footage from the first Godzilla film is shown, with no narration or background music.  The grim footage of Godzilla destroying Tokyo truly speaking for itself.
     And if the stock footage was not bad enough, the dubbing should stand as a perfect example to film students (as well as distributors), on how not to dub a foreign film!  The main character, Tsukioka, narrates every movement in the smallest detail, while Kobayashi, who is the actual hero of the film, is reduced to a comic-relief buffoon.  The rest of the characters also suffer, spewing nonsensical dialogue.  Some of the dubbing actors are real Asians, like Star Trek's George Takei, and Chinese-born Keye Luke (who portrayed Charlie Chan's  Number One Son), while American actors like Paul Frees poorly fake Japanese accents.
     Tragically, what was one of the best installments of the Godzilla series was ruined by Warner Brothers and is possibly the only film in the entire series that is in dire need of re-dubbing.
      Fans of the kaiju genre tend to be looked down upon or feel embarrassed because of their interest in the King of the Monsters.  While most of Godzilla's installments after the 1950s did become increasingly juvenile and silly, the first two films (in their original Japanese presentations) are serious films which explore the effects on the Japanese psyche of being the only nation to suffer from nuclear bombing.  And that is a fact no critic or skeptic can diminish.

- Tucker, Guy; Age of the Gods: A History of the Japanese Fantasy Film; Daikaiju Publishing; 1996
- Anderson, Joseph L. & Richie, Donald; Japanese Film, Art and Industry; Princeton University  Press; 1958, revised 1981.
- Shoemaker, Greg; A History of Daiei; Japanese Fantasy Film Journal #12; 1980.
- Hirano, Kyoko; Mr. Smith Goes To Tokyo; New York University Press; 1993
- Sato, Tadao; Currents in Japanese Cinema; Harper & Row; 1982
.
Secondary Sources
(Listed in order of importance)

- Richie, Donald; The Films of Akira Kurosawa; Berkeley; 1982
- Rovin, Jeff; The Encyclopedia of Monsters; Facts On File; 1989
- Godziszewski, Edward; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Godzilla; Daikaiju Publishing; 1995
- Galbrath, Stuart; Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films; McFarland Press, 1993
- Kurosawa, Akira; Something Like an Autobiography; Borzoi Books, 1982
- Roberto, John with Biondi, Robert; Godzilla and the Second World War; G-FAN # 8, March 1994
- Biondi, Robert & Roberto, John; Godzilla In America, part 1; G-FAN # 10, July 1994
- Biondi, Robert; Godzilla: A Film Book; G-FAN # 12, November 1994
- Roberto, John; Godzilla: A Commentary; G-FAN # 12, November 1994
- Godziszewski, Edward; The Making of Godzilla; G-FAN # 12; November 1994
- Marrero, Robert; Godzilla: An Illustrated Guide To Japanese Monster Movies; Fantasma Books; 1996
- Kishikawa, Osamu; Godzilla First: 1954-1955; Dai Nippon Press; 1994
- Tucker, Guy & Ragone, August; The Legend of Godzilla, part 1; Markalite # 3, November 1991

Video Sources:

-Toho Video; Gojira; 1954
-Toho Video; Gojira no Gyakushu; 1955
-Vestron Video; Godzilla, King of the Monsters; 1956
-Video Treasures; Godzilla Raids Again; 1959