Godzilla 1: Kaijuu Wakusei

I wish I could enjoy this movie in its entirety, but alas, that's only the last 30 minutes of it. For all it's elaborate setup, it's still a simple, cheesy kaiju movie. Have the monster appear out of nowhere, cause carnage and destruction, work out a solution, proceed to the cheesy action. It's a shame such a simple sequence of events had to be made convoluted mostly because the screenplay had to fill the alloted 1:30h hour mark for a full on movie to be released in theaters.

The story is the worst part of it. Gen Urobuchi could never make exposition dumps natural or compelling ... in any way. So the 1st whole hour is just a grueling trudge through pointless politicking and technobabble all alluding to the final fight and the character of our MC. It is blatant, obvious and patronizing, on top of being needlessly convoluted. Godzilla attacks! Gasp! Let's have 2 alien races come and not-save-us-by-making-mecha-godzilla, cuz we need to throw that reference in, all to have us start in the setting of spaaaace! What the fuck does space have to do with my kaiju apocalypse?! The movie agrees and has us go back to Earth... 1000 years post-Godzilla cuz spacetime continuum. Except it's 10 000 years once we see the Earth, except it's 20 000 years after we examine the carbon contents of the plants. So all this setup was to just get us into a jungled up foggy ass Earth to face Godzilla, and dinosaurs while we're at it! All the talk about living in a ship, wandering through space, that's just to fill time, we're on Earth, so everything's fine right? It's not like you'll be facing those same issues when plant leaves are harder than your pocket knife and shatters it on impact. There's no point to it all, it doesn't ground itself for the super serious tone it goes for, and doesn't really explore the despair it mentions.

Characters, as usual, make the story in anime. Except when they don't, when we have a rebellious MC that starts out with a suicide bomber threat because he cares for his grandpa, only to obsess over Godzilla's murder for the rest of the runtime. Very consistent, deep character writing indeed. Metphies, the "alien" companion gets a special mention as being the plot device that enables the MC to be batshit crazy without consequences and be reprimanded again, on top of blatantly stating in metaphor what's about to happen, the worst kind of foreshadowing, when you're too lazy to allude it and just outright state it. He also doubles as a mouthpiece preaching not-Christianity like a crazed priest, who worships *drumroll* God(zilla) - The King of Monsters!
The rest of the cast are your usual military hardasses and politicking council members who don't do jackshit, but get to expodump it anyway. The rival that screws the MC, gets it wrong and redeems himself. Add a stock waifu, and bam, a whole cast of colorful characters which you will instantly forget once you're done watching!

Polygon Pictures have been infamous for their shoddy CG Netflix shows, but this time, they actually improved their model rigging and it doesn't feel like animations are played in 15 FPS. Movement is just smooth enough to feel natural from the characters. The grimy aesthetic isn't bad when it works, but those are rare few moments. The shadows are too heavy, too high on contrast, the metalic scratches don't seem natural at all, the background art which they use seems unpolished and blurry in order for the CG to fit in easier. And despite all that the directing is competent enough to make use of 3DCG action framing that makes things feel tense and exciting. A shame that even the director's professional work couldn't make up for Urobuchi's amateur approach to exposition and setup. And something important for Kaiju fans- Godzilla is but ugly and the crew knew it, the shots were skewing away from the rough model, deliberately avoiding to show it off. It's very disappointing to see how the studio is taking 1 step forward, yet 2 steps back into the pit of "CG trash".

Sound design just doesn't really match what you'd imagine is bullets hitting metal-like objects. There's no real satisfying crunch to the explosions, just a loud noise. Again it falls down to the serious presentation of the show falling flat on its face, As all the the inappropriate OST used for key battle scenes, it really takes you out of the experience, trying to piece together what it's conveying with techno chip music when it's been using ambiance and orchestra for the most part. Shows that live off spectacle alone can get away with shoddy SFX if they get it right, and even when it does, it's immediately undermined by another sound effect that just doesn't seem to fit or make sense, because the audio director also didn't have a good idea of what the scenario was supposed to be.

The only enjoyment I got from the movie is the Godzilla fight obviously. It's so cheesy, and very much feels like a video game boss raid. Controlling the movements, the timings, positioning, distracting aka aggro control, now THAT is some fun stuff to any gamer to observe. Virtual tactics applied in a movie. On top of the visual spectacle, the movie redeemed itself on that front, as an in-the-moment thrilling joyride. Only to end on a cliffhanger with a cynical message that holds no water or meaning due to the empty setup up to the Godzilla encounter.

So yes, this is a pretty awful movie when you watch it with any modicum of standards, be it for narrative or visuals. It doesn't even work as a cheesy action flick due to the grueling 1 hour exposition setup before the actual Godzilla scene. It was torturous to watch, and I didn't even get a proper reward for getting to the end, I only got another preaching lecture to hype up the next movie, as this is now a trilogy... yay...

Godzilla has had it rough since his reawakening. With the boringly slow pace of the Legendary Godzilla, to the blazing fast pace with no real motivation that was Shin Godzilla, none of the recent Godzilla movies have really been all that good lately.

Will this Movie make the difference and usher in a new age of excitement and kaiju goodness for Godzilla and all his fans?

No… no it won’t.

To be honest… the trailer was enough to make me want to avoid this movie. The CG looked god awful, and I wasn’t entirely impressed with the premise… I don’t even really understand what motivated me to ... watch it. I should have skipped it as I had originally planned

The movie was poor on all accounts, but the thing I want to complain the most about is the visuals… they are awful. Nothing looks good. Everyone looks like videogame characters from ten years ago, and the G-man himself looks like a giant lump of bashed metal. No details to pick out at all. His overall design seemed to me to emulate the Legendary (thicker) design, and as I wasn’t a fan of that design to begin with, rubbing all the detail out and making it look metallic didn’t help.

It wasn’t all bad though… there was this moment when, not one, but TWO alien races came to the planet to kill Godzilla and failed spectacularly… the ridiculousness of it did make me laugh… it was the only laugh though.

Speaking of these aliens though… why didn’t either of them mention to the humans that “Look, we’ve been refugees ourselves for like… ever? There are no planets out there, fight for this one” at the beginning? And what happened to their “fleet” of ships. Did they just drop some of their kind off and leave?” Why didn’t humans evacuate on those ships since all of these aliens just seem to be so “we’re in this together”?

There was also a off hand remark about how one of these aliens has seen the fall of civilizations all over the galaxy, and MOST of them fall to creatures like Godzilla.

That last one took me out of the experience more so than ANYthing else in this God(zilla) forsaken movie. What are the Kaiju then? Are they actual tools of destruction? Tools for whom?

All in all, the movie was terrible.

After watching this movie, I feel while it was just bad and was compiled to writing a review for it. It held potential to be a lot better. For everything that happens, I didn't feel like I was rewarded or really that surprised, even with the ending events. Although it does open it up nicely for part 2 and 3 in the future. This movie is a glimpse at what the whole series could have been but never quite gets there.
Note - This review will be spoiler-free so I won't go too deeply into it



As for the story, it was one of the movie's biggest ... letdowns. While I admit I have not seen any Godzilla films before, I could tell this was a change from what I have heard about other Godzilla movies. With the premise of the film being the monsters have invaded Earth, destroying everything and Godzilla rises above all of them, killing everyone including the other monsters. The humans fail and even with the help of two alien species (only thought there was one originally). They fail to kill Godzilla so they go off to space to find somewhere else. That was the interesting parts, but this is never really extended.
They could have then look at morals of being with other "aliens" for one thing, I mean surely if you are on a ship with a load of aliens with you all alone in the vastness of space, not knowing if you are ever going to find a habitable planet to live on, that there would be divisions starting to appear in the community. Not just leave it as oh the committee are starving everyone so they are bad. Only then having them not really protest against anything at all for the rest of the movie??? I wouldn't know though as the film never really tells much the audience that much. That is the problem that keeps occurring throughout the film. While I agree it doesn't need to tell us everything, you hardly learn anything which doesn't fit the pacing of the show which is slow yet fast...
Which leads me to my other main problem with the story, the pacing is poor. The pacing is too slow for the film to be an action thriller, while it's too fast to be able to explain much. It's weird as it seems like it is slow but it then it looks like it skips mini events, making the whole story feel incomplete.

Moving on to the art, I was disappointed with it (best part of the film as well). I have seen the best of polygon pictures works with ajin and knights of sidonia (Pingu in the City does NOT count) with the animation in them suiting the shows and looking good/decent because of that. For this though, while it was nice in places. It was not really improved compared to other polygon picture tv series which you come to except this not to be the case. In fact, I would say it is worse than them. I don't mind this type of CGI that much, I mean the animation for space portion of the film and the last event, that was good. But for the rest of it, it's just a lack of effort with elements looking similar to each other and colours moulding into one instead of blending together with the fog to limit the fov. Also, I was pretty sure they blurred bits of Godzilla as if to make look faster, not really sure why. Movies are usually meant to be pretty crisp but this film isn't really.

Sound...well very mediocre with not really remembering much of it music wise. Only the ed song was decent and that was about it. While for va, well I couldn't really tell you much since not many people talked that much other than the mc and his two buddies. I didn't feel much from the va so it was pretty forgettable.

Now the other main problem with the film...the characters.
The range is pretty bad, we have the mc who I have not seen him smile once yet and is always thinking about just killing Godzilla instead of anything else such as relationships and protecting others lives. The film is pretty much mostly focused on just him as well (except for his alien buddy). This really affects the plot as it doesn't allow for anything else to be explored at all, no fears, no morals, no friend beef (that mini fight by the ladder was pathetic so doesn't count) none of that. That only leaves focusing on killing Godzilla and THATS IT. The others barely say anything to build up their characters properly and mc alien buddy is always just serving the mc like some king and he has the second most lines. I would honestly say that Godzilla himself had more lines than most of the cast and he can't even talk.


All the complaints with big problems with the story, I still kind of liked parts of the film. I can see why people like it. It is simple (too basic for me but anyway) and interesting (can be) that isn't saturated with action. It just doesn't push itself to be anymore though which is why I can't give it a higher rating.
Overall, I just wouldn't recommend it, it isn't a cheesy action flick, nor is it a well detailed/explained story. It just leaves it with something eh and never really rewards you anything at all.




note - The film will be part of a trilogy so you can't really skip this. Just will have to see how the next one is then...

Overall, this movie was great, though it could have went deeper into the backstory of the main character, other than "i hate all the titans, i will kill them" type of attitude.
My enjoyment of the film was pretty fulfilled, i waited and received what i expected, nothing too fabulous, but at the same time it wasn`t unsatisfying to watch.

so as i would say, this movie gets a clean 7.5, though out if 10, even though i
marked it a seven

Art: the few Godzilla scenes there blew me way, though it was mainly because of the feeling of size coming off of him ... (Gojira)

Sound: The sound was very expertly done, with all the bass used during Godzilla`s dub-step cannon attack, tiss wonderful


Characters: the characters where very lacking, though they had enough action with these characters to make them stick out more.

Overall the movie is a enjoyable film, nothing too crazy.

Warning possible Spoilers

Now I'm a pretty big fan for the Godzilla franchise, so I was wondering how an anime version would do, turns out not very good, in fact it was horrible could even dare say it was worse than the American Godzilla movie from the 90's.

Story (3/10)

The story is basically, Godzilla and a bunch of monsters ravage Earth and Humanity flees in a ship. After being adrift in space for what they think is 1000 years they finally go back to Earth and try to kill Godzilla.
Yep it's a very simple, run of the mill story that has absolutely nothing interesting going for it, ... hell it took more than half of the movie for Godzilla to show up and it wasn't even the original one apparently.
The buildup to the battle is so boring, I was starting to fall asleep numerous times, because it was boring the hell outta me.
Whats also really stupid is that the movie jut keeps on changing the amount of time humanity has been away from Earth, they thought it was a 1000 years, then it's 10,000 years and finally it lands on 20,000 years. It just kept me thinking like "ok does the film even know how long they've been away" because it was so stupid seeing this change happen so often.
Even when we get to the battle with Godzilla, it felt so poorly done that it's probably the worst battle I have ever seen with a giant monster, so you know you fu*ked up if I'm saying that.
The film pretty much ends with the humans thinking they've won, then the real Godzilla appears and completely annihilates them, until an after credit scene shows us something complete bullsh*t.

Characters (1/10)

The characters are the worst part of the entire thing, I'm not even gonna say stuff about any individual characters, because they were so horribly bad and boring that I honestly wanted Godzilla to kill every single one of them.
Trust me if you're watching this for interesting or badass characters you've come for the wrong reason, in fact don't even watch it in the first place.

Art (4/10)

The only thing that has some kind of redemption is the artstyle, now Blame was the most recent anime movie I had seen that was in the 3D format and it looked pretty damn good, here I will give credit for the characters looking pretty smooth and the spaceship looked pretty awesome too. However that's where it all stops because Godzilla looked absolutely awful and I'm glad that wasn't the actual Godzilla, because when that one showed up it looked pretty damn cool.
The spacesuits, vehicles and weapons all looked bland as hell, like run of the mill stuff you see in low budget video games and there were also 3 different species of humans, yet there was no clear differences apart from skin colour and facial hair, which is a poor way to identify them.
Also the landscape for Earth looked boring too, just jungle and even then we're mainly looking at the dropzones so that just made the movie even more boring to look at.

Sound (3/10)

God the sounds were horrible, the soundtrack sounded like it had completely butchered the Godzilla theme and was just awful, even the sounds of the weapons and vehicles sounded completely lackluster and had no omph to them.
Also whenever the humans were being attacked by those random ass monsters or Godzilla, barely any screams were given off when someone died or got knocked over and it made me think "what people aren't afraid of dying anymore?" and it was just stupidly random that they didn't put any screams in.

Extras:

This movie definitely had some of the most boring action I have ever seen, despite how terrible the movie was, I was hoping the final fight would manage to save it a few points. But nope that wasn't to be and it just ended up being a stupid fiasco.

Enjoyment (2/10)

Overall (3/10)

Overall this was a terrible movie, probably the most terrible anime movie I have seen to date, which sucks because it's a Godzilla movie. A sequel is coming later this year and hopefully that will manage to make the story less ass sucking and more like an actual Godzilla movie.

Godzilla Kaijuu Wakusei is a 3d anime film that aired last year with a screenplay by Urobuchi Gen, yes the writer of Madoka & Psycho Pass. Polygon Pictures led the way for this one. Yes, the studio behind Ajin. So, I'm pretty hopeful. I haven't reviewed anything bad from Urobuchi. Plus, Godzilla is just easy to write for. So, let's see how this goes.

Story:
We open with a space ship. Aboard, we find a young man, Sakaki, threatening to blow a shuttle craft to smithereens because he doesn't want the higher ups to send a bunch of elderly volunteers down to a harsh planet and, most likely, ... their deaths. His grandfather talks him down and he's arrested. We then go into a painfully long exposition dump about how the humans were forced to flee Earth when Godzilla appeared. And here you thought that climate change was going to make our planet inhospitable for us. After failing to find a readily accessible planet to colonise, the crew decides to return to Earth and try to retake it. Thankfully, Sakaki has a plan that might be able to beat Godzilla if she's still there. 

Okay, here's the big problem with the film. We barely see Godzilla. And I know that was common in the old films but they were dealing with a guy in a rubber suit or animatronics with a limited budget for a model city to destroy. There were practical reasons for it that don't exist in an animated feature. We see Godzilla very briefly in the flashback and then we see her almost an hour into the hour and a half film. And there's nothing interesting to take up that time.  There's a long exposition dump, a bunch of techno babble and a bunch of non-characters looking around what's become of Earth. 

Here's another issue, there's not much reason for them to actually want to retake Earth. They know, even before they land, that Godzilla is still  on there and the atmosphere's become such that they can't survive outside of their space suits. One of the characters actually suggests settling on the moon and taking scavenge trips to Earth for resources as a safer alternative, but it's after they've landed and it's become difficult and I just wonder  "why didn't they do that from the get go?" Seriously, if their probes showed them the atmosphere issue and they knew Godzilla was still stomping around, why didn't they just make that their first plan? Because then they wouldn't get the Earth itself back? You mean a planet that's really hostile for them? Oh no, what a tragic loss. *sarcasm* 

So we don't just have a tedious build up but we also have  a conflict born out of nonsensical decisions. And you'd think maybe it gets entertaining when they actually encounter Godzilla, but that isn't the case. The climactic battle is really shit. I'll go into more detail when I talk about the art.

Characters:
There's not much to say about the characters in this. Sakaki is obsessed with revenge  because his parents died due to Godzilla when he was just a lad. The other characters fulfil very basic roles like the religious one, the stern warrior or the girl. Considering how much time we spend with these guys before the action even starts, you'd  think they'd have some modicum of personality. But, no.

Art:
Let's get right into the big problem with the big, humans versus Godzilla sequence. Godzilla barely fucking moves. Seriously, most of the sequence sees her standing like a bloody log with the occasional light tilt to fire off  a burst of atomic breath. Then we get to see the humans in their futuristic vehicles shooting at Godzilla and grimacing. When the unwieldy rubber suit moves more dynamically than your animated version, you know you screwed up. And the futuristic vehicles look less impressive than the ones that were in that C.O.P.S cartoon I reviewed. Yes, the cartoon from the 80s with lazy animation looked better than this film. 

Sound:
This is one of those works where you know the actors are capable (they got actors like Miyano Mamoru & Sakurai Takahiro) but the script really gives them nothing to work with so you end up with performances that are, at best, barely passable. Hattori Takayuki's OST is, unfortunately, not very good either. His work for the Slayers film was much better. 

Ho-yay:
Sakaki and his male alien friend are pretty touchy, but they also aren't well enough developed for their relationship to have much to it. I will say, it's the closet thing to a romance the film has  but that isn't saying much. It's basically just the least shit relationship dynamic so it wins by default. 

Final Thoughts:
This film is pretty abysmal. To recap, long exposition dump, a bunch of techno babble, nothing and a disappointing climax where the monster barely moves. the only Godzilla film that this is better than is the American one from 1998 and the cartoon based off of that was better than this. It earns a full 2/10. Tomorrow, Mahoutsukai Sally the film version, obviously. 

polygon have done very well to set up a flop like this, with their last 3 ventures into 3D animation all having been quite exceptional, with this I had high hopes but a good theatrical kick in my supportive nads has been dealt..

story (hurts self in confusion/10)
i honestly don't know where to begin with this,
building off the confusion in blame polygon have once again dropped you in the middle of a situation with no data and expect you to get whats going on, the pacing is iffy and there are actually moments when the exposition will talk about something irrelevant to the plot during ... the time it should be filling in blanks...

Art (failed to render/10)
the art's ok... not polygons best... but they have done worse... one thing that caught my eye was the copy pasted space suits and the pre-crumpled sleeves, interestingly, breaking habit polygon forgot what metal looks like...

Sound... (kill me/10
the sound design is probably the worst part of this whole experience, the abysmal score, sounding like a compilation of last centuries greatest melodrama's being thrown into a blender with some electronic mess leads to an assault on the ears, that is of course when it is not utterly forgettable... this accompanied by poor foleying leads in the sound design, leads to you asking yourself whether acid was abused in the recording. overall the sound is either forgettable or painful to hear. if you want good sound design from polygon, well go back to Yuggo Kanno...

Character design (who? /10)
i don't even know where to start with this..
i'm pretty sure the protagonists name began with a H
there was possibly a love interest, though so little development occurred that overall it's just freaking chaos, there's aliens with more connection to the lead so it could be a bisexual love triangle, there's a lot of blanks you can fill in with this one, everyone is forgettable and no one has enough to make me remember their name...

Enjoyment (tumbleweed sound/10)
it's pretty boring but i know i've wasted my life in plenty worse ways than this. it really grated on my ears though,

Overall - (meh?/10)
possibly the worst kaiju movie i have seen, give me a man smashing a cardboard box city in a lizard suit any time instead of this, hopefully this is just a one time flop from polygon, the work they have done previously has been great. that said if you want to waste your time with shiny stuff then may i suggest michael bays transformers, the shiny stuff is shinier with better explosions and i can remember a few characters names even...

A Godzilla movie that doesn't know how to be a Godzilla movie.

This film has a lot in common with Polygon Pictures' last film, the disappointing Blame! adaptation. A whole lot of world building and exposition, some brief, sporadic action scenes involving nameless characters dying in bloodless battles, and then a big, pretty boss fight at the end filled with heroism, explosions and the word "BASTARD!" being yelled a lot.

Unfortunately, Godzilla doesn't really work as an action film the way Blame! (kinda, sorta, not really) does. The best Godzilla films are not action films, they're disaster films. It's fun to watch cities (usually Tokyo, which must ... have the record for number of filmed destructions by now) get torn down by a giant fire breathing lizard while humanity struggles to find a way to deal with it. The monster's defeat usually comes about via science and human ingenuity, because if you could just shoot at Godzilla and kill him, that would be pretty f*cking boring.

Godzilla: Monster Planet bypasses everything fun about Godzilla, and is indeed pretty f*cking boring. An under-prepared military team fights a weird, dog/lizard Godzilla-ish thing in a forest (eventually, after what seems like hours of exposition). No buildings to be torn down, no panicked evacuations, no hard choices by political leaders. Just a big, stationary monster to shoot at in the woods. It's videogamey, it's lame, it's what netflix thinks anime fans want (and maybe they're right :/).

I wasn't completely let down by the film though. The animation is decent if you can stomach Polygon's signature CGI, although there are some recycled shots and lazy mouth flapping scenes (you know, where the only thing animated is the mouth?), but overall it's a pleasant film from a visual standpoint. It's also tough not to get hyped when you hear the old-school Godzilla roar. It means sh*t is about to hit the fan, and you better be ready, even if in this case sh*t hitting the fan is just Sergeant No Name and Lieutenant Tough Guy blowing up on their hover bikes because they can't dodge Dogzilla's slow ass laser beam.

So yeah, long story long this movie kind of sucks. It's disheartening to see Polygon Pictures blow another big chance at making a decent adaption of a great brand, but what can you do? When Netflix is footing the bill you gotta shill, shill, shill.

Coming soon: Mecha Godzilla vs. the Hikers from Mars.

I'll keep this simple + no spoilers:

It had a lot of promise but everything was cramped. It should have been extended into a 12 ep series, going deeper into characters, motivations and decisions. My score is as generous as i can bring myself to be. I feel that most people will at leave having felt that this was rushed and should have been expanded. Wasted potential and opportunity.

Worst point i'd say is character development. There is very little in the means of complexity. Many characters are relatable, decisions are understandable and emotions are sympathisable...to a point. It is a very shallow point and, as is ... a theme throughout, it just needed..more.

Best point i'd say is spit between animation and story. There were some parts of the animation that were better than expected, and some that weren't. But on the whole, better. The story and premise and series of events was also not terrible, but it had so much more potential.

I'd say this is more impressive than anything. They managed to make a film about Godzilla into a snore fest. Prepare for massive spoilers if your a massive Masochist and are gonna watch this despite the warnings.

~Spoilers~
This was my first time watching a Godzilla film made by Japanese. So it might be me and my overly high expectations but I was expecting something decent. It was so much worse and I actually enjoy that shitty '98 film Godzilla more than this.

At least with '98 Godzilla, there wasn't just an unending feeling of boredom. I am able to sit down and watch that film while ... laughing at how bad it is and some of the scenes were actually pretty decent. But this Godzilla film is just boring.

Takes 53 minutes of this 1Hour 30Minute film to actually see Godzilla. Hell, That estimate might be off and could've taken longer.

So you must be wondering, What the hell do they do for 53Minutes? Well, a whole ton of nothing. It mostly consists of the MC (Haruo) Bitching and moaning while people praise him for his plan to kill Godzilla.

Haruo honestly is an obnoxious existence. He is the embodiment of cliched Japanese boy. He lost his parents at a young age, He's a rebel and does what he thinks is right and isn't afraid to go against authority. He's also a mastermind Genius that has no faults what so ever.

Actually, When I heard he was gonna nose dive into Godzilla and sacrifice himself, I was actually getting a bit excited hoping this annoying character would die. But sadly no.

~World Building~
So we get this god awful exposition dumb that goes on for about 10 minutes. Pretty much saying how shit Human life is and how we had to evacuate Earth.

As soon as I realized that this film is gonna be about Humans leaving Earth. I realized I wasn't gonna like this film. It's such a dumb thing to do. If you have the power to make long-lasting Spaceships and Warp capability. Wouldn't it just be easier to lead Godzilla onto a Giant ass rocket and send his ass into space? The story tells us no reason as to why or how come they can't. This honestly seems like a way more practical thing to do then Humans abandoning Earth. I also always hated this Plot development in stories.

We are also told that... Fucking Aliens are in this. This shitty new development happened during the Exp dump. It's just like " Hey Yeah Monsters are really being a nuisance, Also there are Aliens" They don't really offer anything and have no special abilities or appearances that are different than Humans. You'd also think that fucking Aliens with would be able to do shit. Such as towing an Astroid right onto Godzilla or something. Not only just one Alien race shows up. But two. I really want to know the chances that they'd just show up at that moment when Earth needed them.


~Action & Weapons~
The action in this is pretty bad. Earth is completely taken over in this new form of mutated plants and Monsters. Barely some ruins still exist of a city. But you get no Godzilla destroying cities or anything. It all takes place in some forest that looks really bad. There is no real scale of the Size and destructive power of Godzilla. It looks like some slightly tall monster is fighting against a bunch of small Robots. The New Godzilla that Is over 300M or about as tall as the Empire state building if I remember correctly. He doesn't look that menacing at all. He's just there and all we see is some tall monster.

The weapons in this are all futuristic. We aren't ever told the power they hold behind them or anything. But let's say you see an Attack Helicopter like an Apache or a Tank like the M1 Abrams. You know that these are powerful machines and are not something to be trifled with. So when you see them doing nothing against a Godzilla then you realize how great of a Monster this thing is. But these futuristic weapons that don't seem to have any power or weight behind them with stock audio sounds. It's just kind of boring watching. How are we meant to know what these weapons are able to do and how effective they are. They just look like stock explosions going off.

Then there are some small things that make no sense. Like why do these Landing Ships have Unguided bombs? Modern Militaries don't even use Unguided bombs nowadays. So when we get scenes where a ton of bombs drop but most of them land nowhere near Godzilla, I can't help but feel annoyed. This wouldn't be a problem if you were using a more precise weapon. There are more examples of annoying small things.

Here is the most annoying thing. The entire time that Humans on Earth were Fighting Godzilla, They never once thought about his weakness? It seems really obvious and when we are told that they dropped an over the top 150 Nuclear Warheads and it didn't even kill him. It makes no sense. It's even more laughably dumb when some edgy kid on a spaceship 20 years in the future can figure that out but not all of the worlds best scientist with the impending destruction of the human race can't figure out.

Hell, We are shown that a bunch of rocks are able to stop the Godzilla that is fought in this film. I really got to wonder if this was just an unstoppable monster or Natural Selection at work.

~Characters~
I talked about this a bit earlier in the review. But let's talk about the Characters.

Haruo- Like I said earlier. He's the cliche Japanese schoolboy with a dark past and is somehow really skilled even with no training or experience in anything. He literally is just a kid on a spaceship. His constant ranting is not fun and his zero regard to human life is annoying.

Memphis- Is one of the Aliens. He is pretty much just an Elf. That's how the entire race is portrayed. An Elf. All wise and skilled with a strong devotion to something.

Mulu- Is also an Alien and is pretty much just a Beastman you see. The "Alien" Races in this are pretty much just reskinned versions of Fantasy roles we see so commonly in stories. Nothing original about them. This dude is no different.

Yuuko Tani- is actually surprisingly the only character I liked kind of. She's the only one that has some interest to her character. It's kind of interesting seeing her question whether or not her Grandfather's shuttle was sabotaged or not. She also is the only one that doesn't do anything obnoxious really. I'd say she is a decent character that you may find in other popular shows and an excellent character in this. I actually think she should be the MC instead of what we got.

~Animation~
Now lets talk about the Animation. It's completely CGI besides the Expo dump at the start and that's in 2D stock images.

The animation is decent. I quickly got used to the weirdness of it. I think Kimono Friends has much more appealing animation than this.

The issue for me is the Environment and monsters look bad. I don't know if it's cause of the restrictions with the program they used to animate. But the Environments all look the same with no detail and has an uncanny appearance. It's kind of hard for me to explain.

Then We get to the monsters. They are just not good. They all have this weird look that just doesn't seem right. The Godzillas now. That's something else entirely.

They look so bad that I almost laughed. They look like a group of muscles put together. Nothing about them looks even decent and I never thought I'd actually say this. But the '98 Godzilla looks better and more like a Godzilla then these things.

Overall, Is this thing bad? Yes defiantly. Is this the worst thing ever? No. But it's not good. It's insultingly boring and bad. This is the first time I've rated a show I've watched this low. I think you are more likely to find interest out of something like Boku No Piku then this.

Edit: i forgot to mention this. But I only remember ever hearing one song throughout the entire movie. It was at the ending credit scenes. So you get a lot of quite scenes that don't fit. The one song we do get I actually think is pretty good and doesn't fit being in this story.

This is my first review for anything really so im not exactly and expert. This review is also spoiler free.

I just watched the Godzilla Movie part 1 on Netflix and it is actually really good in my opionon, i didnt want to at first since it had a MAL rating of below 7 and the reviews werent exactly the nicest.

However, the movie was really enjoyable and although they did use CGI the art looked great, the story took a while to get started because they seem to have decided that half the movie should be setting it up so it makes sense, which dont ... get me wrong isnt a bad ideas its just a bit slow. Not "The Hobbit" slow but slow none the less.
The sound was outstanding, there was one moment just before the credits rolled and the use of sound honestly sent a shiver down my spine it was just stunning.
Overall the movie was definitely worth the watch and was actually really enjoyable, despite what people say about it i thought it was a nice take on the Godzilla brand that brought something new and refreshing to the table.

Also just a heads up there was a scene after the credits on Netflix so watch out for that.

***SPOILER FREE***

Blurb: Long live the King.

Let me point out that if you're not someone who enjoys monster/kaiju movies, then you'll probably end up giving this film a 6-7 mainly because of the animation. However for other Kaiju fans, this film promises to be the start of something definitive when it comes to the MonsterVerse. The film shines with it's crisp animation and voice-acting. I highly recommend watching the Subtitled version with Japanese audio, as the English audio has more than a few issues with both translation, and syncing with lip-movements.

When it comes to the story, one does get a sense that too much as ... been added into the pot too early. In particular, the introduction of two extra-terrestrial humanoid races, who's motivations and rather convenient timing of arrival raises questions, and the fact that very few monsters actually appear alongside Godzilla which is kind of a downer if the title says 'Planet of the Monsters'. However, when you take into account that this is 'Part 1' in a trilogy then it's always good to have things that need further development and explanation. Presuming that the explanations and development will be done well.

Another aspect where the film has done well is the evolution of Earth itself. Earth has been devoid of humans for 20,000yrs. and as such, the planet itself has been molded around it's new occupants, the Monsters. Without spoiling anything, all I'd like to say is, the concept of 'evolution' is a key plot point. Aside from that, Kaiju lovers (especially those who have followed Godzilla over the years) will be elated to find mention and references to some of the most iconic monsters from the Godzilla franchise. So, if you crave Kaiju and animation then Godzilla Planet of Monsters is the film for you.

P.S.: As a marketing strategy for the trilogy Toho studios (creators of Godzilla) have launched a book called 'Godzilla: Monster Apocalypse'. Which explains the timeline of when and which monsters began appearing on Earth. The book is yet to be translated from Japanese into English, but several amateur translators have managed to translate bits and pieces of it online. YouTube has a few videos talking about the excerpts from the book, so happy hunting.

Amazing movie. I love Godzilla movies and I love Sci-fi and mecha.
Overall: 8
This is great in terms of a movie but since it is a movie things will be rushed. I feel that this would've been better split into episodes. But everything felt really rushed. The story progressed way too fast to be really enjoyable. If this were made episodically then I'm sure the rushed feeling wouldn't be there but would throw something off. If it were made into a series of movies like the Break Blade series then there would be enough time for everything without the feeling of being rushed.
Story: 7
I believe there ... could've been more in terms of background information and substance it felt a bit lacking but with what it had I believe that the story was adequate enough not to be too troubled by it.
Art and Animation: 9
3D art and animation brought a new style to Godzilla. Big fan of Knights of Sidonia they both have the same off white textures and scratch patterns. I didn't even need to see the full trailer to know that this was made by Polygon Pictures. I know 3D art can be a downer for some but its still well worth the watch.
Sound: 9
Music fit the scenes very well, bringing, more excitement every time. Great soundtrack selections.
Character: 7
There could've been more character development but then again there are restraints on time since it is a movie so all development has to be condensed or rushed. There's no building of a viewer-character connection or feelings for any of the characters. A characters death that I'm sure if a connection was developed would've brought some emotion didn't because of insufficient character development. I will personally say that if this movie wasn't pressed on time duration, character development would've been significantly better.
Enjoyment: 8
If it wasn't for the rushed feeling, I believe that I would've enjoyed this more. But It is still a very enjoyable show with its great animation and soundtracks.

This is my first review, english isn't my native language so i am sorry about grammar.

i myself really liked this movie and i am waiting sequel.

story:7
i put seven, bc they could have tell more about backstory about characters.
and story is ittle too rushed.

art:8
it's normal 3D animation, like for example ajin, the art is similar.
...
sound:9
The backround music is just muah, i can't but my feelings into words:D
I Just leave it there.

Character: 8
I wanted see more backstory about mc and other characters, otherwise i really liked the characters and how they faces show emotions like losting something important.

Enjoyment: 9
I really liked this, but same time i didn't like some parts of movie, example how i didn't feel somehow connected and the ending was rushed, it could have changed.

Overall:8
Because i wanted put eight.

REVIEW WITH NO SPOILERS

This is the first movie from a new Godzilla series. The story is really typical... the monsters came from nowhere and now the humanity is basically extinted.

There are some new elements in the premise... but nothing really innovating. The animation has some pretty scenarios (really beautiful)... but the character's design is ugly... not THAT ugly like in Ajin, but bothers a little.

There is no great character here, but there are some great moments in the story (the last 30 minutes).

If you are looking for a cliché kaijuu apocalypctical story with some good scenarios... here it is!!

So... this movie happened. And, as I had anticipated, I did not enjoy it. It's unfortunate because I love the Godzilla franchise, honestly. Even the goofy movies where he's doing wrestling moves.

Story: 3/10
So, the story is that a bunch of Kaiju popped up on Earth one day, forcing humanity to go into space to seek another planet. Eventually, the last of humanity decides to just return to Earth, believing that Godzilla and Co. would probably be dead by now (like a few thousand Earth years had passed by the time they decided to go back. All in all, it's not a very good story (which ... doesn't really affect the final score because Godzilla movie plots are deep as a kiddy pool, usually). It's little more than a vessel to move the plot and to allow for some Kaiju action.

Art: 1/10
This movie looks TERRIBLE! Outside of a select few "passable" looking Godzilla scenes, it looks like an unreleased PlayStation2 game cinematic. The decision to make the entire thing CG was very poor. I don't expect it to look like something out of MadHouse, but good lord is it hard on the eyes. The sad thing is, the movie could have been redeemed if the art was halfway decent. I've seen better stuff animated in MMD.

Sound: 5/10
The sound is actually alright. I watched the dubbed version and it was above what you generally get. The music was also decent. Really gave off that godly vibe when the choir kicked in during the Godzilla scenes. Outside of Godzilla's atomic breath making a dubstep BWAAA noise, there isn't much to complain about when it comes to audio.

Characters: 4/10
The characters were fine, and you understood their motivations well enough. It's a shame the artstyle was so godawful I had genuine difficulty differentiating between them, at times. Otherwise, not a terrible cast of characters (just don't go in expecting them to be memorable).

My overall enjoyment: 3/10
At the end of the day, even if this is technically apart of a series I love, I can't look past the flaws. Even if everything is hovering around mediocrity, the animation just drags the whole thing down. In a visual medium like animation, a lot of the enjoyment comes out of the art, which is just awful here. Seriously, get a better studio to produce one of these next time. Not recommended.

Godzilla: Kaijuu Wakusei or Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters is the 32nd film of the entire Godzilla franchise produced and distributed by a well-known company, Toho Company Ltd. notable for the distribution of Pokemon movies, Kimi no Nawa/Your Name and some Hollywood movies like Kong: Skull Island. Polygon Pictures (a CGI anime studio that brings you Knights of Sidonia) provides the movie's animation and IMO is the second movie after Blame! and is a part of Polygon Pictures Anime Universe. (Ahem) Let's get to the review, shall we?

Voice Acting:
In terms of voice acting, They brought all-star cast members and their voice acting skills are good. ...

Music and Sound:
Awesome music and sound especially during Godzilla fight scenes that bring you to the edge of your seat. However, in terms of sounds of gun shots and explosions, it doesn't looked like one that you've heard from most action anime and movies.

Story:
Sadly, the story has several inconsistencies and plot holes that make you feel confused and makes you say "Why we don't fight Godzilla and take back what he took from us?", "Why we abandoned our home plant in the first place?" and "What's Godzilla's purpose in this world? Is he an ally or a threat to humanity?"

Overall, the movie is one of the worst Godzilla movies that I've ever seen despite it's good voice acting and suspenseful music. I hope the sequel will correct this blunder in the future.

Godzilla: Planet Eater was a bat shit insane idea that should have never worked but for some dumbass reason( God cooked up while high) it worked. Do keep in mind that it was all done in CG.

Plot: It actually pretty good even though it sounds like something a japanese Micheal Bay wrote.The plot however in the beginning part seems very unnesscarily complicated. There is also a romance thing that really sucks as the two individuals apart of it have little chemistry and I feel little to none spark with them as it is a one-sided relationship.

Characters: The characters motivations really make sense but the extras ... are exetremly unconvincing and get inspired way to easily. It's like every character is Deku (My Hero academia) that grew up but still has the mentallity as his 6 year-old self. The main character Harou is a pretty big edge lord and is Mr pissed off for the whole facking movie. The other cast members are pretty plain and uninteresting except for Metphies who looks like trouble and peaks my interest.

sound:
The voice acting is done very well as expected from a movie but it isn't somthing to gloss over. Some sounds have too much bass and would make your head vibrate at the right volume if you chose to wear headphones (godzilla's roar). The music sounds very epic or intense all the time and really engrosses you in the battles and some action scenes.

animation/art
The animation is done in CG and in regular scenes it takes some time to get used to or not be distracted by it. However the action scenes and camera work in action scenes are done very well and look really great all together.
The backgrounds look really cool and full of life. The characters movements look kinda weird with them being CG and all which is very distracting as stated before.

setting/atmosphere
The settings in this movie look very cool and actually pretty nice as they reflect Gozilla's impact on the world. The atmosphere in this movie is very tense for the most part or gives off a grand feeling of epicness during an action scene ( since Godzilla is a giant and all).

conclusion
In conclusion "Godzilla: Planet Eater" is an above average sci-fi action movie with a great setting, a wannabe edgelord protangonist and a soundtrack that replicates godzilla's size. I would reccomend "Godzilla: Planet Eater" if you can stand CGI in anime see some very nicely done action scenes or hear a soundtrack that you can listen to while you fight a 1oom giant that just needs to breathe on you to kill. If not thats ok you're not really missing much.

I only bothered to watch this because Kana Hanazawa is in it.

Basically, Godzilla is a story recycled decades ago when Japan went mad with Tokusatsu-esque shows; this is one of them, alongside those other monster-movies (that space-turtle parodied in Yakitate!Japan actually is one of them), and anti-monster children-shows like Ultraman, for example. Then in the 90s, US of A's take went something so Hollywood-ish about a radioactive lizard, and how the US Army and every American arsenal can defeat it.

This, then, is just the true story of Godzilla rehashed into a modern Netflix-y thing: a monster that cannot be defeated (despite again, one of the ... characters are voiced by KanaHana) and threw the world into dystopia. Decent plot elements like space-time continuum had good decent explanations; but even Ultraman...the one with Mirai in it--Ultraman that I forgot what, also offered a little of that relativity theory.

But wait--this show supposedly was written by Gen Urobuchi; the same creator of Fate/Zero; Psycho Pass; and Puella Magi Madoka Magica... right. Gen Urobuchi's dog, maybe.
The thing is, no matter the premise about humans defeating an overpowerful monster, even if Gen Urobuchi wrote its modern take, I wasn't really interested about how it turned out because the spine and bone of the story was just the repeat of the classic, and I know what happened: Godzilla won't be defeated.
The 2nd movie already said it. In fact, the second movie just dropped a bombshell of what the third movie is like. Seems like Mr. Gen Urobuchi ran out of creative juices.


ART = 5
I really can't be bothered.


SOUND = 5
CHARACTER = 3
Japan bet with a powerhouse cast of seiyuus: Kana Hanazawa, with Takahiro Sakurai; Mamoru Miyano, Tomokazu Sugita, even Yuki Kaji. If Gen Urobuchi himself can't make much of this, then I'm certain none of them can save the ludicrousness of the plot; the characters are flat, and how for hundreds of times, we've seen these character-tropes: like Shingeki no Kyojin (the will or vengeance to strike the monster); stupid-love-syndrome (every romantic anime and show there is); and this show is entirely plot-driven, anyway. It is too obvious when there's too many Deus-ex-Machina at work, and that you just don't get and can't possibly relate with the scale of high-tech-nonsense they placed in there: yes, humanity got a helping hand from aliens or those people from other planets, religion thrown into the mix, but seriously, the premise of putting an overbearing monster with them, just don't work.


ENJOYMENT = 4
Won't be watching this if it weren't for Kana Hanazawa.


OVERALL = 5
Consider watching this IF AND ONLY IF, you're a massive fan of Kana Hanazawa. Gen Urobuchi fans can stay away, or suffer the disillusionment. There's a whole bunch of exciting things to watch, anyway, like Encouragement of Climb, or K-On; or that you can do, like cycling, or laundry.

Having watched pretty much every Godzilla movie there is, I must say that overall I prefer the human-centric ones. Shin and G2014 are probably my favorites, with the 1954 original being in a league of its own. So believe me when I say that on paper, this movie looked incredible to me. A human-centric Godzilla movie in an anime art-style with new interesting lore to go with it? Sign me up!

But no, it's pretty terrible. Let's break it down into a few bullet points because I don't even feel like writing a structured review:

-Characters are so painfully generic that you might as well copy ... and paste their MAL description from TV tropes and no one would notice the difference. Being cliched is not necessarily an issue in itself, but it either has to support an otherwise good story or the characters have to be interesting in their own way. This movie achieves neither. The characters don't ever go beyond the trope they represent. You have the hot-headed leader that vows to avenge humanity which often puts him at odds with the higher-ups. There's the pure-hearted love interest whose advances go unnoticed. There is also the smart one. You get the gist. After watching two of these movies I can only vaguely remember the name of the protagonist.

-The plot is not much better. It takes an hour to get going after which it becomes just another action anime. The movie sets up interesting concepts like the interplay between humans and two alien races and the question of whether it's even worth it to come back to a hostile Earth in the first place. But they go unexplored in favor of generic drama where the young, ambitious hero has to convince the by-the-book higher ups to execute his seemingly suicidal plan that will of course work out in the end, leaving the leadership astonished and rallying everyone behind the protagonist. You've seen it all before done better elsewhere.

-I genuinely enjoy the art-style, but the animation is too janky to give it anything above a 6. The sound design and especially the soundtrack are great. The music is somber and foreboding and it reminded me of the original PS3 Demon's Souls of all things. Godzilla's theme is especially well done. It's different to anything that came before but it still manages to hold its own.

-The lore and world-building are very interesting. They blend the familiar elements of the previous Godzilla adaptations with a completely fresh lore which makes it stand out from all the other movies. But it goes largely unexplored beyond the surface level, in favor of the aforementioned generic action story. If you're a Godzilla fan, you'd be better off just reading the related entries on Wikizilla rather than watching the movie itself.

If after reading this you're still interested, go watch the movie, since the following section will contain spoilers.

**SPOILERS**

I usually don't like to nitpick the story if the anime is otherwise good, but this one isn't, so here we go:

-The colony ship has been traveling just under light speed for 20 years while exhausting its resources and barely making any progress on the cosmic scale. The situation is so dire that the leadership council decides to dump all the elderly and some women on a hostile planet just to get rid of them, killing them instantly. But a day later it's revealed that the ship can also open wormholes, which enables them to travel back to Earth instantly. Again, literally a day after they killed a third of their population to prepare for the journey ahead, they came back to Earth.

-A couple hundred malnourished refugees equipped with some scouting gear manage to achieve what the entire Earth and two alien races couldn't (it's mentioned that the kaiju they killed is pretty much identical to original Godzilla 20,000 years back). Haruo, who's only seen Godzilla when he was a kid, spent 20 years on a spaceship and isn't otherwise portrayed as above average in terms of intelligence, deduces that Godzilla's shield has to be generated by something, and doesn't just appear like magic. All of humanity and two advanced alien races couldn't come up with that. Maybe we really deserve to be wiped out...