Memories linger.In response to my Cautious Hopes: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms article, a reader suggested I watch Godzilla Minus One (2023). As much as I love science fiction and fantasy, my initial reaction was hesitation since I haven’t cared for most Godzilla films in recent years. Still, after a friend whose taste mirrors my own urged me to give it a chance, I finally did.
Imprinted forever, like
The bite of a shark.
~ haiku by Troy Southgate, Where the Thames Flows into the Shinano
It’s funny how some readers would prefer I confine myself to Southern Italian matters, while others wish I would focus exclusively on Catholicism. And others still seem to appreciate when I write about culture more broadly—especially when it involves reclaiming it from the grip of ideologues. This review falls squarely in that last category.
As a boy, I loved the Godzilla films of the 1950s through the 1970s. Godzilla, to my young mind, was not a joke or a mascot; he was a terrible and tragic force—oddly dignified. In fact, I wept when he lost a fight to King Kong. Even in childhood, I sensed that the great kaiju was not merely a monster. He was a judgment—something unleashed in response to human transgression.
Those films—along with Battle of the Planets, Shogun Warriors, and The Micronauts—were my earliest exposure to Japanese popular culture. By high school, that interest had deepened and sharpened. Drawn to stories of samurai, geisha, and kamikaze, I encountered literary and martial figures like Yukio Mishima and Harukichi Shimoi, the latter a bridge between Italy and Japan, who pointed to a world where honor, aesthetics, and national character still mattered. In college, my interests expanded further into bushidō, Zen Buddhism, and the austere disciplines of haiku and tanka poetry.
A force of reckoning, the film restores weight to Godzilla’s presence—moral, emotional, and physical. When he appears, the mood tightens. The destruction feels consequential, not playful, and dread is allowed to build rather than being buried under excess.
What sets the film apart is its seriousness. The human story matters, shaped by loss, responsibility, and limits. Godzilla does not interrupt the narrative; he completes it. The visual effects are disciplined, serving the story rather than overwhelming it. There are a few moments that verge on the absurd, but they remain contained. Restraint ultimately makes the monster far more terrifying than constant exposure ever could.
Godzilla Minus One rejects modern cynicism and self-parody. It treats myth, tragedy, and judgment without apology. In doing so, it reminds us that Godzilla once meant something—and can again.
A must-see for science fiction fans—and for anyone who still expects seriousness from the genre—I’m looking forward to the announced sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero, scheduled to be released later this year.
~ Giovanni di Napoli, January 16th, Feast o San Marcello I
