The Cinematheque

“Brilliantly eccentric … This is a wonderfully and (importantly) deliberately silly movie … [It] demonstrates how varied and therefore rich the Showa era was.”

Christopher Stewardson, Little White Lies

Beloved for its campy, Saturday-morning sensibilities, Godzilla vs. Megalon was a bald-faced appeal to Japan’s TV-hooked children, more enchanted by serial superheroes than cinema’s king of monsters. Case in point: Toho conducted a nationwide contest for grade-schoolers to pitch a new kaiju. The winning design, to no one’s surprise, looked an awful lot like Ultraman, whose stock had never been higher. ​“Nuclear testing unleashes mayhem on the undersea kingdom of Seatopia, causing a series of environmental disasters that nearly wipes out Rokuro, the schoolboy protagonist at the centre of this film. To exact revenge, Seatopia unleashes Megalon, a gigantic beetle with the ability to fire ray beams and napalm bombs. Meanwhile, Rokuro’s brother creates Jet Jaguar, a flying robot with a built-in moral compass. The inevitable matchup of Godzilla and Jet Jaguar versus Megalon and Gigan decides the world’s fate” (Janus Films).

In Japanese with English subtitles

“A monster melee featuring exceptional wirework and a highly detailed design for Megalon … One of Godzilla’s most memorable and childlike outings.”

Graham Skipper, Godzilla: The Official Guide