It is quite funny to see the own capital to be destroyed again and again for Japanese in the films. However, Tokyo has probably suffered more destruction and reconstruction than any other major city in the world, though it has relatively low history. In the history, the architectures in Japan were destroyed by fire disaster and atomic bomb. The pictures of horror were significantly stayed in their hearts. Godzilla is a way to express darkness and pessimism in the apocalyptic imagination of postwar Japanese pop culture. At the beginning of the film, the people consider how to deal with the huge monster and that causes a lot of divergence and they collaborate with each other to beat the Godzilla in the end. The disaster gives them the confidence to face the difficulty in the future and Tokyo’s smoking ruins remain an image that evokes hope more often than despair. In conclusion, I think that the disaster brings not only poverty to human but also positive things, for example it teaches people to collaborate and feel the sense of homelands missing from everyday life.
Lu Yibin 3035951973
It is awesome that your discussion opens a dual way of interpreting monster-themed films in Japan. The last sentence “Oh no, there goes Tokyo…but it will be back, and it may even be better than before” might shed light on your argument that disaster brings positive things. Regarding the destruction and reconstruction of Japan (especially, Tokoy), I would suggest framing your analysis based on the sentence that “Tokyo or Hong Kong—tend to be a mixture of all three kinds outlined in Isozaki and Asadas typology: they are real, surreal, and hyperreal all (P.77).” Hong Kong and Japan were facing “disappearance” even though they are under the distinguishable circumstance. So, how did films present these two sorts of “disappearances” differently and similarly (like the ghost film in Hong Kong Vs. the monster film in Japan)?