In the chapter, the author humorously uses ‘Oh no, there goes Tokyo… but it will be back, and it may be even better than before.’ to conclude the never-ending optimism of the Japanese towards apocalypses. However, reflecting on the newer takes in the franchise, I believe the optimism is starting to be questioned, and a new perspective is introduced in this parallel of apocalyptic imagery and real-life disaster.
One iconic example is Shin Godzilla (2016) directed by Hideaki Anno. In the postwar ‘golden age’, the monster in films is merely a plot device that introduces the apocalyptic backdrop and renders the bravery and optimism of people. However, Godzilla in Hideaki’s take represents the grief and tragedy in the disaster that cannot be fully healed like the ones in the ‘golden age’ movies. Most notably, Godzilla is frozen rather than eliminated in the end. The increasingly dangerous giant mass becomes a scar of the Tokyo cityscape that people need to live with despite the obvious danger. The dichotomy of prosperity and apocalypse blurs—the more advanced the technologies and weapons are, the more threatening the disaster is. It cleverly shows how the advance in technology, from the atomic bomb in 1945 to the nuclear accident in 2011, eventually poses an apocalyptic threat that is more adaptive than any natural disaster. Yes, the optimism mentioned by the author is true, but behind it maybe there lies the melancholy of accepting fate under inevitable apocalypses.