Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One (2023) is at once a reboot of the original 1954 Godzilla film and a homage to the first installment of the franchise. This relationship between the two films is most strikingly manifested during the Attack on Ginza sequence – a composite of the first two Godzilla attacks on Tokyo in the original – where a number of parallel moments arise. Yet, Godzilla Minus One reconfigures this attack in a pivotal way by placing its central characters, Kōichi and Noriko, directly within the devastation, thereby dramatically raising the stakes. This contrasts with the principal characters in the first film, who witness Godzilla’s rampage but from a far safer distance.
