Searching For Godzilla

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DAY 344: I never really realized how much Japanese pop culture had become world pop culture until I got to Japan.  From video games to anime films, Japan has contributed many things to international pop culture, and none is bigger (at least in size) than the big monster known as Godzilla.

Godzilla has come a long way since that 1954 black and white original film starring Raymond Burr.  Over the years (particularly in those drug-inducing sixties and seventies), the Godzilla universe has expanded to include the five-headed dragon Ghidora, the giant pterodactyl Rodan, the robotic Mecha-Godzilla and those two little Japanese girls that sing to summon Mothra.  The Japanese Godzilla phenomenon has become so big it spawned many homages in American pop culture, like the “Mecha-Streisand” episode of South Park and the overly hyped 1998 Hollywood movie from the producers of Independence Day.  The Hollywood remake flopped, leaving public opinion to believe that Godzilla movies are best left to the Japanese.  Japan still makes Godzilla movies today, the latest (at the time of writing) being Final Wars to come out December 2004.

THE GINZA DISTRICT OF TOKYO is where people with money come to shop; Ginza’s Hamuri-dori is like New York’s Fifth Avenue, Paris’ Champs des Elys�es.  Those without a big fashion budget might come to Ginza for Kabuki Theater or the Imperial Palace or to see the latest gadgets at the Sony Showcase Gallery (which includes a look at Sony’s upmarket “Qualia” brand, not yet available in North America).  But I came for another reason altogether:  to find Godzilla.

Liz told me that there existed a Godzilla statue somewhere in Ginza, but it was “small” and “disappointing” (even though she hadn’t seen it herself).  This was most likely the case because it was never mentioned in a guidebook or any local tourist map—you just had to know where it was.  It didn’t stop me from pursuing it though, even with the rain coming down from the gray skies.

I walked to the first street map I found on a sidewalk when I exited from the JR stop near Ginza.  I looked all over for an icon or label, thinking the statue would at least be some local pop culture shrine or something noted on the map, but there was nothing.  The map directed me to an information stand down the block but when I walked over, it was just another street map, also with no sign of Godzilla.

There was a cop nearby and I asked him a question using the extent of my Japanese:  “Godzilla wa doko?” ("Where is Godzilla?")

“Oh, Gojira?” He led me into a police booth to show me on a schematic of the city and gave me directions in simple single English words:  here, two, JR track, left, Gojira. I got the gist of it.

I followed the cop’s directions and walked through the rain.  According to what I think he told me, I was to go two traffic lights from the overpassing rail tracks and make a left.  As I walked down the sidewalk, I felt closer and closer to the legendary movie monster and heard the foreboding music of drums and brass in my head—and yet a nearby directional sign with points of interest still gave no mention of him.  The cop’s directions led me to the entrance of Hibiya Park so I figured the statue was in there.  I continued to search under the rain, passed ponds and fountains, but was still turning up blanks. 

No, not a decorated monolith from the Vikings, I want Godzilla!  Where is he?  I wish there was some way to just summon him, but he always just sort of shows up conveniently to save the day when other monsters attack. Looking at the park map I saw no signs of the statue, but luckily I managed to stumble upon a park rangers’ office.

“Uh Gojira wa doko?” Funny how with no context that comes out of nowhere, but they all seemed to get it.

“Gojira?  Oh...” The ranger went to pull out a map he had and showed me.  He even photocopied the map, enlarging the section I needed and drew on it.  He showed me a route out of the park and down the block, around the corner to a rectangle that I figured was a small plaza or something.  “Gojira, here.  Across Imperial Hotel.”

Raindrops kept falling on the umbrella I borrowed from Liz as I ventured on.  This search for Godzilla is turning into a wild goose chase. But I felt the presence of Godzilla again, with the drums and brass in my head.  I found the Imperial Hotel and the rectangle across the street from it, but it wasn’t a plaza like I had thought but a building.  On the sidewalk of the building was the statue of a human figure and I thought maybe the Godzilla one would be nearby.  I walked around the entire thing but found nothing more, so I walked inside.

“Gojira wa doko?”

“Godzilla?” He spoke English.  He knew exactly where the statue was, at a forecourt of the building behind the one we were in.  Upon walking out of the lobby I realized just why he had to know the location of the statue; I was in the Toho Building, offices of Toho Pictures, the production company that produced and owned the rights to Godzilla.

The drums and brass filled my inner ears again.  I was close.  I could even imagine the sounds of distant, thunderous footsteps and Godzilla’s classic shrieks fill the air.  Down the block, behind a wall fountain that I had walked by before, there he was immortalized in bronze, textured skin, teeth, scales and all.  The statue was a lot bigger than I expected—Liz said it’d only be about two fee tall—which was a pleasant surprise.  It was nowhere as big as the real Godzilla in the movies, not even the size of his poor excuse of a son (as seen in Monster Island).  However, with a little tweaking of camera positions, he still could appear larger than life (picture above) from front and behind.

Standing out in the rain got to be a bit much for me so I left Godzilla there in that plaza in peace, knowing very well that no matter how big he may have been immortalized in bronze, he was still the big badass movie monster to me.

I MET LIZ BACK at her apartment, who had come home with a new face for me to meet:  her husband Hiroshi, who had come back from his mother’s to handle some family matters.  The three of us went out to dinner at a kaiten-zushi, one of those restaurants where different kinds of sushi go around and around on a conveyor belt for people sitting at a bar or at a table can choose each freely according to his/her taste and appetite.  At the end, the server simply counts your plates (each priced according to color) and figures out the bill. 

I had been to a place like this many times before in the States, but this one had items I had not tried, like:  daigaku imo (honeyed potatoes), salmon roe wrapped in salmon, seaweed with sweet seaweed jam, hatched roe, (imitation) shark fin and (real) crab claw.  The wildest thing that night was the raw shrimp Liz and Hiroshi special-ordered—so raw they were still moving.  The chef took two feisty shrimps, cut their heads off to fry separately, then peeled and de-veined the bodies.  He put the two tails on the beds of rice like any other kind of sushi, only this kind was still moving.  Hiroshi took it like a man and ate the semi-squirming shrimp tail in one bite, while Liz was a little freaked out about her moving food.

“Cut the [end of the tail] off!” she asked her husband.  The end we noticed, seemed to be the feistiest, still twitching its semi-live muscle.  There aren’t exactly any knives at the table in a Japanese restaurant so he tried using his chopsticks—in doing so the tail jumped off the bed of rice and onto the plate, causing Liz to flinch in nervous laughter.  In the end he managed to take the tail end off.  Liz quickly popped the shrimp in her mouth and didn’t look back.

WE HAD A LOT OF SUSHI that night (not all of it still half-alive) and in the end we had a tower of empty plates the size of a building—the size of a building if you put it in the scale of that Godzilla statue of course.


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This blog entry about the events of Monday, September 27, 2004 was originally posted on October 06, 2004 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

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