While opinions are going to drive such a book as this, Mr. Tsutsui hammers them non-stop. While most of us Godzilla fans can relate to his feelings, this would be a problem for those who have seen a few films or no films at all. That is, perhaps, the major problem with this book. Mr. Tsutsui wrote this book with the intention of reaching out to those who may have never seen a Godzilla film. The book was to pay homage to Godzilla (this year being his 50th birthday on Nov. 3) and to have those give more respect to Godzilla without using the general stereotypes many Americans have come to think of when they hear the word Godzilla.

Not only that, Mr. Tsutsui brings in references to several Godzilla films here and there. Of course your casual to die-hard Godzilla fans will know what he is talking about, but to those who have never seen a film, they would not have a clue. While he wrote the book to try to appeal, not just Godzilla fans, but to non-fans, he simply failed miserably. It would have helped if he had given a synopsis of all the Godzilla films leading up to the most recent, Godzilla X Mothra X Mechagodzilla: Tokyo SOS.

I was hoping that this book would try to shed some positive light onto the films and to stear away from the stereotypes. Of course, Mr. Tsutsui even added those in a vast number. I was really disappointed by this as well. As I have said, the main intention of his book is to try and, not only pay homage and to inform people on Godzilla, but to try and gain more respect for the creature and his films. Sadly, he does not do that. He overuses the word “cheese” and repeatedly states that most of the films are, for lack of a better phrase, camp fests. It saddened me to see a fellow Godzilla fan using such stereotypes and phrases in a book in which he wants to gain more respect for the cinema icon. Did I mention this book is also very contradictive?

Being a professor at Kansas University, Mr. Tsutsui seems to have poor grammar and seems to have careless writing. On page 200 in the first paragraph, Mr. Tsutsui is talking about the history of Tristar trying to make their own Godzilla film. He talks about Jon De Bont (the director of Speed and Twister) being the studio’s number one prospect. But in the following sentence he states, “But in 2004, however, De Bont and Tristar parted ways over the issue of money. . . ,” And then in the next sentence, he talks about the year 1996. Obviously Mr. Tsutsui did not even know what year he was talking about, considering 2004 is six years out of 1998 which is when the 1998 Godzilla film hit theaters. Of course we all make mistakes, but if you read his Prologue, he states that he proofread his book several times and even had his wife proofread it many times over. There was no excuse for such an error.

What was also bothersome was the fact that he did not know some of his facts on Godzilla. In one of the earlier pages of the book, he refers to the 1998 Godzilla as a fertile female when the film clearly stated it was asexual. Of course Godzilla is an enigma of sorts but for such a fact to be missed is inexcusable

His sentences are also long. Or as my English teacher would say, run-on sentences. Most of Mr. Tsutsui’s sentences take up one-and-a-half to two lines. Not only that, he has commas galore splattered all over the book! I have seen more commas in this 200+ page book than I have in a 400+ page book. I noticed that when he did this, he would use a word with the same meaning as the previous word. A Thesaurus would have helped him out tremendously with that problem. But the major reason I saw in those long sentences were because he could not get right to the point of what he was trying to say. It becomes an annoyance and hard to read at times.

What also was ridiculous was his attempt at trying to get laughs out of his book. Overusing the interjection, Ewww, became an annoyance and very ridiculous. To put it in a nutshell, his attempt at humour failed miserably.

Something that kind of bothered me was his ongoing put downs of the 1998 Godzilla film. Sure the majority of Godzilla fans despise the movie and everyone is entitled to his/her opinions, but his constant criticism of the film throughout the book got on my nerves and got pretty annoying (in case you haven’t figured out by now, I did like the 1998 film). While I understand his strongs feelings of hate towards the film, it did not need to be pushed every single chapter throughout the book. I will give him this though, he admitted the 1998 film was a blockbuster. Something that most Godzilla fans, who despise the film, will never admit to.

Despite the tremendous problems with the book, Mr. Tsutsui did bring us, who have been watching Godzilla films for years, back to a day when we were kids and saw our first Godzilla film. It was great to see him put such positive emotion, for once, into his book to where it captured those who are lifelong fans of the genre.

In conclusion, I hated to give this book such a low rating, but considering the fact that he did not try to gain respect for Godzilla and to try to reach out to non-fans, was the biggest downside to this book. His intentions also seemed to contradict themselves as he wrote the book. The dull attempts at laughter were a sheer embarassement as I read the book and got annoying very quickly.

All in all, I recommend this book to Godzilla fans more so than I would the non-Godzilla fan simply because he makes references to Godzilla and other kaiju movies without thinking that there are those out in the audience that may not have a clue to what he is talking about.

A good book, but a complete downer.
Rating: 2 / 5

J. Roberto – Kaiju-Fan Magazine
Rating: 5 / 5

Want to read some real FACTS about the films and how they were made (other than the retread facts this author just regergitates), you won’t find them here.

Rating: 1 / 5