The Sounds of Awe and Terror: Revisiting the Music of Godzilla [Part 4- The Shin Era]

 

     18 years after Godzilla 2000, I am glad to be back in the world of the new Godzilla which was opened by Shin Godzilla. This is the first animated film in the history of Godzilla, and I am excited to be able to take on the challenge while at the same time I feel it is a very big mission. I think this will be a Godzilla movie that you can’t possibly imagine. 

~ Takayuki Hattori

Welcome to the fourth part of my journey through the OSTs of Godzilla films. In the previous editorial, I discussed the music scores from the Millennium series. Now, we proceed to the Shin era (also labelled by some fans as the Reiwa era).

    The Big G’s triumphant return to the silver screen in a 2014 American production, reinvigorated the franchise. The Toho Studios, which sent the King to retirement 10 years earlier, also wanted a piece of the action. However, being bound by contract with the Legendary Entertainment, the Japanese executives had a very narrow time window in which they could make a new Godzilla flick. In consequence, they gave the job of making the film to Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. The final product released in 2016 was Shin Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla Resurgence), a brand new take on the Godzilla character and a smashing hit at the Japanese box office.

Shiro Sagisu

     Personally, I have a lot of issues with this film. A lot of kaiju fans love Shin Gojira, but in my opinion, the movie tries to be too many things at once (I wrote more about that in my retrospective article Godzilla’s Loose in Japan: Celebrating 65 Years of Kaiju Rampage). The music for the film was composed by Shiro Sagisu. The composer already worked on the directors’ other projects, like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Attack on Titan. The OST is, indeed, very haunting and reflects the grim tone of the picture (that theme!). Nevertheless, I cannot forgive the blatant inclusion of military music from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Hideaki Anno is obviously too enamoured with his anime franchise). In addition, you can also hear a lot of original music by Akira Ifukube, but due to problems in the sound mix, there’s noticeable drop in quality whenever the music plays.

Takayuki Hattori

     Although not being an official continuation but stand-alone features, Godzilla anime trilogy co-produced by Toho Animation and Polygon Pictures is also counted as a part of the Shin era. Even though the animated movies were not favourably received by the fans, I do appreciate that they tried to take a different route (basically, no monster fights) and ground Godzilla more within the science-fiction domain. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017), Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018), and Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018) were all scored by Takayuki Hattori. The composer already had a great deal of experience with the franchise, having written music for Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) and Godzilla 2000: Millennium (1999). In my opinion, Hattori’s OSTs for the anime movies are simply top notch across the board. The composer obviously had a lot more resources at his disposal this time, and he came up with awe-inspiring themes (Total War, Bilusaludo's Technology, Ghidorah to name a few). Takayuki’s work on anime features jettisoned him to spot number 3 on my personal list of fave Godzilla composers (right behind 1. Akira Ifukube and 2. Michiru Oshima). Even though the trilogy does not have a lot of rewatch value, I come back to it just to listen to Hattori’s compositions. He deserves another chance at scoring a live-action Godzilla movie!
     All things considered, this was my “brief” trip down the music lane of Godzilla’s Shin era. Please make sure to hit the hyperlinks in order to listen to mentioned tracks. If you enjoyed the read, please stay tuned for the fifth and final editorial in which I will go through the musical history of the American films (to be posted soon after the premiere of Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)). In the meantime, I traditionally leave you with my full “guide list” of the Shin movies and the people who scored them. Thank you for reading:

• Shin Gojira (2016) music by Shiro Sagisu
• Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters (2017) music by Takayuki Hattori
• Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle (2018) music by Takayuki Hattori
• Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018) music by Takayuki Hattori

Sources: Gojipedia * TohoKingdom.

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