SATURDAY, JULY 26, 2014

Maruyama was growing up, a period for Japan’s “bubble era” modernization. And it was a delight to see destroy them almost as soon as they went up, Maruyama recalled. One of his favorites is “Godzilla Vs. ,” released in 1992, which showed his hometown of Yokohama destroyed, including Land Mark Tower, one of this nation’s tallest build- ings, which was being built as the movie was shot. “It is so fun to see a giant thing break and get totally destroyed,” he said. “You can’t explain it in words. You just feel it in your heart, and it’s so immediate.”

GOING HOLLYWOOD 1998 Directed by Roland Emmerich; Special effects by Patrick Tatopoulos; Starring Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and oth- ers. Hollywood-style models, robots, including a moving mechanical lizard head and torso, plus computer imagery for the adult Godzilla, and stunt men in latex suits as Godzilla babies. If anything clinched Japanese fans’ distrust for Hollywood, this reboot was it. The film, whose tagline was “Size does matter,” portrayed Godzilla as an enlarged tyran- nosaurus rex running amok in New York, stomping on yellow cabs and chewing up delivery trucks. The story starts with a Japanese fishing boat getting attacked, and a lone survivor gasping, “Gojira.” Thrown in the plot are ambitious American news reporters, a French spy, a scientist studying Chernobyl and a bunch of Godzilla eggs in Madison Square Garden. A big no-no to Godzilla fans was the monster’s fate at the end of the movie. Yoshihiko Horie, 54, hated the 1998 film so much he started a website, cheering on the Japanese Godzilla. Horie, a driver and husband of Godzilla fan Shizue Horie, believes Godzilla must be an extraordinary entity but also one with which people can emotionally identify. There are other must-have trademarks: A Ginza Tanaka employee looks at 24-cm-tall and 15-kilogram gold statue of Godzilla bumpy skin and that roar. unveiled during a press preview of the Godzilla exhibition in Tokyo. Godzilla always shoots hot radioactive rays from its mouth. It must be powerful. And it must be cool. Emmerich’s Godzilla ing “gorilla” with “kujira,” which means “whale.” It even has a failed on all counts, he said. “I still do not want to call that touching reference to Hiroshima. Godzilla,” said Horie, adding that he refers to it as Zilla, some- Battling in near-death, Godzilla saves San Francisco from thing lacking the “God” factor in a Godzilla. “No wonder even grotesque monsters that feed off nuclear material, including American fans called it GINO, for Godzilla in name only.” bombs and reactor fuel waste. And the creature’s fate evokes the original film’s ending - including setting up a possible GODZILLA TODAY 2014 sequel. “Gareth Edwards brought back our Godzilla, the Directed by Gareth Edwards; Visual effects supervised by Godzilla we hold in our hearts. He respects Godzilla,” said Jim Rygiel of the “Lord of the Rings” films; Starring Aaron- Yoshinori Nishizawa, 28, who lives in Tokyo and works in Taylor Johnson, Ken Watanabe and others. nursing. “I grew up with Godzilla. I like everything about this Godzilla created by computer graphics and special effects, movie. It shows the power of Hollywood. I feel only grati- with 3-D technology-added version as an option. This work tude.” — AP pays homage to the past. It has the monster battles of the VS series. It has the military, well-meaning but often clueless. It has scientists. It has a poster of an old Godzilla movie. It has the precariousness of atomic energy and radiation. Watanabe pronounces the creature’s name as the Japanese say it, comb-

In this photo, Takeshi Maruyama picks up a model of the first Godzilla with some of his collec- tions during an interview at his apartment in Yokohama, near Tokyo.