Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again - Shigeru Kayama

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama, translated by Jeffrey Angles / ISBN 9781517915230 / 233-page paperback published in 2023 by University of Minnesota Press *** The first English translations of the original novellas about the iconic kaiju Godzilla Godzilla emerged from the sea to devastate Tokyo in the now-classic 1954 film, produced by Tōhō Studios and directed by Ishirō Honda, creating a global sensation and launching one of the world’s most successful movie and media franchises. Awakened and transformed by nuclear weapons testing, Godzilla serves as a terrifying metaphor for humanity’s shortsighted destructiveness: this was the intent of Shigeru Kayama, the science fiction writer who drafted the 1954 original film and its first sequel and, in 1955, published these novellas. Although the Godzilla films have been analyzed in detail by cultural historians, film scholars, and generations of fans, Kayama’s two Godzilla novellas—both classics of Japanese young-adult sci