Godzilla Raids Again

""Ah, banana oil!""

- Tsukioka, in the English dub

The first sequel in the Godzilla franchise and the second entry in the Showa era, Godzilla Raids Again was made soon after the success of Gojira. Its notable for introducing the monster Anguirus and the tradition of always having Godzilla fight another foe. The last black-and-white film, it kept with the grim tone of the previous film. Despite poor reception by critics and fans, the film became the third most attended entry in Japan. The film was dubbed as Gigantis The Fire Monster, which did things like give Godzilla Anguirus' roar in order to convince audiences this wasn't a Godzilla sequel, because Paul Schreibman, who distributed the film through Warner Brothers, believed that a stand alone film would be more successful. The dub was notable for having George Takei among the cast, but it wasn't well received.

Searching for schools of fish for the Kaiyo Fishing Company, Koji Kobayashi's plane malfunctions and he has to make an emergency landing near Iwato Island. He is rescued by coworker, Shoichi Tsukioka. They are shocked to find Godzilla and a mysterious monster later named Anguirus battling on the island, who fall into the ocean. The pair later give evidence to a committee that includes Dr. Kyohei Yamane, who was present for the attack on Tokyo and advises them to lure Godzilla away with flares while the city in in blackout. Days later, Godzilla appears at Osaka's shore. Everything seems to go to plan as the city goes into blackout and flares lure him away. But a jailbreak gone awry causes a fire that lures Godzilla back to shore. Anguirus soon follows and the pair ignore the military fire as a brutal battle lays destruction across the city. With Anguirus dead and Godzilla victoriously leaving Osaka in ruins, our heroes jump at the chance to fight the King of the Monsters when he shows up near a small icy island. Can Godzilla be defeated, and would it take the sacrifice of one of our heroes for this to be done?


 * And I Must Scream: For some odd but disturbing reason, screams were added in the American version. Shows how Paul Schreibman sucks at knowing his source material since the entire city was evacuated and no screaming when the buildings were on fire. AT ALL. As Godzilla shoots his atomic breath at Angurius (to no effect), screams were added when the building were on fire.
 * Buried Alive - Harmless Freezing: How Godzilla is defeated.
 * Captain Obvious: The U.S. cut has Shoichi be the narrator and explains every little thing in the movie.
 * Contrived Coincidence: Tsukipka has a knack for this: in the 9 minutes in the film, he and Kobayashi encounter Godzilla and Angurius on Iwato Island, they encounter the 2 police officers chasing after 3 inmates who had just escaped using a truck, and Tsukioka encounters Godzilla while looking for him. While the last one was justified, the other 2 was an odd coincidence. Steve Ryfle on the Classic Media commentary lampshaded this.
 * Dead Sidekick: Kobayashi in trying to keep Godzilla from going into the ocean at the climax.
 * Helicopter Flyswatter: Just watch the final battle sequence. The planes drop like flies.
 * Love Triangle: Tsukioka is engaged to Hidemi Yamaji while Kobayashi secretly pines for her.
 * Slurpasaur: In the American Re-cut, the scene weree Dr. Yamane shows a film from the original Godzilla. The Americans add a bunch of stock footage and really bad puppets. The DVD Commentary can't even identify all the clips, other than saying "Bargain Basement School Science films". Some of that footage is of Slurpasaurs, other bits of it come from Unknown Island.
 * Off-Model: Due the fact that the monster's close-ups are operated by a hand puppet, they don't look like the exact match to the suit. One of the hand puppets for Godzilla actually looked creepy when he burns Angurius after defeating him.
 * Spell My Name with an "S": A very ridiculous case in the English version. Godzilla is either "Gigantis" or "Angurius", the latter due to the fact that while we have an annoying stock footage-laden unintelligent design theory, they finally reached to the stock-footage of Godzilla (1954), Godzilla's being called Angurius. Seriously Paul Schreibman, which is it!?
 * Then there's this: Shigeru Kayama = Shigem Kayama, Eiji Tsuburaya = Eliji Tsuburaya, Minoru Chiaki = Mindru Chiaki, and Motoyoshi Oda = Motoyoshi QDQ.
 * Too Dumb to Live: The out of 9 criminals (yes, there were nine. The first 3 were captured after one of the criminals got shot), perhaps the dumbest of all was the last six. The first group tries to escape by truck  crash into an oil refinery. The last 3 pair of criminals ran downstairs of the subway station when they could have ran out of reach of Godzilla and Angurirus's fighting. However.
 * Villain Protagonist: It's Godzilla. One of the first 3 films before his eventual Heel Face Turn in Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster. The fact that he decides to leave Japan alone after defeating Angruirus (despite destroying good portions of Osaka) tells you such. Then he destroys a fishing boat, probably unintentionally.