8 Best Japanese Monster Movies Without Godzilla
Godzilla is known as the king of the monsters, and he’s well and truly earned such a title, to the extent that typing “king of the monsters” felt wrong, just there. Let’s try that again. Godzilla is known as the King of the Monsters. Better. He’s known as the KING OF THE MONSTERS. That actually feels best. Look, point is, he’s been at the center of more giant monster movies than any other giant monster. King Kong predates Godzilla, with Kong’s first movie being in 1933, versus Godzilla’s first in 1954, but Godzilla, as a series, is almost four times longer, in terms of the number of movies.
Yet Godzilla’s not the only great Japanese monster, as the following Godzilla-less movies will hopefully show. Since the focus here is on Japanese films (they have to be at least Japanese co-productions originally with Japanese dialogue), there won’t be any King Kong movies below, either. Okay, honorable mention to King Kong Escapes, actually. That one was a Japanese production featuring King Kong, but no Godzilla. It’s weird. It’s kind of/sort of/almost worth watching.
8
‘Mothra’ (1961)
If you’ve seen Mothra in a movie, it was probably in one of the Godzilla films. She shows up a lot, and is almost always an ally of Godzilla himself, and she’s usually more of a force for good than he is (since Godzilla’s sometimes a villain, and sometimes more of an anti-hero). Perhaps the best movie with Mothra is 2001’s Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, which has Mothra, King Ghidorah (not villainous, for once), and Baragon teaming up to take on a more-terrifying-than-usual version of Godzilla.
But that movie having Godzilla makes it ineligible for here, so instead, here’s Mothra’s first movie, and a solo one of hers without Godzilla: simply called Mothra. It was directed by Ishirō Honda, who directed the original Godzilla and many of its sequels, and it’s the closest Mothra’s come to being portrayed as a villain, since she’s a threat here, at least at times, but more because humanity disturbed her peace and wronged her, because the main villain of the movie kidnaps two of Mothra’s companions: the tiny twin fairies known as the Shobijin. You just have to go with it. This is how Mothra is; this is what Mothra-related movies often involve.
7
‘Rodan’ (1956)
Like Mothra, Rodan eventually ended up being featured in quite a few Godzilla movies, but he also got introduced in his own solo film a few years before his first appearance in the Godzilla series. That film, simply called Rodan, is a very much no-nonsense kaiju film that clocks in at just 72 minutes, and involves the discovery of a prehistoric creature that’s somehow still alive, and has been residing deep inside a cave.
Of course, since this is a no-nonsense and kind of typical kaiju movie, the titular Rodan is eventually unleashed, and some destruction ensues. There are also some other creatures called the Meganulon, which are like giant dragonflies. They, too, eventually show up in the Godzilla series, in the somewhat underrated (or maybe the better word is “over-hated”) Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, originally released nearly half a century on from Rodan, in 2000.
6
‘God Raiga vs. King Ohga’ (2020)
God Raiga vs. King Ohga is not going to be for everyone, but at the same time, it is one of the most distinctive and strangest monster movies ever made, and basically a fever dream of a movie. It’s either the most amateurish kaiju film of all time, or it’s a pitch-perfect parody of the kaiju genre. Maybe it’s a bit of both, somehow, in that different people involved could’ve wanted different things out of it, and then it ended up being a wonderful and confusing mess.
It is unlike anything else out there, and the sort of film you might well think you hallucinated or dreamed one night.
Like, it’s part of a trilogy that starts as a low-rate kaiju thing, like a C or even D-grade Godzilla, and then the second movie feels more tongue-in-cheek, and then this third movie, God Raiga vs. King Ohga, feels like an avant-garde comedy. It’s not often listed as a comedy (at least not on sites like Letterboxd and IMDb), but it sure as hell feels like one, and it’s best engaged with – and enjoyed – as a parody, basically. It is unlike anything else out there, and the sort of film you might well think you hallucinated or dreamed one night, rather than genuinely watched.
5
‘Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon’ (1994)
Is an eight-headed dragon better than a three-headed one? Look, in the overall scheme of things, maybe not. King Ghidorah has three heads, and he’s endured longer – and had more movies – than Orochi, but as the title of Orochi’s movie makes plain, he does indeed have eight heads, and that’s something. Eight heads are a lot, you know, and so the special effects here are pretty ambitious and cool to look at.
As for Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon in general, as a movie overall, it’s got more of a fantasy focus than a sci-fi one, which helps set it apart from a good many kaiju films. Admittedly, there isn’t constant giant monster action here or anything, but so long as you’re okay with some giant monsters, and then the rest of the film being more of a fantasy/adventure sort of thing, there’s quite a lot to like here. Also, it was directed by Takao Okawara, who also helmed three Godzilla films, including the legendary Godzilla vs. Destoroyah one year on from Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon.
4
‘Rebirth of Mothra III’ (1998)
The 1990s was a good time for giant monster movies, since you had Orochi, the Eight-Headed Dragon, three Gamera movies (more on those shortly), seven Godzilla movies (okay, the one from 1998 wasn’t great, but still), and then three solo Mothra movies. To focus on the Mothra films, they made up the Rebirth of Mothra trilogy, and it was a trio of films that did indeed get better as they went along.
The third, unsurprisingly called Rebirth of Mothra III, was the best of the bunch. It was also the closest the trilogy came to feeling like a Godzilla film, since Mothra has to battle King Ghidorah here. Further, the plot involves time travel as a way to defeat a younger/weaker version of a monster that’s seen as a threat, here involving going back in time to have a better chance at besting a younger version of Ghidorah, which gives it a similar premise to 1991’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.
3
‘Gamera: Guardian of the Universe’ (1995)
So, Gamera was mentioned before, and the history of this monster is interesting. He had a real redemption in the 1990s (one of the best non-Shawshank-related redemptions), since before the Gamera trilogy of the 1990s, Gamera was a knock-off of Godzilla, to be blunt and kind of brutally honest. Godzilla was sort of like a giant lizard/reptilian-type creature, and Gamera was more identifiable as, basically, a giant turtle. Both had beams they could fire from their mouths, as weapons, though Gamera could fly, and Godzilla (usually) can’t.
Those earlier Gamera films weren’t great, though some were sort of fun in a goofy kind of way, when they weren’t just reusing stock footage from other movies again and again. But the trilogy that began with 1995’s Gamera: Guardian of the Universe was genuinely really good. Gamera is much cooler here and feels like his own character, not necessarily in Godzilla’s shadow, and yet this trilogy does save its best stuff for the second and third movies. Speaking of…
2
‘Gamera 2: Attack of Legion’ (1996)
In Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Gamera was mostly friendly, as the title suggested. He wasn’t quite as adorable and almost cuddly in the same way he was in some of the earlier kid-friendly Gamera movies, but he was the guardian of at least the Earth, and maybe the universe, and all that. So, Gamera 2: Attack of Legion escalates things by giving him a more vicious threat to combat, and that leads to Gamera becoming something closer to an antihero.
The titular Legion is like a whole swarm of giant insects brought to Earth via a comet, and there is an ultimate queen of them that’s trying to conquer the Earth. Gamera does lose some of his connection to humanity in ways that will sound silly if explained, but make sense within the context of the trilogy and all, which is important for setting up the third (and best) film in this trilogy.
1
‘Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris’ (1999)
And that third and best movie is Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris, which sees the Gyaos – which were the main threat in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe – re-emerging. Gamera has slipped further from humanity, as far as his bond with the human race is concerned, and so he’s more or less a full-on antihero here, with Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris being, quite comfortably, the most intense and emotional of all the Gamera movies.
That commitment to something darker is ultimately what makes it feel special, and a big reason why, quality-wise, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris can honestly stand alongside the best of the best Godzilla movies. It’s a peak kaiju film in just about every way, and it concludes what ended up being a remarkable trilogy extremely well. It’s surprising to find a movie in a series that began as a Godzilla knock-off to be good enough to put a good many actual Godzilla movies to shame, but there we are, and there it is.
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris
- Release Date
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March 6, 1999
- Runtime
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108 minutes
- Director
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Shusuke Kaneko
- Writers
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Kazunori Itô, Shusuke Kaneko
