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This document will be updated as artists join Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026.

KARI (MARIGOLD) CADENHEAD

WHERE TO FIND KARI

Instagram | Website | Substack | Bluesky | LinkedIn

ARTS DEPARTMENT ASSET(S)

[Coming Friday, April 18, 02026]

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We were pleased to hear the news of the Mission’s inaugural Board Member. Though this isn’t exactly what we asked for in our last Field Report, it is a promising development. We will refrain from striking—for now. We will, per your instructions, prepare a postcard.

We do hope you can recruit more Board Members1.

What follows is our Field Report exploring the lessons in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964). As you might infer based on the contents of this Report, Julije Morrison, Political Analyst took the lead here. You will notice the dearth of quotes pulled from various political scholars and historians. While readers may think this Report includes too many quotes, believe us: the first several drafts contained many more quotes and commentary in caps lock.

When asked if they wanted to offer a note of grounding to the Mission’s readers, Mx. Morrison—without looking up from their desk—muttered: “Buckle up.”2

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GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 7

• Date: April 10, 02026¹

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

• Artifacts Examined:

  • Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)

  • Pages 84 - 97: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  • Pages 44 - 51: Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), of Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

• Rations Consumed: five espressos, a banana, an apple, a ziploc full of smoked almonds snagged from a local restaurant.

• Writing Soundtrack: (Nothing But) Flowers by the Talking Heads

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is the first film in which we see Godzilla becoming a reluctant ally to humanity. While we believe that this is a positive development, we should be clear: it’s not that Godzilla is particularly excited about being helpful.

Godzilla scholars Ryfle and Godziszewski note:

The monster was not yet truly a hero—it still held no sympathy for humankind, but it was now sworn to protect its homeland from outside threats as a reliable unpredictable guardian. - Page 91, The First 70 Years

A reliable, unpredictable guardian, indeed. Much like our Chief of Mission, Dudley Cramblin.

In this report, we offer five lessons for humanity about the violent nature of borders, the risks of jumping out of planes, the importance of believing folks’ experiences, the power of collective action, and collective responsibility.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 1: Borders Are an Absurd, Violent Construct

King Ghidorah—a three-headed, two-tailed flying monster from space—is not just Japan’s problem. He’s a problem for the whole world (as it turns out: he’s a problem for other worlds, too).

Kaiju have no reason to respect borders.

We believe that since Kaiju are ancient, living ancestors, they necessarily have a different political grounding than many of us humans. Their time scale is much longer than ours. Not only have they seen borders change—they have mostly known a world without nation-states or borders.

Borders are a modern and violent invention.

As Harsha Walia states in Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism:

In contrast to the inaccurate framing “We are a nation of immigrants,” the more subversive chant “We did not cross the border, the border crossed us” destabilizes the southern border by interrogating the assumption of “migrant” on seized lands and exposing the hypocrisy of colonizers calling people “illegals.” Subjugated communities, particularly Indigenous and Black (importantly, not mutually exclusive), are often folded into the liberal narrative of “racial minorities.” Further, Indigenous decolonial and Black abolition struggles are largely seen as disconnected from the immigrant rights movement, except in identifying shared struggles against racism. However, the war on migrants does not exist separate from or simply parallel to anti-Indigenous and anti-Black violence. Early US bordering practices were, in fact, conceived of as a method of eliminating Indigenous people and controlling Black people, and US border imperialism is structurally bound up in these genocides. - Page 23, Border & Rule

Movement across lands is natural (for humans and for Kaiju). Borders are not.

What might our shared futures look and feel like if we rejected the violent construct of borders and settler violence? A question for the Arts Department, we suppose.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 2: Be Advised That When Jumping Out of a Plane to Escape an Assassination Attempt, the Spirit of a Venusian Might Borrow Your Body for Their Advocacy Campaign

Early in the film, we meet Princess Salno of Selgina while she is en route to Japan. We quickly learn that her government is planning to assassinate her by blowing up her plane. (!)

Seconds before the explosion, she hears in her head an otherworldly voice that instructs her to jump from the aircraft. When she reappears in Japan, she is wearing a fisherman’s clothing and announcing the Kaiju Rodan’s impending arrival to a crowd of people.

This is not necessarily a bad thing—it could even be leveraged for building more just and equitable futures, depending on the Venusian’s message (though we do acknowledge some glaring issues here in regards to consent and bodily autonomy).

Our best advice to those of you traveling by air: stay alert and pack plenty of snacks.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 3: Believe Folks When They Share Their Experiences—Especially Regarding Oppression, Violence, and Apocalypse(s)

The Prophetess from Venus—who temporarily inhabits the body of Princess Salno of Selgina, pictured above—warns anyone within earshot of coming catastrophe. She correctly predicts Rodan’s emergence from the Aso Volcano and Ghidorah’s arrival.

To shed light on why defeating Ghidorah is so crucial, she explains: thousands of years ago, Ghidorah rendered Venus uninhabitable. She and other Venusians escaped a dying Venus by coming to Earth.

The people of Japan—predictably—ignore her, call her names, and forcibly sedate her to have her examined by a psychiatrist.

We see many parallels between the treatment of the Venusian and America’s treatment of Black, brown, Indigenous, queer, and disabled people.

State control of bodies, speech, and identity is not a new phenomena.3 Folks have been telling us about their worlds being blown to bits since before the United States was a country.

Below, we offer three examples of these experiences through the lenses of medical violence against Black people, the American Eugenics movement, and the continuous genocide of Indigenous peoples.

CONTENT NOTE: To folks impacted by state violence and descendents of impacted folks: you already know all of this, in your bones and in your hearts—skip this lesson. It is not for you. To folks who might feel uncomfortable but will not be re-traumatized by these facts: we implore you to read and breathe through your discomfort.

1. Harriet Washington (Medical Apartheid: the Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present) on medical violence against Black people throughout American history :

…race, culture, and economics have trumped medical and scientific truths at every turn … because the culture of American medicine has mirrored the larger culture that encompassed enslavement, segregation, and less dramatic forms of racial inequity. - Page 9, Medical Apartheid

Slaves were physically forced into painful medical bondage, their bodies were forced onto the stage of medical experiments to lend credence to claims of black inferiority and difference, and black bodies were even conscripted for anatomical dissection after death. Blacks were made subjects of experimentation that served to denigrate their intelligence or to provide distorted justifications for their enslavement. The reproductive rights of blacks also have been subjugated via fraudulent research up to the present day. Groups of vulnerable blacks, including children, soldiers and prisoners, have been consistently targeted. Both the federal government and private corporations have devised large-scale research abuses that range from radiation experiments to biological-weapons development. … it has mirrored the larger American cultural beliefs as well as politics and economic trends. - Page 385, Medical Apartheid

2. Sarah Spriggs (Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fatphobia) on Eugenics, antiblackness, and fatphobia in the 1880s United States:

…America was the land of the lofty race of lean Nordics or Aryans. [Eugenicists] devised theories to confirm Nordic/Aryan supremacy—and southern and eastern European degeneracy. They simultaneously worked to promote the judicious mating of the superior peoples.

While politicians crafted anti-immigrant legislation and scientists generated studies on (eugenic) racial inheritance, artists and journalists also had their part to play. In the popular press, the question of the racial-and relatedly physical-character of Americans loomed large.

In the spirit of American exceptionalism, they embraced the country as a melting pot of morally upright, democratic, and forward-thinking peoples. Yet they were clear to specify which nations, races, and peoples contributed to this arcadian melting pot: those from northern and western Europe. With women commonly being used to represent the nation, the emerging face and figure of American exceptionalism as seen in mainstream art and media was the trim Nordic woman. - Page 159, Fearing the Black Body

3. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States) on the genocidal formation of the United States:

US history, as well as inherited Indigenous trauma, cannot be understood without dealing with the genocide that the United States committed against Indigenous peoples. From the colonial period through the founding of the United States and continuing in the twentieth century, this has entailed torture, terror, sexual abuse, massacres, systematic military occupations, removals of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, and removals of Indigenous children to military-like boarding schools. The absence of even the slightest note of regret or tragedy in the annual celebration of the US independence betrays a deep disconnect in the consciousness of US Americans.

Settler colonialism is inherently genocidal in terms of the genocide convention. In the case of the British North American colonies and the United States, not only extermination and removal were practiced but also the disappearing of the prior existence of Indigenous peoples—and this continues to be perpetuated in local histories. - Page 9, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

We wonder what our present might look like if we had listened to and taken these stories seriously sometime in the last 400 years. We do not know, but we do hope that this information helps to inform a political grounding as we continue to imagine just and equitable futures.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 4: Even Rivals Can Collaborate to Defeat an Existential Threat

In addition to being a film about the absurdity of borders and apocalypse, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is a film about the common phrase: “teamwork makes the dream work.4”

Though Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra are usually enemies, they come together (only after Godzilla and Rodan gnash their teeth and ferociously volley rocks back-and-forth between their noggins).

Mothra takes on the emotional labor of diplomatic facilitation as she tries to convince Godzilla and Rodan to defend the Earth from Ghidorah. Ryfle and Godziszewski outline the epic fighting in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster:

The fight between Godzilla and Rodan moves to the Mount Fuji foothills and involves much comic horseplay (tail biting, a judo flip, boulder kicking, and volleying-the latter a nod to the Olympic gold medal-winning Japan women’s volleyball team)5 before Rodan keeps Godzilla at bay with a wing-flapping windstorm. Mothra arrives and attempts to end the juvenile antics by spraying Godzilla, then Rodan, in the face with silk, each monster laughing at the other’s suffering.

In the long-awaited kaiju summit, the monsters communicate in a cross-species dialect; Mothra’s appeal to the others falls on deaf ears at first. “Godzilla’s saying ‘We have no reason to help humans,”report the Small Beauties, acting as interpreters. “Humans are always bullying us.’”6

Rodan and Godzilla harbor a mutual grudge, stubbornly demanding an apology and refusing to budge. But when Mothra confronts King Ghidorah alone, the pair relent and join the fight. The Earth monsters prevail via clever teamwork, Godzilla holding King Ghidorah back while Mothra—assisted by Rodan—cocoons the dragon in sticky silk. - Page 89, The First 70 Years

None of this suggests that Godzilla and Rodan are (as members of the public might say) “buds”. Regardless, they were able to set aside their conflict-of-the-day to beat Ghidorah’s ass; something none of the Earth Kaiju could have done alone.

This is not an argument for blanket forgiveness of those who have caused us harm—this is an example of the episodic collaboration that is sometimes necessary to defeat existential threats, such as technofascism.

We do hope that after the kerfuffle, Godzilla and Rodan were able to navigate the conflict between them in a productive and kind way. We are grateful to the Kaiju for understanding the interdependent nature of our lives and world(s) amd acting accordingly.

To underline the importance of collective action such as this, we offer a quote from in It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform our World:

[Collectivism] requires us to change how we live our lives, as we are aware that the way we live is because of the way others live, and therefore how we choose to act impacts the way others are able to live. To lean into collectivism, to see the similarities in our still-unique experiences, is to find our way out of this. It’s to know that none of us are truly free until all of us are free. - Page 206, It’s Not That Radical

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 5: The Earth Does Not Belong to Humans Alone

During her effort to convince Godzilla and Rodan to help defend the Earth against Ghidorah, Mothra pleads:

The Earth does not belong to humans alone. What might our shared futures look and feel like if we took collective responsibility for our home, not just in collaboration with other humans but also with our more-than-human neighbors?

For too long, some of humanity has acted as though the Earth is ours to use and abuse as we please. As we noted in Field Report No. 5, exploitation of other living beings is more possible when humans consider themselves as separate from nature instead of a part of (and interdependent with) nature.

In closing, we once again offer Mikaela Loach’s wisdom regarding what it will take to build just and equitable futures, in the context of climate action:

This fight cannot only be worth it if we are guaranteed to completely win the new world within our lifetimes. Make no mistake, what we are fighting for is huge. It’s unlikely to be won completely within my lifetime. We might not even be able to see the changes happening around us. That does not mean we give up. That does not mean the fight is not worth it. There is so much we won’t see. There is so much we haven’t seen. For so many of us, the degree to which we are liberated is the result of so many actions - big and small - of those who came before us. I am so glad that they thought acting to change the world was worth it. I might not be here if they hadn’t. - Page 224, It’s Not That Radical

The Kaiju, who are much older than us, know this. It is time we catch up. For more thoughts on not giving up, see Lesson for Humanity No. 4 in Field Report No. 5: Be More Stubborn. Be Blatant. Be Emotional. Risk Everything.

Rations are well-stocked once again. Thank you for sending fun snacks. We hope these were not a bribe to prevent us from striking.

Yours in Science7,

The Godzilla Field Office

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

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From: Mission HQ [Deputy Director Vera Rowen]

Date: April 07, 02026

Subject: Assignment. Citizen-submitted Hypothesis re: Monarch & Legacy

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Dear Field Office Team,

I am writing to share a thought submitted by citizen-scientist and supporter of Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026, :

While this mission’s artifact review is (for now) concerned with the Godzilla franchise films, Director Stevens and I believe that this inquiry is related to the research question, What might the future look like if humankind were to implement lessons from The Godzilla franchise about love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves?

We must also acknowledge the publicity surrounding Apple TV’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters should bolster public engagement with this Mission.

You are to develop a special Field Report exploring McCarthy’s thoughts above. I suggest you conduct your analysis with the support of bell hooks’ all about love and the radical anthology Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines. This literature, paired with McCarthy’s thoughts, should provide you with the material to explore the following questions:

1. What place does legacy have (or not have) in our motivations to build a better future?

2. What can the Kaiju teach us about being responsible living ancestors?

3. How might the tensions between humans and Kaiju—as McCarthy describes—look different if our world were built with a love ethic, as defined by bell hooks?

Please submit this Field Report no later than May 24th.

Note: I received your request for money. No.

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From: Mission HQ [Deputy Director Vera Rowen]

Date: April 05, 02026

Subject: Directive. Collaborate with Slasher re: Godzilla Analog Horror

Dear Field Office Team,

You are hereby directed to collaborate with The Archive on their upcoming exploration of the Godzilla-themed fan analog horror series The Man in The Suit. This exploration will be published in the horror archive, Slasher.

Slasher

An archive documenting how horror exposes the systems that shape us. Discomfort is intentional.

By Skyla

Before EOD today, please initiate contact with , who will act as your point person for this collaboration. You are to write an 600 - 900 word introduction outlining the historical and cultural significance of the suit and suit acting in Godzilla (1954). Please refrain from focusing solely on the Godzilla funeral PR stunt. We know that all of you love thinking about Godzilla playing the ukelele and having a good time, but keep in mind that the overall oeuvre of Slasher is that of discomfort. In the archivists’ own words: Slasher examines horror through the lens of media, control, and cultural decay.

We know that all of you (aside from Egg, who is very brave) are—as the youth say—“scaredy-cats.” Remember that ours is the work of exploration and discovery. Not everything can be about all living beings being “sweeties,” as you often insist.

We believe that this collaboration will enrich the mission and help to bolster public engagement. If you have questions or concerns, please do not bring them up. You can try to reach The Operator, but we do not believe you will succeed.

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INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

We hope that your decision to introduce the team to the public is helping to build trust with the public. We would also thank you for refraining from redacting Lesson For Humanity No. 5 (eggs) in our latest field report.

We apologize for sending our Field Reports about Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) and King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) out of chronological order. It took us a while to dig up a copy of King Kong vs. Godzilla, and even then, it is the American re-edit of the original Japanese film from 1962. We urge Mission HQ to please allow us the resources to obtain access to Criterion’s Godzilla: The Showa Era Films, 1954 -1975. It retails for $179.96. We have done the math, and if:

• 22 people become monthly paid subscribers, OR

• One person becomes a Mission Patron (aka Founding Subscriber), OR

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• Folks use this link to make a one-time monetary donation (not tax deductible)

  Support the Mission

…we will be able to access the proper, original King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962). Please remind supporters that paid subscribers receive Godzilla-themed postcards from us each month, and Mission Patrons will receive (in addition to postcards) a photograph of a plaque with their name on it installed here at the Field Office.

Based on how egregious the American re-edit of Godzilla (1954) was (see our analysis here), we believe that our research will be badly flawed without the inclusion of the original 1962 version. Our hypotheses are that the 1962 version offers explicit lessons about corporate greed and that a comparison of the two films might offer insights into narrative power and neo-colonialism.

That said, we continue to be good boys, and below we offer lessons from the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963). If this information drought continues, we may cease to be good boys and will organize a strike.

GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 6

• Date: April 2, 020261

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

• Artifacts Examined:

  • King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963 - The U.S. Version)

  • Pages 54 - 67: King Kong vs. Godzilla, Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  • Pages 30 - 35: Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), of Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

• Rations Consumed: four espressos, one bag of popcorn, a banana, several handfuls of wasabi peas, at least one bad attitude

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes

Please find below five lessons for humanity that might help us build more just and equitable futures.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 1: Honor the lineage of your work

All of us are building on work by those who came before us, all of the time. As Mindy Seu writes in Cyberfeminism Index:

Ryfle and Godziszewski highlight this practice as they take us behind-the-scenes to the making of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963):

“[Screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa] later recalled the excitement surrounding the production. “I remember thinking, I might get to write about that guy who climbed the Empire State Building,” he said. Though the tone is far removed from the original King Kong, Sekizawa included homages to it, such as the wooden ramparts on Faro Island that protect the natives from their monster-god and Kong beating his chest. “Instead of goofing around and trying to come up with something new, I thought it would be better to keep what’s already there. Those things were a must,” he said. - Page 58, The First 70 Years

We at the Field Office believe that this practice of co-authorship—of honoring what came before and of creating as a collective—will help humanity divest from violent ideas of rugged individualism and scarcity.

We should note here that our fellow scholar recently wrote about co-authorship with our more than human world, including oysters, a harbor, and water itself. Read more here:

Seed & Signal™

World-Building Is a Zoning Meeting

When most people hear “world-building,” they picture something cinematic. A dystopian skyline. A sleeper ship. A map with invented mountain ranges and languages no one speaks. They think Tolkien, they think Blade Runner, they think some brilliant eccentric alone with a notebook inventing the rules of gravity…

Read more

16 days ago · 3 likes · amalia deloney

None of us knows everything, together we know a lot.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 2: Effective collaboration and coordination are skills that take time and practice to develop

As Eugene Kim teaches us, collaboration requires a set of muscles, and we strengthen these muscles by exercising them repeatedly.2 These muscles take time to condition! Effective collaboration requires trust, which does not develop overnight.

The memorable Godzilla-versus-train sequence is a fine example of the coordination between the Honda (Director) and Tsuburaya (Special Effects) teams, shooting the live-action drama—in this case, on location at Gotemba, near Mount Fuji—and special effects footage on a Toho stage. By now the two directors had an established system involving advance planning and storyboarding, constant communication via assistant directors, and one-on-one meetings. Colleagues said the men developed an unusually close understanding in which words were not required. “They could almost read each other’s minds,” remembered Haruo Nakajima.

When I went to Stage No. 9 every morning at 9 A.M., they were already there, discussing the connections between the drama and effects parts. ... Mr. Honda goes, ‘How do you want to handle this part?’ and Oyaji-san answers, I think it’ll work out like this! They understood one another just by saying this part’ and ‘that part. I had no idea what they were talking about.” - Page 58, The First 70 Years

While it may seem obvious to some, we would like to point out that collaboration and coordination are distinct-yet-related practices.

In this case, coordination looks like information sharing and managing logistics (“constant communication via assistant directors”) and collaboration looks like discussing and brainstorming (“How do you want to handle this part?”). Different moments require different levels of working together.

An assumption implicit in this lesson that we would like to make explicit: We take “By now … “ to suggest that this level of coordination and collaboration between Honda and Tsubaraya took time and practice, and that they likely stepped on each other’s toes a few times before developing their ways of working.

We believe that humanity would do well to remember that these kinds of relationships take time, space, and some level of willingness to engage in conflict navigation and repair. It follows, then, that humanity would do well to unlearn disposability politics and cancel culture3, but we digress.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 3: Fierce and silly are not mutually exclusive

Our culture has a tendency to engage in either-or, binary thinking. We appreciate Toho’s work, as it shows us that “fierce and silly” can—and often do—exist on the same plane:

The final showdown is the first Toho monster battle to take place, significantly, beneath Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan and the nation’s sacred symbol, surrounded by temples and shrines. In this revered spot, the monsters engage in a battle alternately fierce and silly. - Page 62, The First 70 Years

Just because something is “silly” does not mean it is not also formidable. Humanity would do well to remember this, especially when deciding who and what to take seriously.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 4: Open knowledge = open hearts and minds

Knowledge hoarding is a key component to capitalism and keeping the masses divided. Just as the lies behind racism and eugenics are tools to keep the working classes divided (lest they unite against the much smaller ruling class), so too is Universal Production’s treatment of King Kong vs. Godzilla’s copyright.

While conducting our artifact review, we read:

It should be noted that this chapter covers the original, Japanese-language version of King Kong vs. Godzilla, which first became available in the US in 2019 through the Criterion Collection. For the preceding fifty-six years, the film was seen in America and certain Western territories only in a drastically altered version produced by John Beck and released theatrically in 1963 by Universal-International. Scenes were deleted and reordered, Ifukube’s music was largely replaced with library cues, and Honda’s TV satire was obfuscated by frequent inserts of actors portraying newscasters. This cut is largely responsible for the criticism the film has received outside Japan. The existence of different versions across the globe also led to a legendary rumor that each edit had a different ending, with Kong winning the fight in America and Godzilla in Japan. In truth, both versions end the same way: ambiguously, with Kong swimming 3,000 miles (4,828 km) back to Faro Island and Godzilla disappearing below the depths. - Page 66, The First 70 Years

And:

Of course, the US crafted its own dubbed version of the film, re-editing much of the movie and filming entirely new segments, just as it had done with Godzilla in 1954. In the American version, several newscasters comment on the events from afar, while Mr. Tako is almost entirely cut out of the movie, as it was feared his cartoonish performance would be deemed too silly by American audiences. - Page 33, The Official Guide

We previously covered the American-led whitewashing and dilution of Godzilla (1954) through the analysis of Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956)

We are just as frustrated now as we were then.

Please refer to our request for resources/threat to strike in the introduction of this document.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 5: Getting on a train in a monster movie is a bad idea

Each time we see a movie monster and a train, it ends badly for both the train and the passengers.

If one finds oneself in the vicinity of Godzilla, Kong, or other Kaiju, we suggest one considers the train as one’s last resort.

Rations are (mostly) well-stocked, though we could use more fun treats.

Please send money.

Yours in Science4,

The Godzilla Field Office

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

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We have heard from potential collaborators that “it is hard to trust the project” because of a lack of transparency about who we are.

We heard you. We are used to working in large, quiet, gray buildings where we were not treated as individuals, so it did not occur to us to share the identities of Mission Team Members. Thank you for your patience. Team members are listed in order of seniority.

We thank for her availability to photograph our team on such short notice. We thank the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for refraining from throwing our Principle Investigator out of the building.

Director Stevens, PhD

Director Stevens, PhD is the Director of Mission HQ. He oversees a plethora of research teams investigating Science Fiction franchises. He has a PhD in physics with a focus on relativity. He brings lived experience to his field: his limbs have a strange effect on gravity that he seeks to explain via his post-doctoral work. Fun Fact: When he thinks very hard, he goes crosseyed.

Deputy Director Vera Rowen, PhD, MPH, JD, MA

Deputy Director Vera Rowen is one of Mission HQ’s most well-credentialed employees. Ms. Rowen oversees the smooth operation of HQ’s missions and is in charge of delegation and efficiency. She does not like fun.

Egg | Administrative Assistant

Egg is the Administrative Assistant assigned to Deputy Director Rowen’s desk. Egg is in charge of social media, email, and the team’s calendars. Egg loves logistics. Fun Fact: At parties, Egg wears a raspberry on their head as a hat.

Dudley Cramblin | Chief of Mission

Dudley Cramblin is the Chief of Mission assigned to the Godzilla Mission Field Office. Mr. Cramblin brings nearly a decade of leadership experience to the Field Office. Since Mr. Cramblin has fewer thumbs than the rest of the Field Office Team, he is in charge of morale. Fun Fact: Even without thumbs, Mr. Cramblin travels by bicycle.

Steve “Tex” Collins, PhD | Principle Investigator

Steve “Tex” Collins is Principle Investigator for the Mission. Dr. Collins brings invaluable experience to the mission—experience that no one else has (we asked around). Dr. Collins has held a myriad of research positions, and has been described as a “liability” more than once. Dr. Collins believes that if dinosaurs were still alive, he could tame an adolescent Tyrannosaurus Rex. Fun Fact: REDACTED

Julije Morrison, MS | Political Analyst

Julije Morrison works as a Political Analyst for the Godzilla Mission. Mx. Morrison’s favorite thinkers include Paulo Freire, bell hooks, David Graeber, Sabrina Strings, and the Gorgona Arts Group. Mx. Morrison is responsible for the Mission’s political grounding. Mx. Morrison doesn’t believe in the concept of private property, especially in the context of the contents of the Field Office refrigerator. Fun Fact: Mx. Morrison and Mr. Cramblin have the same taste in cartoons.

Monty Turnigan | Research Assistant

Monty Turnigan is the Research Assistant assigned to the Godzilla Mission. Mr. Turnigan is supporting the Field Office team while pursuing his Masters in Public Infrastructure. Mr. Turnigan’s research sits at the intersection of Steam Vent Cones and rodent culture. Mr. Turnigan supports the Field Office Team through knowledge management, managing citations, and keeping rations well-stocked. Fun Fact: Mr. Turnigan didn’t apply for this position. He arrived at the Field Office by accident and waited too long to say anything. Now he works there.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

Due to budgetary constraints and the corporate knowledge hoarding that is a key component of capitalism, we have not been able to access King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), so this field report explores lessons for humanity offered in Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964). We hope you will keep promoting the Mission Patron program so that we might have the resources to access each artifact selected for review.

We acknowledge receipt of your direction to meet the photographer this morning. We promise that we will be professional. That said, we are curious as to how the Mission can afford a photographer and not Criterion’s Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954 - 1975 Box Set.

As directed, what follows is a rewrite of our first draft. While you’ll see we offer five lessons for humanity, we still believe that Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) is about eggs.

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GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 5

• Date: March 27, 020261

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

• Artifacts Examined:

  • Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

  • Pages 68 - 81: Mothra vs. Godzilla, Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  • Pages 36 - 43: Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), of Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

• Number of Times We Cried About How Beautiful Mothra is: 4.5

• Rations Consumed: three espressos, one bag of popcorn, an apple, three spoonfuls of peanut butter

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes

In addition to being a film about eggs, Mothra vs. Godzilla is a film that offers lessons about the perils of greed and capitalism, abolition of violent carceral systems, the passage of time, and the virtues of being stubborn.

Below, we offer five lessons for humanity so that we might build a more just and equitable future.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 1: Don’t Be So Greedy

A violent typhoon opens the film. The torrential downpour knocks sediment loose, and in the aftermath, we see a giant egg floating off the coast of Shizunoura. This is the first—but nowhere near the last—egg sighting throughout the film.

A businessman named Kumayama and his financial backer Jiro Torohata “buy” the egg with intentions to turn it into an amusement park for Happy Enterprises. We use quotes here because one should not be able to “buy” something that is not for sale.

During our artifact review, we were struck by how realistic Kumayama and Torohata’s behavior was—this did not feel like an overplayed bit. In The First 70 Years, Ryfle and Godziszewski give us a peek into the actors’ process:

Actors Tajima and Sahara, both playing against type, relish their roles; Sahara went so far as to research the part by hanging out with pushy real estate speculators. - pg 76, The First 70 Years

These characters are not extreme tropes. These characters offer archetypes for many people in power across the world. Here are some thoughts that we at the Field Office are sitting with:

Exploitation of other living beings is more possible when humans consider themselves as separate from nature instead of a part of (and interdependent with) nature. As it is written in the Mission Log: “Classic rich guy behavior.”

The principles underlying our ideas of ownership: as David Graeber and David Wengrow demonstrate in The Dawn of Everything, our society’s understanding of ownership is based on the Roman principle of Dominium:

What makes the Roman Law conception of property - the basis of almost all legal systems today - unique is that the responsibility to care and share is reduced to a minimum, or even eliminated entirely. In Roman Law there are three basic rights relating to possession: usus (the right to use), fructus (the right to enjoy the products of a property, for instance the fruit of a tree), and abusus (the right to damage or destroy). If one has only the first two rights this is referred to as usufruct, and is not considered true possession under the law. The defining feature of true legal property, then, is that one has the option of not taking care of it, or even destroying it at will. -pg 161, The Dawn of Everything (emphasis our own)

In this instance, ownership is inherently violent. The Happy Enterprises businessmen “owned” Mothra’s Egg because they believed they had a right to use, enjoy, and destroy (or exploit) it.

Eggs. We are thinking about eggs.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 2: Even Bad People Have a Right to Live

This lesson is a direct line from the film, spoken in the context of impending destruction: Mothra is on her way to fight Godzilla, and bystanders are sure to be hurt. Some of these bystanders are innocent. Some (like the Happy Enterprises businessmen) are decidedly not.

While the dichotomy of “good” and “bad” is a false one that is firmly rooted in white supremacy, we interpret “bad” in this instance as: “people who have caused harm.”

We interpret this as a call for the abolition of the death penalty, and by extension, all carceral and punitive systems. This is not an argument to rid the world of accountability, but to practice accountability in loving, generative ways.

While harm should be addressed and abusers should be held to account, punishment and state-sanctioned carceral violence is not accountability.2 Our more ‘tame’ colleagues at Mission HQ might take issue with this, but you are the ones who asked for more lessons than “eggs.”

All of this said, we were not disappointed when the greedy businessmen met their demise. Multiple things can be true at once.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 3: All Things End, and Time is a Spiral

Knowing she is at the end of her lifecycle, Mothra uses the last of her strength to keep Godzilla away from her egg. As we saw her take her last breath, many of us were moved to tears. To borrow a phrase from baseball fans, the special effects team led by Eiji Tsubaraya “knocked this one out of the park.”

While Godzilla tries to recover, the Shobijin—tiny twin fairies who accompany and speak for Mothra—sing Mothra’s song to encourage Mothra’s egg to hatch.

The egg hatches, indeed, and it’s Mothra twins! Mothra—like love—never truly dies.

What’s remarkable about this moment is not just that Mothra is reborn as twins. What’s also remarkable is the Shobijin’s stewardship of ritual, memory, and care as the next iteration of Mothra came into the world to stop Godzilla.

Time is a spiral. Things end, but so too do they begin.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 4: Be More Stubborn. Be Blatant. Be Emotional. Risk Everything.

Mothra’s home, Infant Island, is an island in the Caroline Islands of the North Pacific that has been devastated by nuclear testing. The film’s protagonists walk among the bones of former Infant Island residents, killed by nuclear bombs.

Referring to the cartoonish remains of Infant Island fauna, director Ishiro Honda reflected:

“I wanted to visualize the terror and the power of the atomic bomb,” director Ishiro Honda later said. “The first Infant Island scene was supposed to be more graphic and realistic, [but] the art department didn’t have enough budget to make the set that I wanted. As a director, I should have been more stubborn.” - pg 77, The First 70 Years

When imagining a better and more equitable, joyful future, we’re often told “that’s not possible,” or “that will never happen.” We are dismissed as naïve and ignorant.

We believe that to build better futures, we must be stubborn. We must push back on cynicism and resignation. We are building and shaping the future now, in the present. We can learn from Ishiro Honda: We should all be more stubborn, for the sake of the generations that come after us.

In the hallways of the Field Office, we have a poster that reads: “BE BLATENT. BE EMOTIONAL. RISK EVERYTHING.” This serves as a reminder to be more stubborn.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 5: Eggs

We hope that—since we have complied with the directive to include other lessons for humanity—HQ will not redact this section.

Eggs.

Not only does the film prominently feature Mothra’s egg, but there is a reporter in the film, Jiro Nakamura (played by Yu Fujiki), who—several times—pulls a boiled egg out of his sportcoat pocket to eat. Sometimes he has hot sauce. Sometimes he has cutlery. He always has an egg. He is always prepared.

We are looking forward to seeing how our colleagues in the Arts Department interpet these lessons. We believe that even if humanity implements just one of these lessons, the future will be more just, equitable, and joyful.

Yours in Science3,

The Godzilla Field Office

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

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FOR MISSION CONTEXT:

Read this project’s Research Methodology, linked below:

TO READ MISSION ASSETS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:

To access each asset, click on the underlined text.

1. Press Release: Godzilla Mission Brief

2. Godzilla Field Report No. 1 : Initial Findings

3. Godzilla Field Report No. 2: Seven themes fro understanding Godzilla 1954 (and therefore, ourselves)

4. Godzilla Field Report No. 3: On silence, experimentation, trust, and the fact that time and space are Big

5. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Stop Making Things Up

6. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Mission Scope Revision Approved

7. Press Release: Call For Artists, Revised Mission Scope, and Updated Channels for Public Engagement

8. Building Just & Equitable Futures with Godzilla - call for collaborators

9. Research Methodology for Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

10. The Godzilla Mission Arts Department Creative Brief

11. Godzilla Field Report No. 4: Three lessons for humanity regarding narrative power, the myth of apolitical decisions, and the risks of relying on one source of information

12. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Mothra vs. Godzilla is Not a “Film About Eggs” and an Emergency Photoshoot

13. Godzilla Field Report No. 5: Five lessons from Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) for humanity regarding greed, abolition, lifecycles, the virtue of being stubborn, and eggs

14. Meet the Godzilla Mission Team: Team photos and brief biographies

15. Godzilla Field Report No. 6: Five lessons for humanity regarding the lineage of ideas, collaboration, silliness, open knowledge, and avoiding trains when fleeing a Big Monster

16. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Directive. Collaborate with Slasher re: Godzilla Analog Horror

17. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Assignment. Citizen-submitted Hypothesis re: Monarch & Legacy

18. Godzilla Field Report No. 7: Five lessons for humanity about the violent nature of borders, the risks of jumping out of planes, believing folks’ experiences, the power of collective action, and collective responsibility.

19. [COLLABORATION WITH ] The Godzilla Suit Incident: How The Man in The Suit embraced tragedy through monsters

20. Meet The Godzilla Mission Arts Department

SECTIONS OF OUR SITE:

Field Reports: Reports authored by the Field Office offering lessons from humanity from the Godzilla franchise.

1. Godzilla Field Report No. 1 : Initial Findings

2. Godzilla Field Report No. 2: Seven themes fro understanding Godzilla 1954 (and therefore, ourselves)

3. Godzilla Field Report No. 3: On silence, experimentation, trust, and the fact that time and space are Big

4. Godzilla Field Report No. 4: Three lessons for humanity regarding narrative power, the myth of apolitical decisions, and the risks of relying on one source of information

5. Godzilla Field Report No. 5: Five lessons from Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) for humanity regarding greed, abolition, lifecycles, the virtue of being stubborn, and eggs

6. Godzilla Field Report No. 6: Five lessons for humanity regarding the lineage of ideas, collaboration, silliness, open knowledge, and avoiding trains when fleeing a Big Monster

7. Godzilla Field Report No. 7: Five lessons for humanity about the violent nature of borders, the risks of jumping out of planes, believing folks’ experiences, the power of collective action, and collective responsibility.

Mission Correspondence: Non-confidential mission correspondence

1. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Stop Making Things Up

2. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Mission Scope Revision Approved

3. Building Just & Equitable Futures with Godzilla - call for collaborators

4. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Mothra vs. Godzilla is Not a “Film About Eggs” and an Emergency Photoshoot

5. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Directive. Collaborate with Slasher re: Godzilla Analog Horror

6. Memo to Godzilla Mission Field Office: Assignment. Citizen-submitted Hypothesis re: Monarch & Legacy

Arts Department: all materials related to the Arts Department.

1. The Godzilla Mission Arts Department Creative Brief

2. Meet The Godzilla Mission Arts Department

For the Press:

1. Press Release: Godzilla Mission Brief

2. Press Release: Call For Artists, Revised Mission Scope, and Updated Channels for Public Engagement

3. Meet the Godzilla Mission Team: Team photos and brief biographies

About This Mission:

1. About page

Collaborative Articles:

1. [COLLABORATION WITH ] The Godzilla Suit Incident: How The Man in The Suit embraced tragedy through monsters

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To: Godzilla Mission Field Office (GMFO), All Staff

From: Mission HQ [Deputy Director Vera Rowen]

Date: March 26, 02026

Subject: Mothra vs. Godzilla is Not a “Film About Eggs” and an Emergency Photoshoot

Dear Field Office Team,

We received your draft of Field Report No. 5. Upon review, we’ve decided not to publish. We believe that Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) offers many more lessons than (as you wrote) ”Eggs.” Please rewrite.

As you know, we have experienced a “hiccup” in engagement between potential collaborators and the Godzilla Mission Arts Department. Potential collaborators have expressed concern about working with an anonymous team. As they say, they “need to know who they are working with.”

While this Institution has benefitted from blind trust and a populace that did not demand transparency, we suppose the world is changing.

In hopes of gaining the public’s trust, we will publish an “About Us” page for Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026. All Field Office Team members are required to take headshots. For this purpose, we have booked a photographer for tomorrow, Friday, March 27 at 10:00 AM EST. We will provide you with a location via encrypted communication. Please arrive promptly and wear professional attire. Remember that you are not only representing the mission, but our entire Institution. Please do not embarrass us.

If you have questions, do not reach out.

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INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

We at the Field Office are grateful that Director Stevens approved our proposed scope revision. We agree that this change will allow members of the public to engage with our work more meaningfully. From this moment on, we will frame our reports to offer lessons that might support humanity to co-build more just and equitable futures.

We also received your directive to stop making things up. We will try to comply.1 That said, we would like to note that—as those of us who were involved recall—the Whistling Bears mission of 2016 was a wild success.

While we do not want to seem ungrateful, we must share that we are—to use the colloquial term—“bamboozled” by you and Dir. Stevens’ decision to establish a mission Arts Department without our input.

We can sense from your directive that you are not keen on the lesson we offered in our last transmission (trust the people closest to the work), but we were still dismayed to learn the details about this new Arts Department alongside the public in the latest Press Release. We will, as you suggest, “cooperate” with those in the Arts Department, but we would like our dissatisfaction noted in the official Dissatisfaction Ledger.

In other news, we have completed our revision of the Research Methodology. We hope you find the changes satisfactory. You will see that we went to great lengths to ensure that the newly formed2 Arts Department is represented, because—as we feel the need to remind you—we are good boys.

Finally, as you suggested, we brought one of our cellular-device-embedded-cameras on the Chief of Mission’s morning walk. Luckily, the artifact we mentioned in Field Report No. 3 remained in place.

What follows is a Field Report reflecting on the lessons offered in Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), the American re-edit of Godzilla (1954).

You might detect a contemptuous tone throughout this Report. Suffice to say: we hated this. We acknowledge that we perhaps are viewing this artifact through a different lens than American moviegoers in 1956, and we do not wish to detract from any fondness they may have for the film.3 It was, after all, the only version of the original Godzilla available to the American public until 2004.

GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 4

• Date: March 19, 02026

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

• Artifacts Examined:

  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956)

  • Pages 36 - 37: Lost in America, Lost in Japan: Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  • Page 15: Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), of Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

• Rations Consumed: three espressos, red beans and rice, tinned fish, a banana

• Artifact Review Soundtrack: Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Navigator

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes

You might consider this Field Report a deeper exploration of Theme 5 of Field Report No. 2: Everything is Political. We argue that this film is a study in narrative power, the myth of apolitical decisions, and the risks of relying on one source of information.

Stories—and how they are told—hold immense power to shape culture and policy. We should treat them (and the people from whom they come) with care and reverence.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 1:

We should not edit others stories, especially when we are the ones responsible for harm.

The American studio took an axe to the orginal Godzilla. They edited footage, changed lines, chopped up the timeline, and added new storylines to remove almost any reference to immense harm caused to Japan and its people by the U.S. Empire.

We believe this is a particular form of narrative violence. Some of the most egregious changes include:

• Rather than let the story flow, as it does in the original, the American version is narrated by an American journalist who is “just stopping over in Japan,” rendering the origin of the story an afterthought. This journalist also somehow makes his way into important rooms where top secret missions are discussed. We don’t buy it.

• The American version removes any mention of the U.S.’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We counted one (1) mention of the H-bomb test at Castle Bravo by Dr. Yamane, and the edits treat this as an unimportant piece of information.

• The American version removes any mention of radiation. When the team investigating the happenings on Odo Island are standing in Godzilla’s footprint, they only go as far to use the word “contamination.” In the original Godzilla, this is called what is it: radiation. To illustrate the general feeling here at the Field Office: some of us yelled at the television during the scene in which Dr. Yamane picks up a trilobite and his colleagues urge him not to touch it with his bare hands: “Are you gonna say WHY Dr. Yamane shouldn’t pick up that trilobite? ARE YOU GONNA SAY WHYYYYYYYY?!”4

• In the original Godzilla, Odo Islanders speak to journalists and then come to Tokyo to testify about their tragic and terrifying experience with the massive monster. In 1954, English subtitles tell us that this group of people are “petitioners.” In the American re-edit, they are “interrogated by authorities” and referred to as “Islanders … brought by officials for a direct report.” We are sure we don’t need to tell you—this edit shifts the power dynamics, robs Odo residents of agency, and takes a decidedly authoritarian approach to how people within the story tell their stories.5

• The American version removes what we believe is a crucial scene that helps us understand cultural and historical context for Godzilla. In this scene, commuters on a train (which minutes later is crushed by Godzilla in the same style of the Chief of Mission when he chews on his stuffed platypus6) converse:

• We argued in Field Report No. 1 that Godzilla (1954) is, among other things, a film about how being a radio broadcaster is a Very Dangerous job. In the American re-edit, we only see the radio broadcasters once, which rids the film of this crucial lesson.

We would like to argue that this was not a simple re-edit of the original Godzilla movie, but an act of colonization, erasure, and revisionist history. Those of you at Mission HQ might find this—as you’ve called our analysis in the past—”extreme.” Respectfully, you are wrong.

To be clear: we are aware of Japan’s Imperial history, and do not wish to appear to romanticize Japan or any other nation-state. We focus on the United States of America because:

1. This is an American film.

2. We at the Field Office are most familiar with American history.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 2:

Everything is political, nothing is neutral. We should act accordingly.

Some of the most political decisions are often defended as “apolitical.” We argue that there is no such thing.

Let us repeat a note from Field Report No. 2.

Ryfle and Godziszewski give us an overview of how this abomination was made after an American studio bought the rights:

“More than one-third of the original film was excised; scenes were shortened or deleted altogether, including key references to the atomic bombing of Japan, Godzilla’s relationship to hydrogen bomb testing, and political squabbles over whether to make this information public. Notably, Dr. Yamane’s final speech about the dangers of nuclear testing and the likelihood of another Godzilla was removed, and the American cut ends with Burr instead declaring that “the whole world could wake up and live again.”

Because the film arrived in theaters at a time when the US and USSR conducted hundreds of hydrogen bomb tests, these changes to the film have fueled speculation that the American distributors neutered the antinuclear message for political reasons. “No,” responded producer Richard Kay. “We weren’t interested in politics, believe me. We only wanted to make a movie we could sell.” Kay noted that the film was released just eleven years after World War II. “At that time, the American public wouldn’t have gone for a movie with an all-Japanese cast. That’s why we did what we did. We didn’t really change the story. We just gave it an American point of view.”

Nothing is neutral. By this we mean: the way we walk down the street, the way we work, and the way we tell (or don’t tell) stories reflects a set of values. The actions we take or don’t take reinforce beliefs, structures, and ideologies. Systems are made up of people, after all.

This is not to say that every person should be stressed out, hypervigilant, and over-careful at all times—this is to invite us to remember that we each have an impact on the world around us.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY No. 3:

When we get all of our information or education from one source, our understanding of the world is not our own.

If one has only seen King of the Monsters, one might think that the original Godzilla is simply a silly monster movie7 rather than the tender, artful, educational treasure that it is.

We wonder, actually, if this will be an obstacle in recruiting participants for our sensemaking sessions—if Americans’ understanding of the franchise is colored by King of the Monsters, we have much work ahead of us. In fact, some of us have run into puzzled looks while distributing informational flyers in the field. People unfamiliar with the depth of the Godzilla franchise ask: “What could a bad monster movie teach us about love?” What, indeed.

Rest assured, we act in accordance with one of the core principles of Good Public Engagement: we do not make a face. We lead with curiosity and ask them to say more about why they use the word “bad.” Some reciprocate with their own curiosity, some do not. That is the way the cookie crumbles, or so we have heard.

Consider: What might have happened if the original film was shown in American theatres? If not in the mid-1950s, sometime before 2004? Where might we be if everyone had agency over how their stories are told?

We suppose that these are questions for the Arts Department.

Morale is “fine.” We look forward to returning to the Japanese productions—our next Field Report will investigate the lessons offered in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963). As you know, we can only access the American version of the film. For reasons outlined above, we would like to request—again—that we be allowed the resources to access the Japanese cut of the film, released in 1962. As far as we can tell, the only way to access this is by purchasing Criterion’s collection, called Godzilla: The Showa Era Films, 1954 - 1975. We have read that the Japanese version of King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) is to be found on a Bonus Features disc. We would send a request form, but you told us not to.

Yours in Science,8

The Godzilla Field Office

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POSTSCRIPT: SABOTAGE TRACKER

Still quiet for the most part, though we keep finding post-it notes with the words “Kong is King” around the Field Office. We do not know if this is the work of the man who also lives at the Field Office or the work of a competing Mission. Will send updates as we have them.

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

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NOTE: Interested parties can access this Brief on Google for reference.

Thank you for your interest in joining The Arts Department connected to Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026. This document serves as the creative brief for The Godzilla Mission Arts Department.

Should you choose to accept this assignment, please notify us via email (thegodzillapapers@gmail.com). Please include a brief description of your creative practice and a note about why you are interested in joining The Arts Department.

We will invite you to the Godzilla Mission Arts Department Discord Server, where you can meet your colleagues, collaborate, and ask for support. Note that joining the Discord is not a requirement for joining the Arts Department.

Once you have completed the assignment, you will receive an Official Godzilla Mission Arts Department Welcome Package™️ in the mail. For creatives outside of shipping possibility, you will receive a digital welcome package.

Goals & Objectives

The goal of the Godzilla Mission Arts Department is to create art that imagines what the future might look like if humankind were to implement some of the lessons and themes outlined in the Godzilla Mission Field Reports. These might be illustrations of the futures themselves, or imagined artifacts that exist in these futures.

Keep in mind that the Field Office Team will usually produce one Field Report per film, so if you are hoping to illustrate lessons from a particular film, let us know by emailing thegodzillapapers@gmail.com and we will notify you when the corresponding Field Report is available.

Read our Guiding Principles and find more context for how your work will fit into the entire project in this project’s Research Methodology.

Instructions

1. First thing’s first: the purpose of our work together is to imagine just and equitable futures that work for everyone. We are not imagining dystopia—there are other venues for that.Given everything going on in the world, this may feel hard to access. If you need to, put on your science fiction hat! Get weird! It helps if you’re willing to feel a little silly and gently ask those voices in your head that say, “that will NEVER happen!” to please be quiet for a moment.

2. Peruse the Godzilla Field Reports and identify a lesson or two that most resonate with your hopeful-for-the-future-self. Try to limit yourself to up to one or two lessons at most: the work of imagining can get unruly, fast! You can always repeat this process with different lessons. The Field Office tries to publish Field Reports weekly, so you should have new lessons to choose from each week.

3. Pick a moment in the future: 5 years from now, 10, 40, 100, 300 years in the future … it’s up to you!

4. Using that lesson, turn it over in your mind, heart, and body. Ask yourself and others: what would the world look like if we implemented this lesson? Sit with it. However you think and process best, do that! This may look like journaling, meditation, sketching, discussing with friends, taking a walk, dancing it out … whatever you need to get your imagination going. A helpful prompt for ideation might be: “When humankind [implements X lesson], I see a future where …”. Then, to identify which part(s) of the future you might work with, think about:

   1. “An artifact from this future might be…”, OR

   2. “A feeling from this future might include…”, OR

   3. “An event from this future might be…”, OR

   4. “A policy from this future might be…”, OR

   5. “A community who lives in this future might be…”, OR

   6. …something else entirely that we at Mission HQ haven’t thought of!

5. Now, imagine it! Use any medium you’d like. Audio, visual, architectural, written, sung, performed, something else entirely—it’s all art! If you feel stuck or would like more guidance, post in the Discord or reach out to thegodzillapapers@gmail.com. As stated in this project’s Research Methodology, the Field Office team is allowed to be in thought partnership with the Arts Department, but they are not allowed to give The Arts Department explicit directions/instructions.

SOME RESOURCES

If the instructions above sound absolutely wacky to you, don’t worry!

Here are some resources to help you build a better understanding of what the heck we’re talking about:

1. Re: “An artifact from this future might be…” Design Fiction / Futures Artifacts:

   1. What is Design Fiction? By the Near Future Laboratory

   2. An example of Design Fiction from 2030 by the Lab for Radical Museum Futures

2. Some authors and thinkers we are inspired by include:

   1. Octavia Butler

   2. Ursula K. Le Guin

   3. adrienne maree brown

   4. bell hooks

SOME NOTES

• Get zany! Get crazy! If your idea makes you a little bit sweaty because it’s really “out there,” great! That’s what we need to build ourselves better futures.

• Don’t rush! You have time.

• This might feel awkward at first. That’s ok! We’re imagining something that we’ve never seen—a future that works for everyone.

• Try to not let perfectionism get in the way. Your imagined future may fall apart when we introduce another variable. That’s fine, if not preferred! We’re in the ideas stage, baby!

Audience

While—with your express permission—your work will be published on the project’s Substack and social channels,the primary audience for your work are the attendees of the project’s Community Sensemaking sessions. You can read about the imagined flow of these sessions in point 3 of the Data Collection and Analysis section of our Research Methodology.

You will always own whatever you produce as a part of The Godzilla Mission Arts Department.

Assets and Deliverables

When ready, please let thegodzillapapers@gmail.com know and we will grant you limited access to the Godzilla Arts Department Assets folder, where you can upload all relevant content to a folder specific to you:

1. For the artwork itself, please use the following naming convention: Name_MMDDYYYY_TitleOfWork

2. Please provide a separate document that states:

   1. Name, portfolio/website for attribution and for us to promote your work

   2. A short bio

   3. The lesson or lesson(s) you chose for your imagined future

   4. Handles on Bluesky, Substack, Instagram, LinkedIn, or other socials so we can tag you (if you’d like)

   5. Anything you’d like to share about your process or anything you learned/thought about/hated about while working with us

NOTE: If your work is more ethereal, such as a performance piece (dance, music, theatre, etc.), please provide a recording and/or transcript of the piece. If you provide us with a video or photos, please make sure that no audience members or people other than yourself (and your collaborators, if you have them) are in the frame and that we have permission to use the footage. If we need to figure out release/consent forms, we can do that!

Timeline

While we do not have a set timeline, we understand that some folks work better with a deadline. If you are one of these people, reach out to thegodzillapapers@gmail.com and we will work together to come up with a reasonable schedule.

Distribution Process

As mentioned above: while—with your express permission—your work will be published on the project’s Substack and social channels, the primary audience for your work are the attendees of the project’s Community Sensemaking sessions, which are a core activity of the third phase of our data collection and analysis.

Along with Field Reports and other mission assets, your work will be referenced in a Community Sensemaking session. You can read about the imagined flow of these sessions in point 3 of the Data Collection and Analysis section of our Research Methodology.

We encourage members of The Godzilla Arts Department to participate in these sessions! To stay up-to-date on these events, fill out this form.

Who We Are

We are a distributed team of researchers, artists, and goofballs who believe in the idea of futures that work for all living beings. Please note that we are not an official or incorporated organization. That said, we are looking into what it might take to secure funding for this work. Please let us know if you have any ideas.

Thank you again for your interest. Please do not hesitate to reach out with questions or ideas.

Be sure to subscribe to our public-facing knowledge repository. Please share with like-minded colleagues and friends—our research depends on public engagement!

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Introduction

We would like to thank Director Stevens and Deputy Director Rowen for the opportunity to conduct this research and for their belief in a better world. We are also grateful to the work of Harvey Rowe, who worked as the esteemed Curator, Antiquities, at The Smithsonian during the mid-1990s. This research would simply not exist without the foundation laid by Dr. Rowe.

The question guiding this research is:

What might the future look like if humankind were to implement lessons from The Godzilla franchise about love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves?

Put simply, we ask: how might the Godzilla franchise guide us into a more just and equitable future? One might say we are taking a Science Fiction approach to analyzing a Science Fiction franchise. We prefer to call this Sci-Fi-Sci-Fi, or Sci-Fi².

The purpose of this document is to outline our methodological approach to answering this question. We will provide detail about the following elements of our methodology:

1. Research Philosophy

2. Research Approach

3. Research Strategy

4. Sampling Strategy

5. Data Collection and Analysis

6. Research Limitations and Considerations

7. A Note on Fidelity

8. Conclusion

Methodology

Research Philosophy

Our research philosophy most closely aligns with what is known as an interpretivist approach, which focuses on understanding and interpreting human behavior and social phenomena through the lens of subjective meanings and social contexts. The Godzilla franchise sits at the intersection of popular culture, political commentary, nostalgia, and art-as-activism. Like the oceans Godzilla inhabits, The Godzilla archives are vast. Because of this richness, we believe an interpretivist approach is the best way to explore our research question.

Research Approach

Due to the nature of the Godzilla archive (comprised primarily of film- and text-based data), we will conduct qualitative research, with an additional focus on what are sometimes known as Big Feelings. This might be considered a mixed methods approach, but instead of including quantitative data we will take into consideration whether or not one or more of us cries.

We should note that our approach will borrow from many disciplines: from the Futurists, we will borrow Backcasting. From Science Fiction, we will borrow imagination. From Academics, we will borrow lots of words. From Theatrical Practioners, we will borrow fake mustaches.

Research Strategy and Design

Our research strategy most closely aligns with a Grounded Theory approach. We will:

• Develop our theories as we work and make observations

• Conduct data collection and analysis in parallel

• Let the data “speak for itself”

Our Guiding Principles for this research include:

• This is a Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)-free project. We will not use Generative AI in any of the work associated with this research. We will use tools such as Google Search, which we acknowledge relies on AI to some extent, but we will not use any GenAI chatbots or other similar tools.

• We believe that mischief is a political act, and therefore so is this research.

• Knowledge should be treated as a public good.

• Lessons for the future can be found everywhere—especially in works of art.

• None of us knows everything, together we know a lot.

The lenses through which we will conduct this research include:

1. Love is an action and a commitment we can choose every day, as articulated by bell hooks.

2. Abundance is not a myth: resources exist for all humankind to thrive, we just need to redistribute them.

3. Migration is an inherently human activity; forced migration is not.

4. Interdependence and mutual trust require conflict literacy and emotional honesty.

5. We are of nature, not separate from nature.

6. Facism, white supremacy, xenophobia, and imperial violence are ideologies we can divest from, if we choose to do so.

Sampling Strategy

While our artifact review is comprehensive (the Godzilla archives are well-documented and catalogued by pioneers in the field), we will use non-probability sampling for the other phases of our data collection: Artmaking and Collaborative Sensemaking. Our outreach methods include:

• Online outreach and community engagement aimed at Godzilla and Kaiju scholars, Futures Practitioners, and known goofballs via

  • Substack

  • Bluesky (specifically, the “Godzilla” Bluesky feed)

  • LinkedIn

  • Email

• Promotional flyers shared throughout New York City and any other place members of our research team find themselves

We are relying on the “network effect,” where others share information about our research with their networks, their networks share with their networks, and so on.

Data Collection and Analysis

Due to this research’s reliance on a Grounded Theory approach, data collection and data analysis will be conducted in parallel.

There are three phases of data collection and analysis; repeated for each of the five eras of Godzilla films.1

1. Discovery: The Godzilla Mission Field Office will identify lessons for the future via an Artifact Review, conducted through the lenses outlined in the research design section of this chapter.

   1. Artifacts for review include:

      1. Films: The team’s list of films can be accessed here.

      2. Reference Texts:

         1. Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

         2. Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

   2. Discovery research protocol:

      1. Film Review: The Field Office Team watches each film. During viewing, the Team notes observations, questions, and feelings in their Mission Logs.

      2. Reference Books Review: The Field Office Team reads the relevant chapter for the film reviewed, takes notes in Mission Logs.

      3. Team compiles notes in shared document, identifies key lessons for the future.

      4. Team writes Field Report, submits to Mission HQ.

2. Imagining New Possibilities: The Godzilla Mission Arts Department will imagine and illustrate futures based on the lessons outlined in Field Reports.

   1. Artists and creatives, in their chosen medium, will create art that imagines what the future might look like if humankind were to implement some of the lessons outlined in the aforementioned Field Reports. These might be illustrations of the futures themselves, or imagined artifacts that exist in these futures. Excluding the prompt, Godzilla Mission Arts Department artists will have full creative license. They choose:

      1. Timeline (20, 50, 100 yrs in the future)

      2. The lesson or lessons on which they focus

      3. The aspect of the future they illustrate (an artifact, a feeling, a moment in time, a place…)

   2. Artists may approach the Godzilla Field Office team for ideation and thought partnership. Aside from offering the original prompt, the Field Office may not ‘direct’ artists.

3. Co-Creating New Possibilities: The Field Office and Mission HQ will partner to host in-person and virtual Community Sensemaking sessions.2 These sessions will center around community Backcasting exercises. We are planning on facilitating six sensemaking sessions (five for each era of Godzilla films, one for the entire franchise) between Summer 02026 and Fall 02027 to answer the question: “what will it take to achieve a version of these imagined futures?” (five sessions, one for each of the five eras). The hopeful outcome of these sessions is an understanding of what we can change or adopt now in order to make these futures more likely. While we will iterate on session design as we learn more via the project’s Artifact Review, we are planning on using the following session flow:

1. Based on the Field Reports and Artists’ renderings of possible futures, attendees will work together to articulate a shared vision of the future.

2. Attendees will participate in a facilitated Backcasting exercise to:

   1. Imagine their shared vision of the future: what does it look, feel, sound like?

   2. Understand what it might take for us to start making that future real: what actions—within our spheres of influence—might we commit to to begin building toward this new future? How can we bring people along?

   3. Articulate shared commitments: each participant will commit to one or two actions they can take in the short-term.

3. Attendees will be encouraged to stay in contact and build community.

We would like to note that, in addition to the Reference Texts outlined above, we will draw on books in the Mission Field Office’s Library as needed. Interested Parties may request to access an up-to-date Annotated Bibliography by emailing thegodzillapapers@gmail.com.

Limitations & Considerations

This research has the following limitations:

1. As of March 02026, our research team is rooted in the United States. We acknowledge that, regardless of the team’s political education and beliefs, we have deeply rooted Western biases and viewpoints that will no doubt influence our findings. We are hoping to work with collaborators from all over the world who might bring other viewpoints and experiences to this work.

2. Due to time, space, and budgetary constraints, this research is not a comprehensive analysis of every piece of media related to the Godzilla franchise. Fan Fiction, Think Pieces, Interviews, and other media were not selected for inclusion simply because we cannot tackle this amount of research. The team have full-time jobs, this project is not currently funded, and we cannot reasonably spend our whole lives on this project.

3. We acknowledge that the subject matter of Godzilla and other Kaiju might preclude some from participating in community sensemaking or artmaking activities. We will work to communicate to the public that a knowledge of the subject matter is not required—all participation requires is a love of humanity and the belief that a more just future is possible.

4. The Chief of Mission is a dog. This prohibits him from meaningfully engaging in certain mission-related discussions.

5. If fellow academics take issue with this methodology, please remember that this is a made-up project and none of the researchers have “real” or “advanced” degrees or official Research Advisors. It should also be noted that none of us “know what we are doing.”

A Note on Fidelity

We reserve the right to change these approaches at any time.

Keen-eyed supporters of this mission might identify inconsistencies in our research approach. These detail-oriented sleuths should not be concerned: it is fine, do not worry about it.*

We are allowed to do this because this is a fake (and also unfunded) research project that no one asked for, therefore:

1. We are accountable to no one (as of March 02026)

2. We like having fun

*If any Foundations or other potential funders are reading this, we are willing to change this approach to something more consistent as a condition of project funding.

Conclusion

In the coming months, we look forward to sharing several answers to the question:

What might the future look like if humankind were to implement lessons from The Godzilla franchise about love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves?

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NOTE: as of March 14, 02026, a version of this email has been shared with like-minded institutions, including futurists, foresight practitioners, kaiju-themed publications, and known goofballs. We are publishing it here for transparency. Please feel free to share with like-minded colleagues.

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Dear [NAME],

We are writing to you because, based on your work, we are making an assumption that our interests may be aligned. These interests include:

• Building just and equitable futures

• Godzilla and other Kaiju

• Climate Justice

• Storytelling

• Rigorous and highly scientific research

We are a team of researchers and artists working on a Very Serious™ research mission asking what the Godzilla franchise can teach us about love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves. We believe that the lessons uncovered in our research will help us and others build just and equitable futures that work for all living beings. This mission is officially known as Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026.

You can learn more about our work and the goals of our mission at The Godzilla Papers: the mission’s public-facing knowledge repository. This contains:

1. Research Methodology (useful for potential funders and collaborators)

2. Field Reports (initial findings from our ongoing artifact review)

3. Press Releases

4. Public Mission Correspondence

Our purpose for reaching out is three-fold. We are hoping to:

• Find like-minded artists, scholars, futurists, weirdos, and goofballs with whom we might collaborate, specifically to transform lessons outlined in the Mission’s Field Reports into visual, audio, or other pieces of art that show what our shared future (20, 50, 100 years from now...) might look like if we were to act on the teachings of the Godzilla franchise as they relate to love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves. Examples of these lessons include:

  • Time and space are big, we are small

  • Trust the people closest to the work

  • Experimentation is worthwhile

  • Even bad people have a right to live (while this is a direct quote from Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), we acknowledge there is work to be done to dismantle the false good/bad binary here.)

• Build awareness of our mission and the public-facing knowledge repository

• Build relationships with potential Mission Patrons who might help us make this mission more financially viable

As a multidisciplinary team, we acknowledge that values alignment is crucial for any collaborative effort. We hope our values and commitments resonate with you and your network:

• We believe that mischief is a political act.

• We believe that love is an action, as articulated by bell hooks.

• We are anti-fascist

• We will never use AI in our art, work, or processes

• Knowledge should be treated as a public good

• None of us knows everything, together we know a lot

We would love your support and partnership in spreading awareness, and—if you have the capacity—we would love to collaborate. As of March, 02026, we have created the following avenues for engagement:

• For Artists & Creatives: Join the Godzilla Mission Arts Department

• To submit research questions: Research Question Submission Form

• All public-facing documents are open for public comment

• The mission team is on Bluesky, Substack, and LinkedIn.

If you have suggestions or ideas for collaboration that aren’t listed here, please feel free to share them with us at thegodzillapapers@gmail.com..

We have also attached an informational flyer that we hope—if our values and goals are aligned—you will consider sharing with your networks via printed materials or digital distribution. Feel free to forward this email to anyone that might be interested.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours in Science,

Get involved: Linktree for Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

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ATTACHMENT: Godzilla Papers Open Call 0302026 PDF, available for download below:

Godzilla Papers Open Call 0302026

474KB ∙ PDF file

Download

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 13, 02026

Deputy Director Vera Rowen

Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

@thegodzillapapers.bsky.social

Announcing Streamlined Mission Focus & New Ways to Engage: Revised Mission Scope Change, The Godzilla Mission Arts Department, and Other Ways to Engage

BROOKLYN, NY: Godzilla Mission HQ is pleased to announce A) Revised Mission Scope, B) The Godzilla Mission Arts Department, and C) Other Avenues for Public Engagement.

A. REVISED MISSION SCOPE: Thanks to the insights gathered so far by the Godzilla Mission Field Office, citizen-submitted research questions, and positive public engagement with our research, we have decided to revise the scope of our mission to be more accessible to the public.

The revision is as follows:

FORMER SCOPE:

Mission Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026

To explore the Godzilla archives and synthesize learnings about the following topics in the context of the Social Sector and social justice:

• Facilitation

• Knowledge Management

• Team dynamics

• Collaboration

REVISED AND CURRENT SCOPE:

Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

To explore the Godzilla archives and synthesize learnings about how the Godzilla franchise can teach everyone about love, care, and building a future that works for all.1

While this is a broad scope indeed, we believe that this revision will allow members of the public to engage with our more meaningfully. As the Godzilla Mission Field Office Team has been finding in their artifact review, Godzilla is for the people.

We still believe that those working in the Social Sector will benefit from our research, but to ensure the greatest reach and public engagement, the Social Sector cannot be the primary audience of this research.

B. ANNOUNCING THE CREATION OF THE GODZILLA MISSION ARTS DEPARTMENT & CALL FOR CREATIVES

As a direct result of our revised scope, we are excited to announce the creation of the Godzilla Mission Arts Department. We believe that the arts have the power to communicate new ideas, bring people from all walks of life together, and to create positive social change.

The mandate of the Arts Department is:

To transform lessons outlined in the Mission’s Field Reports and other Research Artifacts into visual, audio, or other art forms that show what our shared future (20, 50, 100 years from now...) might look and feel like if we were to act on the teachings of the Godzilla franchise as they relate to love, mutual trust and collaboration, anti-facism, the world, and ourselves.

We are interested in collaborating with people who are anti-fascist, do not use AI in their work or art, are very into Godzilla and other Kaiju, and are kind, collaborative, and curious.

All creatives who wish to get involved are encouraged to submit an Expression of Interest Form.

At this point in time, like the rest of this mission, the Arts Department is entirely volunteer-run. Please note that we are actively seeking Mission Patrons and hope to be in a position to compensate artists in the future.

C. OTHER AVENUES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

In addition to the Arts Department, we are offering two other avenues for public engagement:

1. Our Research Team is in the beginning of their artifact review phase, and is therefore open to including relevant citizen-submitted research questions. See an example of how the team thinks about this here. Members of the public who would like to submit a research question, please do so using this form.

2. We would like to remind those with means of our subscription program, where paid supporters receive Godzilla postcards from the Field Office with behind-the-scenes mission updates. Interested parties can do this in one of three ways:

   1. Paid subscribers to The Godzilla Papers ($8 USD monthly or $80 USD annually) receive Godzilla and Kaiju-themed postcards from the mission team.

   2. Mission Patrons (via Ghost, $200 USD annually) receive the same benefits as above and a plaque with their name on it installed at the Mission Field Office. Patrons will receive a photo of this plaque included with their first postcard.

   3. Supporters who do not wish to receive postcards or a paid subscription can make a one-time contribution to the mission by using this link.

Those who provide financial support to the mission will help our team access:

4. Printed materials

5. Rations

6. Funding the Godzilla Mission Arts Department

7. The Japanese cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

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To: Godzilla Mission Field Office (GMFO), All Staff

From: Mission HQ [Deputy Director Vera Rowen]

Date: March 13, 02026

Subject: Mission Scope Revision Approved

Dear Field Office Team,

In what admittedly comes as a surprise to me and many of your colleagues here at Headquarters—especially considering the reasons for my last memo—we agree with you that we should broaden the scope of this mission. I am happy to report that Director Stevens has accepted your proposed revision, though I will admit that I’m not sure he was aware of the scope to begin with. The revision is as follows:

FORMER SCOPE:

Mission Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026

To explore the Godzilla archives and synthesize learnings about the following topics in the context of the Social Sector and social justice:

• Facilitation

• Knowledge Management

• Team dynamics

• Collaboration

REVISED AND CURRENT SCOPE:

Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026

To explore the Godzilla archives and synthesize learnings about how the Godzilla franchise can teach everyone about love, care, and building a future that works for all.

While this is a broad scope indeed, we believe that this change will allow members of the public to engage more meaningfully. As you have been finding in your artifact review, Godzilla is for the people. We still believe that those working in the Social Sector will benefit from our research, but to ensure the greatest reach and public engagement, the Social Sector cannot be the primary audience of this research.

We are taking two actions related to this scope change:

1. The Administrative Staff assigned to the Godzilla Mission has been receiving citizen-submitted research questions. We believe that your proposed scope revision will allow for inclusion of questions such as these. We have asked the IT team to set up a survey for the purposes of data collection and streamlined cataloguing. Administrative staff will send these questions to the Field Office weekly on Monday mornings.

2. Dir. Stevens has approved the creation of a Godzilla Mission Art Department to expan this mission’s exploration of what Godzilla teaches us about potential futures that work for everyone. We will announce a call for artists and keep you updated on progress. We expect you to cooperate with your new colleagues. A Press Release scheduled for later this morning will outline this in more detail.

We agree with your proposal that we publish this mission’s Research Methodology.

Please revise with the changes outlined above and submit for approval.

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To: Godzilla Mission Field Office (GMFO), All Staff

From: Mission HQ [Deputy Director Vera Rowen]

Date: March 13, 02026

Subject: Stop Making Things Up

Dear Field Office Team,

You must cease with your insistence on bending the truth. Made-up facts hurt our reputation as an institution dedicated to rigor and scientific inquiry. I know I do not need to remind the seasoned among you of the ill-fated Whistling Bears mission of 2016.

We identified the following factual errors in your latest Field Report, Godzilla Field Report No. 3:

1. Regarding “Resource Request Form GM_185_RR” and the requests listed therein:

   1. One of you has clearly copied a FEMA Resource Request form, and not well (case in point: the word “Incident” has been scribbled out and replaced with the word “Mission.”) This document has the following issues:

      1. The “form” itself is drawn in red sharpie.

      2. We can also see that one of you has forged the Chief of Mission’s signature by—we assume—writing with your left hand. Dogs can’t write.

      3. When one turns the “form” over, one sees that this document has been drawn on the backside of one of the promotional flyers we sent you to promote the mission and increase public engagement. Are you putting these up as agreed? I would like to remind you that promotion and outreach is a significant part of the Field Office’s assigned duties.

   2. We do not have the resources to send you a camera. You are hereby permitted to bring the cameras attached to your cellular devices on mandated walks with the Chief of Mission. To mitigate any potential conflicts, I suggest you place your devices on ‘Airplane Mode’ to ensure the presence that we know the Chief of Mission prefers. We agree with him that this presence will contribute to team cohesion.

   3. We cannot grant the Benny Hill request (as you put it, “Footage of monster actors not being able to destroy the massive miniature of Osaka Castle, overlaid with the Benny Hill Theme song”) because:

      1. We are not able to reallocate archivists’ time. As you are aware, this is not the only mission to which they are assigned.

      2. If we were able to, we don’t trust you with the manipulation of copyrighted materials.

      3. The intended use you provide (“Fun”) is not a worthy reason for investment of this office’s resources.

2. Regarding your footnotes in Godzilla Field Report No. 3:

   1. We don’t have an Audio Visual team. You know that.

   2. We don’t have a Conspiracies Department. You know that.

   3. No, we don’t think that Godzilla penned his own biography under a pen name, especially one that shares the first four letters of his given name.

I do not believe that these were errors at all. I believe that these are intentional acts of misrepresentation.

This is unfortunate, because the lessons you offer in this Field Report are insightful, topical, and poignant. I was especially moved by Themes 5 and 6: Relationships change over time and Time and space are big, we are small. I must say, though, I am skeptical of Theme 3: Trust the people closest to the work, as I am struggling to trust those of you at the Field Office.

Your colleagues here at Headquarters have tried to convince me that you do not act with ill intent. They believe that at best, your made-up facts are mischief. I am not so naïve. I believe that these are outright lies that might misrepresent our operation, destroying public trust.

Thanks to the advocacy of your HQ colleagues on your behalf, I will not take disciplinary action. Please be advised, though, that you are on notice. Do not make up any more facts.

I did see your suggestion to expand the mission’s scope. I do not wish to dilute the seriousness of this message. Expect another memo in response to this matter, to be dispatched shortly.

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INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

We received your note that some members of the public are asking about our methodology. Perhaps we can publish a version of this on the public-facing knowledge repository? We will make sure that the Field Office copy of our Research Methodology is up-to-date and send to you for review. This is a good opportunity to make sure our copies match, anyway.

For the sake of transparency: yesterday, during the Chief of Mission’s mandated morning walk, we identified a potential artifact for inclusion in our research. It had the appearance of a crushed beer can that was printed with an artist’s rendition of Godzilla. Unfortunately, we had already used our standard issue on-walk bag for the Chief of Mission’s usual business, and—regrettably—none of us had a camera. The Chief of Mission prefers that we use these walks as an opportunity to—as he says—stay ‘present.’ Might HQ provide us with a camera that is not attached to a cellular device? We do not want to go against the Chief of Mission’s wishes, but if it is still there, this artifact seems important for the mission. We have completed the requisite resource request form (Form GM_185_RR) and included it with this Field Report.

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GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 3

• Date: March 11, 020261

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026

• Artifacts Examined:

  • Pages 39 - 53: Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., 2, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  • Pages 20 - 25: Godzilla Raids Again (1955), of Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

• Rations Consumed: one large apple, two spoons of peanut butter, an espresso.

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes.

While we’ve shared with you our initial understanding of Godzilla Raids Again (1955) in our first field report, we are happy to report that the film is about much more than preparing one’s ancient reptile for hibernation by burying it in ice.

We have discussed and agreed upon six themes in Godzilla Raids Again—we are beginning to think we were too hasty in our last transmission to propose that the seven themes we found in Godzilla (1954) would apply to the entire mission. We know we are still early in the information gathering phase of our work, and we will try to be more patient.3

The six themes in Godzilla Raids Again are:

1. Silence says a lot

2. Unintended outcomes come in many forms

3. Experimentation is worthwhile

4. Trust the people closest to the work

5. Relationships change over time

6. Time and space are big, we are small

THEME ONE: Silence says a lot

The score of Godzilla Raids Again was composed by Masaru Sato, and it’s filled with silences and tension. Ryfle and Godziszewski offer:

Like Ifukube’s work on the prior film, Sato’s music is especially impactful when it breaks through silence. A long military buildup along the waterfront anticipating the monsters’ arrival is accompanied by no music and only sparse dialogue and the intermittent roar of jet squadrons patrolling the airspace … When Godzilla surfaces offshore, Sato announces its arrival with brash, shimmering cymbals. Low, guttural orchestral sounds rumble as the [jet squadrons] light up the sky with flares, luring Godzilla back out to sea … - pg 45, The First 70 Years

As we know from others’ scholarship (in the context of facilitation, history, and the work of building equitable systems and worlds): what’s not said is just as important as what is said. As academics, we tend to focus on what we can see and hear. We posit that our scholarship (as well as the greater field of Philanthropy and Godzilla Research) would benefit from greater attention to silences. If we may reference other non-Godzilla material: As Lorgia Gargia Peña reminds us in Translating Blackness: Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspective:

Michel Foucault writes that archives are the “law of what can be said.” They are what organize hierarchies of time and statements of truth and are also locations of power that grant historians credibility. For historians, the archive is the place of legitimacy where their “truth” is sanctioned. But as many scholars of critical archival studies have noted, traditional archives, heritage institutions, and historical publications are filled with silences regarding the lives, agency, participation, and cultural production of Black people. The process of silencing, as Michel-Rolph Trulliot reminds us, begins at the source of creation, not at the archive.

While Garcia Peña is speaking specifically to the systematic and intentional silencing of Black people and their histories on the part of Dominant Culture historians and the State—and we do not wish to minimize this—we believe that this logic applies to many stories, histories, and experiences of marginalized peoples. As we will argue in later Field Reports, this pattern is especially obvious in American re-edits of Japanese Godzilla films.

THEME TWO: Unintended outcomes come in many forms

This theme appears both in the film and in the making of the film.

In the film:

“..the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) lights up the sky with flares, luring Godzilla back out to sea but inadvertently drawing Anguirus ashore.” - pg 45, The First 70 Years

As the professionals say: “Oops.”

In the making of the film:

During the Osaka battle sequence, the monsters move noticeably faster at times, with a lightning swiftness owing to an unintended change in camera speed that was, as it turned out, a happy accident. …

“There were three cameras-A, B, and C-and it was ordinary to shoot Godzilla at high speed” to create the slow movement associated with such large creatures, said special effects cameraman Sadamasa Arikawa. “But camera C wasn’t set at high speed.... When we saw the dailies, cameras A and B were on the right setting, but camera C’s Godzilla moved quicker.” Eiji Tsuburaya was alarmed, but after examining the footage closely, he concluded, “Wait a minute. That movement’s not that bad. Maybe we can use it.” - pg 46, The First 70 Years

As you all know, we think one of the most exciting phenomena in our work is when we can say, “Wait a minute. That’s not that bad. Maybe we can use it.” In our collective experience, what starts off as a perceived mistake or tangent might actually be the key to answering a previously unanswerable question.

THEME THREE: Experimentation is worthwhile

Bolstered by the success of their work on Godzilla (1954), the special effects team was far more well-resourced for Raids Again.

[Stages No. 8 and No. 9 on the studio lot were] two enormous buildings dedicated to shooting special effects scenes; this was evidence of Tsuburaya’s growing influence and the studio’s plan to ramp up production of tokusatsu films and expand Into widescreen productions. The stages took about a year to complete and totaled about 1,000 tsubo (roughly 35,000 square feet/3,252 sq m), with high ceilings and vast, open interiors that enabled Tsuburaya to build bigger miniature sets and film them from higher and wider angles. - pg 46, The First 70 Years

You all know that those of us at the Field Office are strong believers in experimentation. We know most of you at Mission HQ disagree, but we believe our research benefits greatly when we take a Big and Weird4 approach to our work.

In The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters, Godzilla scholar Graham Skipper describes one intriguing result of Toho’s investment in Tsuburaya’s experimentation:

...Tsuburaya crafted detailed hand puppets, as well as a massive miniature of Osaka Castle that would prove so hardy that the actors had a difficult time destroying it once constructed. - pg 24, The Official Guide

You’ll see that, in addition to our request for a non-cellular-device-camera, we’ve included a request for the archivists assigned to our mission. More detail is in Form GM_185_RR (attached) but here’s the gist:

If footage of this exists, will they please:

• Add the Benny Hill theme song5

• Include this in the next shipment of artifacts

If you have concerns about copyright, let us reassure you that we will not share this with anyone outside of the Field Office.

All of this is to say: experimentation is worthwhile.

THEME FOUR: Trust the people closest to the work

The special effects department was not the only one gaining respect and agency:

As evidence of Tsuburaya’s growing respect for Haruo Nakajima’s dedication to playing Godzilla, the stuntman was given full responsibility for choreographing the monsters’ struggle. “There was a sword-fighting choreographer for jidai-geki (samurai movies), but there was no monster-fighting choreographer back then,” Nakajima recalled. “So I was the first one. Tsuburaya told me, ‘Do whatever you want.’ It was such a responsibility! I was freaking out, but I was happy that he trusted me that much. ... I choreographed the monsters moving up and down, glaring at each other, lunging and wrestling, etc., just like a jidai-geki fight.” - pg 46, The First 70 Years

This is an example of great role clarity, trust, and ownership that many of us wish to see more of in the field of Philanthropy. By trusting Nakajima to take ownership as the first ‘monster-fighting choreographer,’ Tsuburaya put into practice an idea that many in Philanthropy are still working to figure out: he ceded his power to the person closest to the work in question.6

THEME FIVE: Relationships change over time

Relationships change over time. This is a universal truth that we can see through an examination of Shigeru Kayama’s relationship with Godzilla. Kayama was a novelist, poet, and screenwriter, and he is the man responsible for the original story treatments for Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Raids Again (1955). Ryfle and Godziszewski describe this change:

Godzilla’s survival left open the possibility of more sequels, but writer Shigeru Kayama made it clear he would not be back. “What had started as a symbol representing his fear of atomic weapons had morphed into a character that produced feelings of intimacy and closeness from the viewing audience,” writes Kayama biographer Jeffrey Angles. “Viewers sympathized with the monster [when it) was destroyed.” Kayama, too, felt sorry for the way Godzilla suffered; watching the monster melted by the Oxygen Destroyer and then covered in ice had given him nightmares. “I have firmly decided not to write any sequels,” Kayama concluded. “No matter how much the film studio may ask. - pg 49, The First 70 Years

Not only do relationships change, but the meaning of art morphs the moment it is disseminated to the public.We must admit: for all of us, this passage brought with it a deep sadness. During our artifact review, whenever Godzilla suffers, we feel that same melancholy. It is crucial to note that we do not wish for the people in these films to suffer, either!

While we have Big Feelings about the suffering, we suppose that the Godzilla archives might be considerably smaller in volume had Godzilla and the people of Japan simply shared a picnic.7

THEME SIX: Time and space are big, we are small

Theme six, while related to theme three (experimentation is worthwhile), is presented as the final theme because of its bigness.

Ryfle and Godziszewski describe the final battle scene in Godzilla Raids Again:

Godzilla’s battle with fighter planes, partly shot on an outdoor set, includes innovative views of the monster, filmed at low angles, with snow-capped peaks towering above, alternately highlighting the monster’s immense size compared to man and its relative smallness in the scheme of nature. - pg 46, The First 70 Years

If you will allow us a moment of wonder: “...alternately highlighting the monster’s immense size compared to man and its relative smallness in the scheme of nature” has struck those of us at the Field Office in the most profound way. Not only does this highlight the importance of honoring multiple perspectives, but it brings to mind our fellow scholar Carl Sagan’s assertion that we on earth live on a pale blue dot:

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. … Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged place in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. …To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” - Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

It strikes us that it may be prudent for this mission to catalogue the non-Godzilla scholarship that influences our research and synthesis. Not only would this include Carl Sagan, but works by bell hooks, adrienne maree brown, David Graeber, and David Wengrow. We will include this Auxiliary Bibliography as an Appendix to the Research Methodology document for your review.

In our last transmission, we shared that we are beginning to wonder if we might expand our scope, as we believe that the Godzilla franchise can teach everyone about love, care, and building a future that works for all. This is quickly becoming an unavoidable topic. Please advise on the best next steps to begin the scope change process.

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Morale remains high—as you’ll recall from our last transmission, many of us were full of dread at the prospect of reviewing the artifact titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. As you can surmise, we survived.8 The Chief of Mission offered no direct help (though he did make sure to alert us to passersby outside the Field Office.)

Rations are holding up, though perhaps you can include cutlery in your next shipment? If that is an impossibility, a roll of paper towels will suffice.

Yours in Science,9

The Godzilla Field Office

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

POSTSCRIPT: SABOTAGE TRACKER

Mercifully, things have been quiet on this front. We are slightly concerned, though, that the man might be preparing for sabotage on a larger scale. We will keep our wits about us.

ATTACHMENT: RESOURCE REQUEST FORM GM_185_RR

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INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

We are pleased to share that, from our point of view, the mission is off to a promising start. We were glad to hear that the Press Release was well-received. As you know, Field Researchers rarely get the same view as Mission Headquarters, so we are grateful that you would take the time to share this with those of us at the Godzilla Field Office.

So far, we’ve received no correspondence at the thegodzillapapers@gmail.com inbox you so generously set up for the mission. We do hope that as this mission gains traction, we hear from other Godzilla scholars and citizen-scientists.

Still, even in the silence, we must press on!

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What follows are notes from our most recent readings, mostly having to do with Godzilla (1954). You will find in these notes seven themes through which we might view our work.

Please: do not be dismayed at the choppy writing. This is—after all—a Field Report. We are transcribing our thoughts quickly and without self-censorship so as to compile material to be made sense of at a later date. We trust you will inform the Chief of Mission if you find our process unsuitable.

GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 2

• Date: March 07, 020261

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026

• Artifacts Examined: Pages 1 - 37 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

  Sections examined include:

  • Foreword, John Carpenter

  • Foreword, Megumi Odaka

  • Godzilla (1954), Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975

• Research Soundtrack: Akira Ifukube, Godzilla Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

• Rations Consumed: two espresso2, one apple, half a bowl of cereal.

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes.

THE (PROPOSED) SEVEN THEMES FOR UNDERSTANDING GODZILLA (AND OURSELVES)

1. Mission alignment

2. Nothing means anything without its context

3. Absolutely insane logistics can make the impossible possible

4. Multiple things can be true at once

5. Everything is political

6. There are many ways to play a piano

7. We should not underestimate the power of ritual

THEME 1: MISSION ALIGNMENT

As we begin to explore the philosophy and historical context of Godzilla (1954), we are finding many parallels between the film and our mission. This is encouraging, considering the amount of public buy-in we will need as we aim to make the Godzilla Field Office a more sustainable operation:

1. On page 12, in the Introduction of The First 70 Years, Ryfle and Godziszewski offer:

   “Godzilla has consistently held up a mirror to the changing world, offering a cautionary tale about not only nuclear war, but also capitalist greed, environmental destruction, exploitation of Indigenous peoples, the Cold War, nationalism, U.S-Japan relations, and more.”

   We know that some at Mission Headquarters had concerns that ours is a frivolous endeavor. We would urge them to understand that Godzilla is a monster for our time—a time of genocide3, rising authoritarianism, and disregard for our planet. In other words: this mission could not be less frivolous.

2. According to Kimi Honda, Godzilla Director Ishiro Honda’s wife, “… the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories.” This is another point of alignment, seeing as the boys here at the Godzilla Field Office also love to joke around with tall stories.

3. When thinking about how to make a monster movie that might be taken seriously, the team behind Godzilla (1954) decided that “… they would depict a giant monster attack with the seriousness of a documentary.” We hope those at Mission Headquarters (as well as the general public) understands that this is exactly what we’re trying to accomplish with this Mission.

THEME 2: NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING WITHOUT ITS CONTEXT

Godzilla is an allegory for atomic power, war, and grief. In discussion, many of us offered that the film and its production are incredible ways to process the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war in general, continued nuclear testing, and the process of rebuilding.

Ryfle and Godziszewski provide some important context to help us understand what was happening in Japan in the years leading up to Godzilla:

“At the time of Godzilla’s birth, Japan was just nine years removed from the twin atomic bombings that killed nearly three hundred thousand in August 1945 … Between 1945 to 1952, the military was disbanded, a vast Asia-Pacific empire was dissolved, the government was transformed from a monarchy into a parliamentary democracy, and the education and economic systems were remade. Poverty, food shortages, job scarcity, civil unrest, and general uncertainty characterized life during this period of transition. The 1950s brought new peace and prosperity as factories supplied the US with provisions for the Korean War4… Even as it forged a peaceful path for itself, Japan was trapped between America and the Soviet Union and their doomsday weapons tests in the South Pacific and Central Asia.”

We have talked about this at length, and the boys over at HQ might groan, but we believe it’s worth repeating: we cannot understand anything without its context. Whether we are thinking about organizational learning, facilitating a hard conversation, or understanding a monster movie, we cannot divorce the object of our focus from its context.

And context isn’t theoretical! The people who worked together to make Godzilla fought in the war and witnessed firsthand the destruction of cities and their people.

There’s something about this context that gives Godzilla its tragedy and its poignancy: there’s a futility to fighting him. Director Ishiro Honda said,

“If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn’t know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla.”

THEME 3: ABSOLUTELY INSANE LOGISTICS CAN MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE

Godzilla wasn’t even an idea until sometime in March of 1954. In the midst of a failed project5 and major uproar about nuclear testing6, Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka came up with the idea for “a big monster near Bikini which was awakened by the shock of hydrogen bomb testing” who invades Japan. So he starts to get a team together. They figure out the script, the ideas, etc., and on July 5, 1954, Toho Studios announced the then-mysterious project as G Project. The movie premiered on October 27, 1954 and was widely released across Japan on November 3, 1954. That’s 121 days between official project annnoucement and release. If Toho could make Godzilla this quickly, then surely philanthropy can mobilize millions of unrestricted dollars and capacity support to folks who need it in far less time.

The special effects team was incredible. We will explore this with more depth in future Field Reports, but suffice to say: Eiji Tsuburaya had experience making miniature sets for government war films, and led an incredibly talented team as they designed and built scale models of Tokyo. Apparently, some of the young team members (who—at that point at least—weren’t credited on the film) would eat and sleep at or near Toho Studios to get the building done in time for shooting. So: not great in the workers’ rights arena. Philanthropy can move resources more quickly, but this is perhaps not the exact model we should embrace.

All I’m saying is: ambitious timelines are possible (even without worker exploitation!). Philanthropy is often being asked to do things that are far less complicated than (quickly) building a miniature, to-scale version of Tokyo for a man in a monster suit to destroy.

THEME 4: MULTIPLE THINGS CAN BE TRUE AT ONCE

On page 31 of The First 70 Years, Ryfle and Godziszewski point out something that we encourage our colleagues working in Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning should keep in mind:

“Mythical and rational explanations for the monster’s existence are provided by the Odo Island wise man (Kokuten Kodo) and Dr. Yamane. Neither story is truer than the other, and the scientist names the monster after the islanders’ folk legend.”

An increasing number of institutions, practitioners, and others are advocating for and implementing different, more human approaches to how we understand social change work. As you know, we at the Field Office often invite folks to embrace multiple truths.

We propose that we keep this in mind when we arrive to the synthesis phase of our mission.

THEME 5: EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

As you know, the next artifact for review is Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956).

This is an Americanized version of the original Godzilla, and we must be frank: none of us are thrilled about this. It should come as no surprise that we are as far from being neutral Researchers as Godzilla’s nose is from his feet.

Ryfle and Godziszewski give us an overview of how this abomination7 was made after an American studio bought the rights:

“More than one-third of the original film was excised; scenes were shortened or deleted altogether, including key references to the atomic bombing of Japan, Godzilla’s relationship to hydrogen bomb testing, and political squabbles over whether to make this information public. Notably, Dr. Yamane’s final speech about the dangers of nuclear testing and the likelihood of another Godzilla was removed, and the American cut ends with Burr instead declaring that “the whole world could wake up and live again.”

Because the film arrived in theaters at a time when the US and USSR conducted hundreds of hydrogen bomb tests, these changes to the film have fueled speculation that the American distributors neutered the antinuclear message for political reasons. “No,” responded producer Richard Kay. “We weren’t interested in politics, believe me. We only wanted to make a movie we could sell.” Kay noted that the film was released just eleven years after World War II. “At that time, the American public wouldn’t have gone for a movie with an all-Japanese cast. That’s why we did what we did. We didn’t really change the story. We just gave it an American point of view.”

BRO. This is the very PICTURE of a political decision.8

How very American. How arrogant. To say: No, no, no, let us tell the story. You’ve got it wrong.9 We’ll remove nearly all of the context to make this work palatable and sellable.

We will review Godzilla: King of the Monsters! for mission continuity, but we will do so at great risk to our health. That said, we believe in this mission and will do what it takes to stay on track.

THEME 6: THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO PLAY A PIANO

As noted above, we have been listening to Akira Ifukube’s brilliant work on the Godzilla Original Motion Picture Soundtrack while compiling these notes. Below is a note from Ryfle and Godziszewski about the making of some of the sounds in the score:

“Using snarling brass and low-pitched instruments such as a contrabassoon, the music accompanying Godzilla’s attacks is distinguished by its series of rising notes, starting on C#, which highlights the monster’s towering height. The steady rhythm of this music is punctuated by thunderously dissonant tone clusters from the piano, which are executed by crashing down on the instrument’s lowest-pitched white and black keys with both forearms. The effect reminds the audience of Godzilla’s weighty, shattering footfalls as it advances relentlessly across the city.”

Our mission has much to learn from this creativity: there are many ways to work. There are many ways to learn! There are many ways to think.

What we’re saying is: sometimes, to do their best work, people need the creative freedom and ability to “crash down on the instrument’s lowest-pitched white and black keys with both forearms.”

Or to stomp around as if they are Godzilla.10

THEME 7: WE SHOULD NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF RITUAL

After Godzilla production wrapped, Toho Studios gave Godzilla a funeral.

…The film’s lead actors, Akira Takarada (Ogata) and Momoko Kochi (Emiko), joined by the (empty) Godzilla suit, rode through the streets of Tokyo in the back of a truck, waving to a bemused public along their route.

Arriving at the docks of the Sumida River, they boarded a boat. Takarada put on a Hawaiian shirt and Kochi changed into a hula dancer outfit. With a group of children looking on, Takarada played the ukulele and serenaded Godzilla with the Hawaiian folk song “Aloha Oe” (”Farewell to Thee”) as Kochi placed a lei around the monster’s neck and performed a hula dance. … With Godzilla positioned at the bow of the boat, a Shinto priest performed ceremonial funeral rites for Godzilla, and the boat set sail for Tokyo Bay. There, Godzilla was hoisted over the side on a winch by both Takarada and Kochi. Pausing the ceremony for a moment, Takarada donned a diving suit to accompany Godzilla as the monster was lowered into the water while Kochi tossed in a bouquet of flowers, calling out, “Sayonara, Godzilla!”11

Rituals are important. Play and whimsy are important, especially now. As you know, we have been exploring various ways to bring play and whimsy to our facilitation and consulting work outside of this mission. While we do understand that the mandate of this mission is decidedly not playful or whimsical,12 we believe we can learn from Toho’s commitment to ritual.

We hope these themes offer some windows into how we might learn about organizational learning, facilitation, collaboration, and knowledge management in the social sector. We should note, too, that we are beginning to wonder if we might expand our scope: we believe that the Godzilla franchise can teach everyone about love, care, and building a future that works for all. This is not an official scope change request—we know there are forms for that. This is simply a peek into our thinking. We hope those of you at Mission HQ will keep an open mind.

During our next artifact review, we will assess whether these themes might support an analytical framework for the eventual synthesis of these Field Reports.

With respect, we must share that the Chief of Mission has not been very engaged. Whenever we request input, he is either snoring or chewing on a plush platypus. We acknowledge that the problem here may be our timing.

While morale has been high, we admit that morale is waning as we head into our review of Film Artifact 3: Godzilla: King of the Monsters!. As a sign of commitment to knowledge and learning, we will press on and look forward to returning to the Japanese productions.

Rations are still well-stocked, though we could use another shipment of popcorn.

Yours in Science13,

The Godzilla Field Office Team

POSTSCRIPT: SABOTAGE TRACKER

In your last note, you expressed concern about the threat posed to our mission by the man who happens to live here at the Godzilla Field Office. We appreciate your concern, and we will keep you apprised of any new developments. We have designated several pages in the Mission Log to a “Sabotage Tracker” so we will be able to track patterns and assess the threat in real time. We will include these in a Sabotage Tracker section of this and future Field Reports:

March 07, 02026:

• 06:47 man moves Godzilla: The First 70 Years out of Assistant Researcher’s reach. Many of us are settled among our research materials, covered in blankets and/or the Chief of Mission’s sleeping body, and cannot move quickly enough to retrieve the artifact.

• 06:50 man returns the artifact, but as he does so, he reaches to steal the mission log. When he fails to do so, he steals Lead Investigator’s pen.

Please advise with any information that may help us counter this behavior. We don’t believe this is a dire threat (yet), but we hope to be prepared to protect the mission if needed.

END OF TRANSMISSION / / /

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INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / /

Earlier this week, we shared with those of you at Mission HQ our hypothesis that Godzilla and other movie monsters have much more than we initially thought to teach us about collaboration, love, facilitation and knowledge management. So far, the evidence we have gathered supports this hypothesis.

As you know, those of us at the Field Office have begun our chronological Godzilla-viewing journey and what follows is the first report from the field.

GODZILLA FIELD REPORT No. 1

• Date: March 3, 020261

• Location: Brooklyn

• Mission: Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026

• Artifacts Examined: Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

• Rations Consumed: popcorn, an apple, some wheat thins, and a chickpea crust pizza.

• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? Yes.

Godzilla (1954) is about ethics, the danger of nuclear weapons, resilience, personal sacrifice for the good of humanity, and how radio broadcasting is a Very Dangerous Job.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955) seems to be about how, when you report a monster fight to the police, you get to use a Dinosaur book to identify a perp. It’s also about getting your ancient reptile ready for winter hibernation. A “how-to” movie, if you will.

Let us consider our practices of learning and information sharing: When there’s an information vacuum, we can’t learn. When we don’t know Godzilla is on a rampage (but we do know something Very Serious and Very Bad is happening), we’ll send boat after boat after boat to the impacted area and wonder why they keep disappearing.

Then—and here’s the rub—when people try to tell us what they’ve been seeing and experiencing, we don’t believe them.

An elder from Odo Island told us about the old days: when Godzilla would eat all the fish in the sea, he’d come ashore to eat people. “It must be Godzilla.”

Witnesses shared testimony about Godzilla.

But no! Send more boats!

This is an allegory for learning.

We will collect more information, but we believe that the artifact review phase of this work is off to a promising start.

Rations are well-stocked. Morale is high. We are feeling prepared for the journey ahead.

One concern: there is a man who lives at the Field Office who might be here to sabotage the mission. When one of us suggested Godzilla—standing in the snowy mountains—needed a scarf and mittens, man said “Godzilla is not the baby.”

He is wrong. Will alert Chief of Mission if tensions increase.

Yours in Science2,

The Godzilla Field Office

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION

Thank you for your support of curiousity and rigor and joining us as we explore the Godzilla archives. Please subscribe for updates here.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Announcing the Launch of Mission Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026.

BROOKLYN, NY. MARCH 04, 02026: In Very Serious news, we are pleased to announce the launch of a new mission: Kaiju_OrgLearning_Facilitation_KM_02026.

This mission’s goal is to explore the Godzilla archives and synthesize learnings about the following topics in the context of the Social Sector and social justice:

• Facilitation

• Knowledge Management

• Team dynamics

• Collaboration

Other thematic areas will be considered for inclusion in this mission on a case-by-case basis. While Field Office staff will provide input, ultimate decision-making belongs to the Chief of Mission (A.K.A. Dudley the Dog).

As of March 03, 02026, the artifacts selected for research include:

1. Every official Godzilla film ever made (The mission does not have the budget to support fan fiction at this time).

2. Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.

3. Skipper, Graham. (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters. Welbeck Publishing.

4. Wikizilla.org will be considered a backup reference for information not found in the sources listed above.

We will examine firsthand accounts, historical analysis, cultural context, and artwork.

We acknowledge there is a dearth of Godzilla scholarship in the field. Still, we believe the field lacks research that considers Godzilla through an “Organizational Effectiveness in the Social Sector” lens. We hope that our work will contribute to the existing research by asking new questions of the King of the Monsters and other Kaiju. In layman’s terms: we stand on the shoulders of giants (or Kaiju).

At this time, we cannot share an end date for this research. The Godzilla archives are considerable in size and—mercifully—the Chief of Mission and Mission HQ is providing ample space for research and synthesis.

In the meantime—in accordance with this mission’s value of Knowledge as a Collective Good—all non-confidential mission assets (such as Godzilla Field Reports, Press Releases, and Memos) will be made public as soon as they are available. They will be published on The Godzilla Papers substack and announced on Substack, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.

Members of the public can access the first Godzilla Field Report and provide input via the comment function here:

Artifacts examined in Godzilla Field Report No. 1 include Godzilla (1954) and Godzilla Raids Again (1955). Initial findings include lessons for organizational learning, honoring lived experience, and information sharing practices.

Godzilla scholars and citizen-scientists are encouraged to get in touch with the project team by emailing thegodzillapapers@gmail.com.

Members of the public can support this mission by subcribing to The Godzilla Papers. Our Field Office staff will send paid subscribers Godzilla Postcards with behind-the-scenes mission updates, dispatched monthly. Mission Patrons will have a plaque with their name on it installed at the Godzilla Mission Field Office. Paid supporters can will have helped the mission access the Japanese cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), which is very difficult to access in the United States.

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For all other inquiries, alert the Chief of Mission. When preparing an inquiry, please note that he is a dog and does not use LinkedIn or e-mail.

NOTE: Members of the public may notice that in their Field Reports, our Field Office Team insists that this mission is dedicated to the memory of Harvey Rowe. This is not the official stance of the Mission Office and should be disregarded as silly. We have warned staff about diluting the credibility of the mission with silliness, but they have been known to go rogue. That said, we could not find a more qualified team (we tried).