The third and final installment of the animated Godzilla trilogy, Godzilla: Planet Eater (Hoshi wo kuu mono), opened in Japanese cinemas on 9 November. A stage greeting to commemorate its release took place on 10 November at Toho Cinemas Shinjuku in Tokyo. The cast members on stage included Mamoru Miyano, Takahiro Sakurai, Kana Hanazawa, Reina Ueda, and Aki Ozawa. Joining them were the directors, Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita.

Miyano, who plays protagonist Haruo, reminisced with ‘The movie makes me realize again that I’ve been living with Haruo for the last two years’. As the stage greeting was taking place before the screening of the movie, the topics of the event were based on the movie’s trailer in order to avoid spoilers. Some scenes from the trailer were shown on a screen and the guests were making comments on them to ‘solve the mysteries’ in the movie together. The three scenes chosen for the event were ‘Haruo watching over a sleeping Yuko’, ‘Haruo embracing Maina or Miana’ and ‘a praying Metphies’.

The last one of a praying Metphies got the cast members the most excited. ‘It’s Namu Namu’ (a typical Buddhist prayer in Japan) Sakurai claimed while holding his hands together in prayer to recreate the scene, a.k.a. ‘the scene of another scheme’. At that point, Miyano began talking about Sakurai’s voice passionately. He said that Metphies’ words weren’t harsh despite the fact that he is experiencing conflict with Haruo and confessed his feelings during the recording, saying ‘actually, it quite upset me.’ He raved about Sakurai’s voice as a ‘melodic sound’ which no one in the world except Sakurai can express. Sakurai reacted to this praise with a smile and by jokingly asking the media, ‘please write his comment in bold.’ He continued by saying that he felt Metphies’ love when Metphies called Haruo’s name again and again, and that this movie was an explosion of love. Sakurai also praised Miyano by saying that he was the one who set the mood in the recording studio and set the direction of their voice acting as the protagonist of the movie.

Sakurai expressed his impression of the movie as ‘a movie that has a Gen Urobuchi feel to it’. Shizuno disclosed that he discussed with Seshita about preserving Urobuchi’s taste as the screenplay was so impressive. ‘There were endless considerations on what we should do during the making process,’ Seshita looked back and confessed. Ozawa said that he was totally overwhelmed by reading the script but then smiled while saying, ‘I felt relieved because the directors were so friendly and lovely.’

The event wrapped with Miyano proudly examining, ‘We showed our way of life in the movie!’ and he expressed his hope that more and more people would watch the movie.

Godzilla: Planet Eater

To open November 9, 2018