The Godzilla pilgrimage

As I plan to visit a number of key locations and sites featured in the Godzilla films I am framing some of the possible signs and discourse from the films that might leak out into these real spaces I visit.
One interesting theme I have started to explore is the ambiguity of purpose at the heart of Godzilla’s actions in the films. Why is Godzilla coming to this location and destroying this particular building at this time? Is it rejuvenate his power from a nuclear power station, or a broader moral significance – to punish humanity for nuclear weapon abuse upon the world? No-one often really seems to know why Godzilla is attacking Japan at that time and place.
Apart from these narrative uncertainties, we might find a clearer reason in the production, commercial and marketing reasons why certain locations are chosen. Not to mention the cultural reasons that a particular building has a certain symbolic power – the Diet Building as the seat of political power, etc.
While these commercial reasons are useful, I don:t think they’re the ones that inform fan practice when visiting these sites. Maybe an interest in the broader symbolic value of these sites, which would be of a general tourist nature. But then what does Godzilla in particular bring to experiencing these places? Their destruction? Is there some blurring of the overwhelming experience that may confront the visitor to Tokyo – the size of the buildings, the mass of people, etc and the tropes of Godzilla? Do the tropes and cliches within the Godzilla narrative offer a possible life-line to navigate the experience of Tokyo through? To make sense of all these buildings and spaces? Through their destruction and rebuilding in the Godzilla films?

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