Kaiju and the Problem Of Evil

Periodically I come across the (often half-joking) claim that Godzilla is Catholic because the special-effects director for many of the franchise’s classic movies, Eiji Tsuburaya, was Catholic. While this fact is true – Tsuburaya converted after marrying his wife – these claims often attempt to link almost all the uses of religious imagery in Godzilla or Ultraman franchises specifically to Tsuburaya’s direction and influence. Many of these connections seem only speculative, and such tenuous stretches of logic do a disservice to his real legacy within science fiction storytelling. 

In the case of the original 1954 Gojira, this claim regarding his influence over the movie’s themes and writing is especially shaky. Tsuburaya did submit a very early script for Godzilla, but he didn’t write the final movie. His version had a giant octopus, for example. 

Tsuburaya definitely deserves credit and accolades for his effects work, but I don’t know if his influence, or even his religious beliefs, had an impact on the movie beyond that. 

Other common claims point out appearances of religious imagery in Ultraman, but many of the most well-known ones seem to be incidental (Ultraman’s Specium beam pose with crossed arms, for example), or are found in shows made after his death in 1970.

However, this would be a very short article if I just stopped there, dismissing all the claims theorizing how Tsuburaya’s Catholicism influenced his work in kaiju cinema. It’s equally as implausible that his religious beliefs – beliefs which were strong enough to lead him to convert as an adult – had no influence on that work. I do believe there are some crucial connections to be drawn between Tsuburaya’s work on Godzilla, the Ultraman franchise, and Catholic theology. But I also feel like the discussion around this topic often misses the forest for the trees. 

Ultraman and Godzilla are Catholic, but not in the way many readers may think.

First of all, when you get down to it, everything is Catholic because “catholic” itself means “universal”. In addition to that, Jesus Christ reigns as King of the Universe at the right hand of the Father, the Word through which all of creation was brought into existence and is sustained –

But that point is quite a bit beyond the scope of this article. 

Instead, my goal here isn’t to evangelize, but to apologize – that is, to explain some specific tenets of Catholic teaching and how they relate to key themes found in both Godzilla and Ultraman stories.

To provide a comprehensive reading of these properties, it should obviously start at the beginning. Godzilla. The big G. The OG. The most famous kaiju around the world, he has represented many, many different allegories for various evils in our world – disasters, chaos and conflict – but sometimes represents heroic courage as well. In most of his most recognizable appearances however, Godzilla consistently represents things beyond understanding; things that are too huge, too powerful for humanity to control. 

This representation is often closely tied to the arrival of natural disasters, random tragedies like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, which strike without warning and cause random, senseless losses of lives. 

But not all tragedies in the world are unforeseen. Sometimes these disasters are brought about as the consequences of humanity’s own mistakes, the disordered actions of humanity. In other words, human beings often create natural disasters. 

Godzilla, in the original movie, is a very obvious allegory for the dangers of nuclear weapons, establishing a now long-running theme of “waking up” a threat which humanity can no longer control. Once summoned by humanity meddling in forces beyond its grasp, it overpowers any attempt to stop it, or even slow it down. The only response is to face the consequences of those mistakes, and accept responsibility in order to avert future disasters.

That theme has only been expanded to terrifying extremes in modern versions of Godzilla, such as Shin Godzilla. In 2021, Singular Point also made use of a similar idea of “waking up” an uncontrollable disaster. In that series, however, instead of allegorically using Godzilla’s nuclear apocalypse to represent a crisis borne out of scientific progress, the show portrays a crisis of science itself. 

What happens when one’s understanding of the laws and mechanics governing the universe breaks down? At what point does knowledge itself become a weapon, something that dismantles the framework – the schema – by which human beings learn about the universe around us? Singular Point goes in a decidedly abstract direction by using the idea of ideas themselves as something huge, terrifyingly powerful, and destructive.

All of these are important questions, but what might any of this have to do with Catholicism specifically? What unique insight into these disasters, man-made or otherwise, can a Catholic interpretation provide us? 

To understand that interpretation, we also need to start at the beginning of a Scriptural understanding of Catholicism, and better understand the origins of giant, terrifyingly primordial monsters themselves. Allow me to introduce one of the oldest “kaiju” mentioned in the Bible: the Leviathan. 

This mythical creature is mentioned a few times in the Old Testament, but the oldest use of this name comes from the book of Job: 

“May that night be barren; Let no joyful outcry greet it! Let them curse it who curse the sea, the appointed disturbers of Leviathan!”

Job 3:7-8

For readers who aren’t familiar with Job’s story, the book is a dramatic play illustrating one central part of Christian theology called “theodicy”, or more colloquially, “The Problem of Evil”. 

Or, even more colloquially, “why do bad things happen to good people?” 

Or, “why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” as is the case in this story.

Job is faithful to God, but God allows Satan to test him by taking everything away from him. His money, his home, his loved ones, and eventually even his health is lost. Job’s friends leave him, assuming he must have secretly committed some grave sin to earn such a punishment. Job’s wife goes further and tells him to “curse God and die”- but Job doesn’t.

But he does complain.

Understandably so, I mean.

When Job demands an answer from God, God shows up and delivers His longest speech in the entire Bible. The references to Leviathan in Job fit into this monologue from God, They challenge Job to account for, and measure the full, fathomless breadth of creation, including the Leviathan.

The verse from Job 40:25 asks, “Can you lead about Leviathan with a hook, or curb his tongue with a bit?” 

Job himself, of course, cannot. But this does raise an interesting question – why does the Leviathan even exist in the first place? Why did God make it part of creation? 

This is closely related to the central problem of the story of Job itself. If such a terrifyingly destructive beast exists within God’s creation, why does he allow such destruction – and the suffering that results from its destruction – to persist? What purpose do natural disasters and tragedies serve in God’s creation? 

Why does Godzilla exist? 

Well, what causes Godzilla to awaken in the original movie? Nuclear weapons testing. To relate this to Catholic teaching (according to St. Augustine of Hippo, and later St. Thomas Aquinas), humanity’s own sins allow evil to enter the world because these sins work contrary to God’s will. In fact, the English word “sin” itself comes from an older Germanic root that means “to separate” or “sever”. Sin literally separates humanity from God and the proper cosmic order that God presides over.

“The Triumph of St. Augustine”, Claudio Coello

An altarpiece in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, by Carlo Crivelli

As the saying goes, all things happen for a reason, and sometimes the reason is that you are dumb and make bad decisions. Since God allows human beings free will, that includes the freedom to do bad things, and sin. Thus, pain, suffering, death and all other kinds of consequences enter the world as a result of free will exercised (and misused) by individual humans.

In much the same way, Godzilla, and other giant monsters within the movies produced under Tsuburaya’s effects direction, rise as a response to this misuse of free will. All of these precipitating disasters are the natural and fitting consequence of humanity’s most horrific sins – nuclear weapons, corporate greed, war on a shocking, industrialized scale, the destruction of nature, and more.

This isn’t the only way to answer the “Problem of Evil” though. Other theologians also point out that God allows evil to exist in the world, not just to punish people, but also to create the circumstances to produce mighty works that glorify him. The Biblical story of Exodus is a good example of this. Within that narrative, God purposely makes an example of Egypt to show his power in an unmistakable, historic way. 

The Leviathan of Job’s story, along with Godzilla and other kaiju, can also serve this purpose, to demonstrate God’s awe-inspiring power. Their very existence chastises humanity, but also humbles them in a necessary and fitting manner. Embedded within a society which has rapidly become dehumanized, atomized, and industrialized, losing much of our relationship to nature and creation around us as a result, kaiju serve as a reminder of humanity’s own faults and frailties when compared to the majesty of the fullness of creation. 

But while kaiju and other works of nature put us “in our place”, it’s necessary to remember that place is within God’s providence over creation. Humanity is  equally a part of that creation, so kaiju and human free will could both be seen as serving the mystery of God’s salvation, working within the natural world, through natural phenomena.

And sometimes those natural phenomena just look really freaking cool. But the impact of Godzilla and Eiji Tsuburaya’s work goes far beyond simple spectacle. In the next piece, I’ll look at how Tsuburaya understood humanity’s place in this universe alongside the Leviathan, and other monsters.