The Monster Island Film Vault Posts

It’s an easy week for Jimmy’s Notes today. These “extended mini-analyses” tend to be that way. I could’ve asked Adam Noyes for his leftover notes, but he was busy doing his health inspector work for MIBOD (Monster Island Board of Directors), so I figured I should social distance and not interrupt his work. I like my job.

That being said, I do have a few of my own notes from the Submersion of Japan episode. They are:

• Toho was adapting Komatsu’s books into movies, Mr. Noyes, and not the other way around.
• “Mie” is pronounced, “Mee-ay,” Mr. Noyes.
• The film had two cinematographers, Hiroshi Murai and Daisaku Kimura, the latter winning the award for best director at the 33rd Japan Academy Prize for Mt. Tsurugidake.
• It’s not the first time you brought on someone you’ve referenced as a source, Nate. How could you forget John LeMay—especially when he’s going to be on the show later this month!
• For the hell of it, I did do a YouTube search for “Submersion of Japan 1973,” and Mr. Noyes’s video was the fourth video down.
• I’m shocked you guys mentioned the 1970s TV show but not the new anime, Japan Sinks 2020. Your “sister” would be disappointed, Nate. 😛

Now for Nate’s leftover notes:

Submersion of Japan

• This was definitely following in the trend of disaster movies in the 1970s. There were plenty of them. Like those disaster movies, it spends much time with the characters.
• The film begins with a slow progression of the continental drift. Then it zooms in on Japan and shows its formation. Starts 200 million years ago.
• The music was composed by Masuaru Sato. His score is remarkably subdued compared to his Godzilla scores. (He was a composer with great range. –Jimmy)
• The opening scene is a montage of many activities in Japan. A street fest, hose races, baseball, office work, car show, traffic jam, the beach, the harbor, the subway, water park. (The apocalypse is always a surprise. The destruction and later reformation of Venus were surprises. But that’s a story for another day. Perhaps in the pages of Kaiju Ramen. 😉 –Jimmy)
• They dive north of Ogawasara. (This reminds me that we should go scuba diving sometime, Nate. –Jimmy)
• What’s interesting is the scene where the scientists are watching video from the sub of the sea floor and discussing what caused the island to sink could easily be in the beginning of a kaiju film. It shows that kaiju embody natural disasters, which makes sense coming from japan. There’s even a line from Tadakoro about a “monstrous slug.”
• Interesting that the ship’s name is Hercules.
• Here’s the From Here to Eternity scene—but it gets interrupted by a lightning strikes and a volcano. It comes after Onodera tells Reiko he’d get married to have a baby and she says, “Hold me,” and they start to make love.
• There’s a scene that goes into extensive scientific exposition. It almost feels like a college lecture.
• Like Godzilla 1954, it shows the aftermath of the casualties (if only briefly).
• Numbers are frequently quoted to indicate the gravity of the situation. The casualties act as something of a reverse: it makes the personal stories and situations bigger.3.6 million missing or dead. (I appreciated this as an engineer. I “math” well. –Jimmy)
• Tadokora loses his cool on national TV talking about the impending disaster because the host doesn’t believe him.
• The government decides to practice occupation-era tactics and censor the media to avoid a panic.
• Reiko tells a story about slipping into the dark ocean while diving. She describes it as lonely yet calming. Foreshadowing. Microcosm. Onodera tells her to get transfer her money to foreign accounts. They will get married and run away together.
• There is a scene at the UN where they deliberate on what to do about Japan sinking, and they find the situation impossible to resolve for 110 million people. It’s a stark contrast to a Honda film like Gorath where they find a solution by coming together. This is steeped in realism and shows how difficult the situation would be.
• The PM decides he will bypass the UN and go to countries himself to ask if they’ll take refugees. 10 million to 1 million to 100,000 to 10,000, etc. Reminds me of Abraham asking God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for decreasing numbers of righteous men.
• It’s interesting reading subtitles as English is interpreted into Japanese. Differences.
• China agrees to help. Japan’s old wartime foe.
• Watari doesn’t look 100 years old to me.
• The evacuees are called “Kamikaze.” That’s a loaded name. (It means “divine wind,” but the cultural associations are…complicated. –Jimmy)
• Watari tells his niece to find a Japanese man in another country but then corrects himself to say any man to marry and have children. It’s a small concession to reality.
• The final scene has the card “somewhere on earth” with a train going by transporting Japanese refugees. We see a one-eyed Onodera.

Tidal Wave:

• It gives credit for the “special effects sequences” to the Japanese crew. And the director.
  • The characters’ names were changed. Tadokoro became Tanaka.
  • Adds dialogue where there wasn’t any.
  • The weird thing is the dubbed dialogue for what footage was left is actually pretty close to the original.
  • It takes nearly 46 minutes before the new footage with “star” Lorne Green starts. Clearly filmed fast in one room. Green disregards the issue, calling it a “small problem(?!). The Japanese cast member has to make this a sign of a danger to other places other than Japan. There’s talk of “astrologers and mystics” predicting the destruction. 15 minutes later, he’s injected into the UN scene. He gives a speech about the US accepting Japanese refugees. It’s a decent speech. He touches on refugee issues that were debated a few years. Ten minutes later he announces to the UN that 34 million people were saved (much higher the original). 4 minutes later: he’s reading the Newsweek article and commenting on Onodera.  
  • Onodera and Reiko are presented, at least implicitly, as being in an established relationship.

“Has the Empire Sunk Yet?” by Thomas Schnellbacher

• Japan itself is everywhere identified with the ephemeral, a recurring theme in interpretations of Japan both by Japanese and others.’ Tadokoro compares the convection currents in the earth’s mantle to meteorological phenomena, leading the listeners to conclude that “[t]he Archipelago on which they lived was like a line of clouds that had taken form along the leading edge of a moving mass of warm air.” It’s strangely mythological.
  • “…the computer scientist Nakata ironically quotes an old song from the Sino-Japanese War of 1895: “Hasn’t the Dingyuan sunk yet?” The Dingyuan was an enemy ship at that time; the joke is that, though incapacitating it at anchor was a key success for Japan in witining this war, the ship never did sink.'” The old songs may still survive even in the memory of those who do not share the militarist sentiment, it is implied, but they can take on a new meaning if that old sentiment is defused.”
  • The sunk Japan is mythologized as a new Atlantis or Mu.
  •  “…he began writing the book in 1964, his response to validations of Japanese imperialism beginning to be voiced, which he saw as symptoms of a society grown too wealthy. He is not critical of the achievements of the postwar Japanese economy, but of complacency about those achievements, especially if it goes hand in hand with a revival of imperialist thought.”

Okay, that was more than I was expecting. It was harder to make snide remarks because this is a serious film with heavy themes. That won’t be a problem next time. Trust me.

Speaking of next time, Nate’s friends Joe and Joy Metter, themselves a pair of MSTies, will return to watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode featuring Gamera vs. Barugon while Nate watches the original Japanese cut (as per MIBOD’s mandates). This will be part two of 12 (or 13?) of “The Year of Gamera.” Then Nate is joined by John LeMay, as I noted, to discuss a very different disaster movie: Prophecies of Nostradamus. It’ll be the second banned film featured on the podcast. (Is it just me, or are this month’s guests all former nemeses of mine?)

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