Crew •
Ishirō Honda – director, co-writer •
Eiji Tsuburaya – special effects director • – assistant director • Teruo Maki – production manager • – lighting • – chief art director • – art director •
Akira Watanabe – special effects art director • – special effects lighting • – monster builder • – sound recording • – sound and musical effects Personnel taken from
The Criterion Collection. Another novelization by Kayama of the film and its first sequel was published by Shimamura Shuppan in July 1955 as ; the latter was later published under the title
Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again on October 3, 2023 by
University of Minnesota Press in an English translation by
Jeffrey Angles.
Creature design Godzilla was designed by Teizō Toshimitsu and
Akira Watanabe under Eiji Tsuburaya's supervision. Early on, Tanaka contemplated having the monster be gorilla-like or whale-like in design because of the name "Gojira", a combination of the Japanese words for and , but he eventually settled on a dinosaur-like design. Wasuke Abe was hired earlier to design Godzilla, but his ideas were later rejected since Godzilla looked too humanoid and mammalian, with a head shaped like a mushroom cloud; however, Abe was retained to help draw the film's storyboards. Toshimitsu and Watanabe decided to base Godzilla's design on dinosaurs and, by using dinosaur books and magazines as a reference, combined elements of a
Tyrannosaurus,
Iguanodon and the dorsal fins of a
Stegosaurus. Despite wanting to use
stop motion animation, Tsuburaya reluctantly settled on
suitmation. Toshimitsu sculpted three clay models on which the suit would be based. The first two were rejected, but the third was approved by Tsuburaya, Tanaka, and Honda. The Godzilla suit was constructed by Kanju Yagi, Yasuei Yagi, and Eizo Kaimai, who used thin bamboo sticks and wire to build a frame for the interior of the suit and added metal mesh and cushioning over it to bolster its structure and finally applied coats of latex. Coats of molten rubber were additionally applied, followed by carved indentations and strips of latex glued onto the surface of the suit to create Godzilla's scaly hide. This first version of the suit weighed 100 kilograms (220 pounds). For close-ups, Toshimitsu created a smaller-scale, mechanical, hand-operated puppet that sprayed streams of mist from its mouth to act as Godzilla's atomic breath.
Haruo Nakajima and
Katsumi Tezuka were chosen to perform in the Godzilla suit because of their strength and endurance. At the first costume fitting, Nakajima fell down inside the suit since it had been created by using heavy latex and inflexible materials. This first version of the suit was cut into two and used for scenes requiring only partial shots of Godzilla or close-ups, with the lower half fitted with rope suspenders for Nakajima to wear. For full-body shots, a second identical suit was created, which was made lighter than the first suit, but Nakajima could still be inside for only three minutes before passing out. Nakajima lost 20 pounds during the production of the film. Nakajima would go on to portray Godzilla and other monsters until his retirement in 1972. Tezuka filmed scenes in the Godzilla suit, but his older body made him unable to fully commit to the physical demands required by the role. As a result, few of his scenes made it to the final cut, as very few scenes were considered usable. Tezuka filled in for Nakajima when he was unavailable or needed relief from the physically demanding role.
Name Godzilla's name was also a source of consternation for the filmmakers. Because the monster had no name, the first draft of the film was not titled after the monster but rather titled
G, also known as
Kaihatsu keikaku G ("Development Plan G"); the "G" stood for "Giant." Nakajima confirmed that Toho held a contest to name the monster. The monster was eventually named
Gojira. A prevalent rumor suggested that
Gojira was taken from the nickname of a hulking Toho employee. Tanaka became indirectly responsible for the rumor after having confirmed that the name
Gojira was suggested to him by a colleague who knew a burly employee nicknamed as such, stating that no one took the name seriously but eventually all realized that it was a "fitting name" for the monster. Fumio Saito, a former member of Toho's literature department, further spurred the rumor, stating that due to the secrecy behind the production, the film couldn't be properly promoted in any way. So much so that he alleged that the "real man behind the nickname
Gojira complained to us." In a 1998
BBC documentary on Godzilla, Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed the employee-name story as a tall tale and stated that she believed that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster, "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one." In 2003, a Japanese television special claimed to have identified the anonymous hulking Toho employee as Shiro Amikura, a Toho contract actor from the 1950s. However, Nakajima noted that the identity of Amikura "came out of the blue." Film scholars Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski noted inconsistencies in testimonies from those that verified the employee-name rumor, mostly citing faulty memory. They alluded to Kayama's diaries that showed he had already coined the name
Gojira before the rumor ever surfaced and that the name was likely derived from Kayama's short story
Jira Monster. As for the English variation of the name, they surmised that it was conceived by Toho's international sales department for export (no one has claimed credit for it) and that the English name is a "phonetic translation of the three monosyllabic katakana characters (Go-Dzi-La)."
Special effects The film's special effects were directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. Part of the reason why Mori approved the film was because he saw it as an opportunity for Toho to reclaim its status as Japan's leading studio in special effects filmmaking. After Tsuburaya launched Toho's special effects division in the late 1930s, he supervised the effects for war dramas financed by the
Imperial Japanese Navy. Tsuburaya proved to be such an important figure that he was placed in charge of a factory that produced detailed miniatures used in educational training films on behalf of the Imperial Navy. While Tsuburaya was banned from Japan's film industry during the
Occupation of Japan, he was hired back by Mori once the Occupation ended — albeit as a contractor, rather than an employee. For the effects footage to sync with the live-action footage, Honda and Tsuburaya would develop plans early during development and briefly meet prior to the day's shoot. Kajita would shuttle Tsuburaya to Honda's set to observe how a scene was being shot and where the actors were being positioned. Kajita also ushered Honda to the effects stage to observe how Tsuburaya was shooting certain effects. Honda edited the live-action footage, and he left blank
leaders for Tsuburaya to insert the effects footage. At times, Honda had to cut out certain effects footage. Tsuburaya disapproved of these decisions because Honda's cuts did not match the effects; however, Honda had the final say in those matters. Tsuburaya originally wanted to use stop motion for the film's special effects but realized that it would have taken seven years to complete based on the current staff and infrastructure at Toho. Settling on suitmation and miniature effects, Tsuburaya and his crew scouted the locations that Godzilla was to destroy and was nearly arrested after a security guard overheard their plans for destruction but were released after they showed the police their Toho business cards. Kintaro Makino, the chief of miniature construction, was given blueprints by Akira Watanabe for the miniatures and assigned 30 to 40 workers from the carpentry department to build them, which took a month to build the scaled-down version of
Ginza. Most of the miniatures were built at a 1:25 scale, but the
Diet Building was scaled down to a 1:33 scale to look smaller than Godzilla. It proved to be too expensive to use stop-motion extensively throughout the picture, but the final film included a stop-motion scene of Godzilla's tail destroying the Nichigeki Theater Building. The buildings' framework was made of thin wooden boards reinforced with a mixture of plaster and white chalk. Explosives were installed inside miniatures that were to be destroyed by Godzilla's atomic breath. Some were sprayed with gasoline to make them burn more easily; others included small cracks so they could crumble easily. Optical animation techniques were used for Godzilla's glowing dorsal fins by having hundreds of cells, which were drawn frame by frame. Haruo Nakajima perspired inside the suit so much that the Yagi brothers had to dry out the cotton lining every morning and sometimes reline the interior of the suit and repair damages. The typhoon waves were created by stagehands who overturned barrels of water into a water tank where the miniature Odo Island shoreline was built. Multiple composition shots were used for the Odo Island scenes. Most of the Odo Island scenes were filmed near rice fields. Toho hired en masse part-time employees to work on the film's optical effects. Half of the 400 hired staff were mostly part-timers with little to no experience. An early version of Godzilla's full reveal was filmed that featured Godzilla, via hand-operated puppet, devouring a cow. Sadamasa Arikawa thought the scene was too gruesome and convinced Tsuburaya to refilm it. Optical effects were utilized for Godzilla's footprints on the beach by painting them onto glass and inserting them into an area of the live-action footage. Special effects photography lasted for 71 days.
Filming On the first day of filming, Honda addressed a crew of 30 to read the script and to leave the project if they did not feel convinced since he wanted to work only with those who had confidence in him and the film. Most of the film was shot in the Toho lot. Honda's team also filmed on location in the
Shima Peninsula in Mie Prefecture to film the Odo Island scenes, which used 50 Toho extras, and Honda's team established their base in the town of Toba. Local villagers were also used as extras for the Odo Island scenes. The dance ritual scene was filmed on location in Mie Prefecture, with local villagers performing as the dancers. The cast and crew commuted every morning by boat to
Toba, Mie, and worked under harsh weather temperatures. Honda worked shirtless and so suffered a blistering sunburn on his back that left permanent scars. Toho had negotiated with the
Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to film scenes requiring the military and filmed target practices and drills for the film. Honda's team followed a convoy of JSDF vehicles for the convoy dispatch scene. Two thousand girls were used from an all-girls high school for the prayer-for-peace scene. The filmmakers had little co-operation from the JSDF and had to rely on World War II
stock footage, provided by the Japanese military, for certain scenes. The stock footage was sourced from
16 mm prints. Honda's team spent 51 days shooting the film. ==Music and sound effects==