Mothra, oh Mothra! If we were to call for help
over time, over sea, like a wave you'd come,
our guardian angel!
I may not know much about foreign cinema, but I do know that the Japanese love their movie monsters - or kaiju, as those in the know like to say ...
Whilst Godzilla may be the most famous of these amongst Western audiences, my personal favourite is Mothra, who first appeared in a 1961 film of that title directed by Ishirō Honda [1]. As might be inferred from the name, Mothra is a giant, fully sentient saturniid (most probably an extremely large type of silk moth) [2].
Unlike Godzilla, who is hell-bent on destroying Tokyo at every given opportunity, Mothra is a more benevolent character who often acts to protect mankind; as seen, for example, in Godzilla vs. Mothra (dir. Takao Okawara, 1992), where she bravely battles the former in order to prevent him from attacking Yokohama [3].
This might explain why Mothra is particularly popular with female movie-goers in Japan; they can empathise with a kindly creature who comes to spread love and peace, in a way they cannot with a rampaging, atomic-fire breathing reptilian who brings death and destruction in his wake.
Of course, when I was a wide-eyed young boy I loved violent displays of sheer power - be they performed by fictional monsters like Godzilla, or Nazi stormtroopers. However, as one gets older, one becomes a little less easily impressed by such crude displays and understands that the greatest change is sometimes wrought by the movement of a pollen-dusted wing [4].
Finally, there's one other reason I like Mothra. And that's the fact that she is worshipped by twin female fairies; sacred figures - only 6" tall - termed Shobijin [小美人] [5].
With their tiny feet and tiny breasts, what's not to love about these small beauties who call to their guardian deity in prayer and song and have some kind of magical connection to her even across great distances?
At any rate, like the alchemist and philosopher, Dr. Septimus Pretorius, I've always had a thing for perfectly formed young women whom you might hold on your hand, or keep in a glass jar [6]. But we can discuss my microphilia another day ...
.jpg)
Emi and Yumi Itō as the Shobijin
in Mothra (1961)
Notes
[1] Mothra [モスラ] is sometimes written and pronounced as Mosura. To watch a trailer for the film, click here.
[2] In the original 1961 film, Mothra is at her largest; 590 feet in length, with a wingspan of 820 feet, and weighing in at 20,000 tons (i.e., not as heavy as the Statue of Liberty, but twice the weight of the Eiffle Tower).
[3] This 1992 film should not be confused with the earlier Mothra vs. Godzilla (dir. Ishirō Honda, 1964), an edited version of which was released in the United States under the title Godzilla vs. the Thing (1964).
[4] I'm alluding here to the so-called butterfly effect in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
The term is closely associated with the work of mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz, who originally referred to a seagull flapping its wings, before friends and colleagues persuaded him that butterflies had greater poetic resonance within the cultural imagination.
The concept is now widely used even by individuals with little or no knowledge of chaos theory, to refer to any situation in which a tiny change is thought to be the cause of larger consequences.
[5] In the 1961 film the Shobijin were played by sisters Emi and Yumi Itō, known professionally as the Peanuts. As identical twins, they had voices that only slightly differed in timbre, so that when they sang together it sounded like a solo artist utilizing a reverb effect.
[6] Dr. Septimus Pretorius is a fictional character in the classic Universal horror movie Bride of Frankenstein (dir. James Whale, 1935). He is played by British stage and film actor Ernest Thesiger. Those interested in his experimental work in growing homunculi from seed, should click here.
