Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle - Too Anime

Oh boy, here we go. Although starting on a bit of a disappointing note with the release of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the Godzilla Anime Trilogy still had some potential, it just needed to be tapped right. And with the imminent arrival of Mechagodzilla, what could go wrong? Well, the answer is, well, a lot. Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle is a movie that will absolutely disappoint every viewer. Be it you are an anime fan, a Godzilla fan, want some great action, or just want to watch A movie in general, you will come out of the movie disappointed no matter what. From the outset, this movie had to pick up a lot of slack from what was given after the ending of the first movie, but again, it still had a lot of potential. It just needed to be tapped. The story, and lore was there, it just needed better characters and writing in order to make this a story to invest in and be a part of. And we get absolutely none of that. A movie that barely qualifies as a Godzilla movie, has a disappointing story and characters you are just begging die, Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle is a movie I recommend all audiences members skip. I'm really happy if you can find something you love in it, but as the person writing out his opinions here, I can definitely say this is one of the worst movies to ever contain the Godzilla character, and easily one of the worst movies in this entire review series.

After the remaining Earth fighters are stomped out by the massive Godzilla Earth, Haruo wakes up to find he is under the care of the survivors of the Earth; humans with moth DNA who use a lost technology; nanometal. After it is soon discovered the head of the original Earth weapon Mechagodzilla survived in the form of Mechagodzilla City, Haruo and the remaining Earth forces to devise a plan that will kill Godzilla. But as treachery is discovered amongst some of the forces of the alien Bilusaludan ranks, killing Godzilla is now a question of moral ambiguity and what would truly be best for the Earth.

Alright, I know I said closing off the last review that I didn't think I'd tear into the movie, but then I thought about it. So, guess what? I'm gonna. Let's begin this review with literally the only positive I can work myself into mentioning: the soundtrack. For a series that ends up being disappointing, the music is phenomenal. I should have mentioned the soundtrack in the last movie, but I wanted to save talking about it right now. Because the first movie's soundtrack is really good, and I don't think that this movie's soundtrack is necessarily better, but it is still really strong. Takayuki Hattori returns for the sequel and even is already a veteran of the series, being the man behind the music in Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla and Godzilla 2000: Millennium. The music is one of the best parts of the anime trilogy and one of the most important parts of ANY movie, and he always hits it out of the park, especially in this trilogy. My favorite track in the movie is called "Bilusaldo's Technology". Most of the music of the trilogy is a bit more orchestra centric, giving a sense of awe and over the immense nature of Godzilla. But this movie uses a bit more techno influence. Fitting, given that Mechagodzilla is indeed a mech and thus a robot. And Bilusaludo's Technology is the perfect piece for that theme. Exciting and yet incredibly nerve wracking in the context of the movie, it almost gives the audience a bit of hope given the power of Godzilla. It's a brilliantly kickass theme to show just how much fight humanity has and I'm glad it's in the soundtrack. And now it's time to talk about everything else.

First of all, the characters are not only still bad. They're actually even worse if you ask me! Haruo is still the worst leading man in the entire franchise, honestly. That hasn't changed and it DEFINITELY hasn't gotten better. Haruo is basically the exact same character only with significantly more generic anime yelling. I don't have to have watched much anime to know that characters in anime yell A LOT and it gets irritating, much as it does in this movie. So if you hated Haruo in the first movie, I can promise NOTHING will change with this movie. As for the "human" cast, let's talk about the Bilusaludo aliens, which in my opinion are the only significantly interesting characters, which really sucks because in the sense of the script and overall story, they're dumb. The Bilusaludo came to Earth in hopes of saving the planet, and so when they invented Mechagodzilla, the hope was to destroy Godzilla and SAVE Earth. So when they merge with the nanometal in the end of the movie, it gets dumb and you find yourself stupefied by their motivations from the start and they become really interesting. And it's not like it's just one of them, oh no no no. This is the entire group of characters and they all become villains seemingly on a whim. It's some bad writing and character work and really bums me the hell out.

And here's where the movie REALLY loses any audience member: Godzilla and "Mechagodzilla" are mind numbingly disinteresting in this movie. Godzilla himself doesn't appear in the movie for a LONG time, and his basic first thing he does is open his eyes and looks at "Mechagodzilla." Like, that's not the first thing I care about in a Godzilla movie! I want to see him marching, I want to see him actively angry, not just LOOKING at his opponent, and for most of his screen appearance he's just walking towards "Mechagodzilla" and getting it handed to him by the humans. It's lame and then he basically goes full Burning Godzilla mode and it's like "Okay, cool I guess, but it's not exciting or interesting to watch because nothing feels at stake." And then we have "Mechagodzilla." I'm all for doing something new with a character and a reinvention of a character to cover something new. But if Godzilla being a plant is pushing it, then this has tipped the scale to a billion and makes no sense. Here's my question: why is Mechagodzilla a city? Why didn't the Bilusaludo use Mechagodzilla's programming to make a Mechagodzilla just as big, if not bigger than Godzilla? Why did they make a lame plan as opposed to doing something that would possibly be more effective and cooler for the audience to look at? Sure, I guess you can say it makes narrative sense, but it just doesn't work to have something that drastically changes everything about the character to the nth degree. This is not Mechagodzilla. This is lame.

Lame is the name of City on the Edge of Battle. There is no reason to stick around with this movie, truly. It's slow, boring, not interesting to look at and the characters are infuriating to deal with. This movie is not good and is by far the worst movie of this trilogy and the worst movie to come out in the fourth distinct era of Godzilla. Don't watch it. I mean it. Just let it die.

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Tomorrow the anime trilogy is wrapping up with Godzilla: the Planet Eater. I enjoy the movie, but is it good enough to save an overall mediocre at best anime trilogy? Find out and come back tomorrow to find out.