Mothra (1961): Reflecting on Toho Studios’ Sci-Fi Classic

The realm of kaiju is filled with quite the technicolor rainbow of original designs. The creatures range from classic designs like that of Godzilla; to the more bizarre. One of the more unusual kaiju designs that is well known outside of the fandom is Mothra. Mothra would be unleashed upon the world in 1961 in her self-titled debut film, but her popularity within the genre has spawned numerous appearances against Godzilla as well as her own movie trilogy in the nineties. Take a few moments with us to look back at the horror sci-fi classic Mothra!

By 1960 TOHO studios was seeing increased popularity with their genre films like Rodan and The Mysterians. The novel The Luminous Fairies and Mothra would be adapted by Shinichi Sekizawa. The script was finally approved after a series of re-writes and production started in 1961. The film would be directed by TOHO regular Ishiro Honda (Dir. Gojira) and would also feature effects from Eji Tsuburaya.

Mothra tells the tale of a reporter Zenichiro Fukuda (Frankie Sakai) and his photographer Michi Hanamura (Kyoko Kagawa) after they sneak into a hospital to meet with four survivors who were ship wrecked during a typhoon. The four landed on the thought to be abandoned Infant Island. Infant Island is one of the locations used by Rolisica for their nuclear tests.

Never heard of Rolisica? Don’t worry if you haven’t. Rolisica was TOHO’s stand in for America and Russia.

The Rolisican Embassy decides to send Fukuda and Michi to the island in a joint expedition between the Japanese and Rolisicans. Once on the island, the team discovers mutated plants and a race of native humans. The team’s anthropologist, Shin’ichi (Hiroshi Koizumi) is attacked by the local plant life but is rescued by a pair of women who are only a foot tall.

The small women (Shobijin) tell the team of their wishes to be spared from anymore atomic testing. The team returns to society to alert everyone of their wishes but the capitalist Rolisican Clark Nelson (Jerry Ito) takes a team back to the island. Many an islander is gunned down as Nelson takes the Shobijin (The Peanuts) back to Japan. Nelson decides to exploit the girls through the most evil of all plans….a television performance! Unknown to the people in the studio, the song the girls sing awakens the ancient Goddess Mothra and causes her to hatch from her egg back on Infant Island! True to the genre, Mothra arrives in Japan and lays absolute waste to the cities. After a series of spectacular effects shots, Mothra cocoons herself. This leads to her following the greedy Nelson to Rolisica to get her tiny beauties back.

 Mothra was one of the stand alone kaiju films that TOHO would produce. It was released before the kaiju boom would kick off properly with King Kong vs Godzilla, but it was still a great success. The film would be released in North America on May 10th, 1962. It would also see favorable reviews here as well.

A.H. Weiler of the New York Times compared Mothra’s plot elements to King Kong in his review upon it’s release. When asked if Mothra was a Japanese version of King Kong, Honda replied: “From the early planning stages with Mr. Tsuburaya, before the screenplay was written, the setting was an adventure set on a South Sea island, where a mysterious giant creature is worshiped as a God. There’s also a showman and beauty (the Shobijin), causes a city to be rampaged. So yes, this is a Japanese version of King Kong. However I wanted our final act a happy ending, and not like the denouement of Kong, which ended in tragedy.”

The success of Mothra would see the kaiju star return to fight Godzilla in Mothra vs Godzilla in 1964. A team up with Godzilla and Rodan to take on the evil space dragon Ghidorah in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster would be released the same year. She would also reappear in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (’66) and Destroy All Monsters (’68) as a supporting kaiju. When the Godzilla franchise was rebooted for the Heisei era of films, Mothra would see a solo trilogy which was primarily targeted towards children released. Mothra would also be in three of the millennium era Godzilla movies as well.

Mothra is held in high regard among kaiju fans. It came out during a period when Japanese movie studios were flourishing and ticket sales were seeing all time highs. By all means go out and check out this prime cut from the golden age of TOHO Studios!

As of this writing Mothra is available on various streaming sites, as well as being available for purchase from Sony in their “Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection” and the Mill Creek collection “Sci-Fi Creature Classics.”