When Does "Godzilla Raids Again" (1955) Take Place?
"Gojira no Gyakushū" (released to English-speaking audiences as "Godzilla Raids Again" and other languages as "Godzilla Returns" or "The Beast That Ruined Cities" though the literal translation would be "Godzilla's Counterattack") is an adventure horror (kaiju) film written by Shigeru Kayama with Shigeaki Hidaka and Takeo Murata and released April 24th, 1955.
It takes place in the year:
We know this because a shot at about one-quarter through the movie shows newspaper pages dated for January of 1955 AD.
1955 AD
We know this because a shot at about one-quarter through the movie shows newspaper pages dated for January of 1955 AD.
It has been retroactively absorbed into the MonsterVerse Universe at a chronologically early spot (a second chronological film to feature Godzilla) and can be watched at its timeline point after the previous film, "Gojira" (1954), or as part of an extended flashback before "Godzilla vs. Kong" (2021) [with or without the "Monarch: Legacy of Monsters" (2023) TV show].
The film was dubbed, re-edited, and re-written by Ib Melchior and Edwin Watson as "Gigantis, the Fire Monster" for the original American version released May 21st, 1959. It is an almost entirely different movie.
The one shot of newspaper inner pages is replaced with two separate shots of "The Osaka Times", “The Japanese Times”, "New York Chronicle", "New York Dispatch", and then a sixth of "New York Record" front pages. None of these are dated making the time setting of this cut of the film unplaceable. Though, the appearance of the New York City United Nations building means it has to be after its completion in October of 1952 AD.
