The Two Loves of Emiko

 If you look at  Godzilla as a strange love story, which I suddenly now do, I find the character Emiko to be wonderfully intense and pathetically 1954 female, simultaneously.

Emmi is the daughter of the noted paleontologist who gives Gojira its name. We say Godzilla because it rolls over the tongue easier than Gojira, but the Japanese have trouble pronouncing Ls. So, Godzilla it is.

Her father wants Godzilla to be studied. The rest of Japan wants the monster destroyed.

Emiko is certainly upset over the monster destroying her country and people. She is in love with Ogata, but engaged since youth to the imminent one-eyed Dr. Serizawa. The good doctor is older, rather good looking, but she views him as an older brother, not a lover. She has one she found herself. Gotta look up his name, too.

Anyway, when Emiko goes to visit Serizawa to tell him that she loves another, she doesn't get to tell him that because he decides to share with her his horrible secret experiment. He shows her tanks of living fish which he then kills by dropping in some chemical that destroys the oxygen in the fish tank and kills the fish. Their flesh disintegrates. They die.

He forces her to promise not to tell anyone about this. She cries at the sight of the dissolving fish flesh, but agrees to keep the secret.

Meanwhile, the boyfriend is busy trying to figure out a way to kill off the monster, even if it pisses off Emmi's dad.

Godzilla rampages through Tokyo. People die. The army comes up with some lameass way to kill it by running all the electricity through the above ground grid. Surely the gigantic monster will die from electrocution when it touches the wires.

It doesn't.

The giant lizard continues to rampage and destroy  Tokyo. The losses are tragic.

So Emmi decides she has to tell her boyfriend about her fiance's discovery. The boyfriend Ogata immediately goes to see Serizawa and begs him to unleash the weapon to save mankind. They fight then apologize for hurting each other.

Reluctantly, the doctor agrees, but says he must take the device containing the oxygen destroyer to the bottom of Tokyo Bay. The boyfriend says he has to go with him as Serizawa is inexperienced at diving. I didn't know the boyfriend was, either, but evidently that was lost in the translation.

So, Emmi and her father and reporters and naval people set out to the bay with the destroyer device. The two men get suited up in old diving suits and down they go. Emmi actually holds Serizawa's air hose and feeds it down as he goes under while her brother holds the boyfriend's air hose. The paleontologist sulks and worries while the reporters...report.

Underwater shots.

They get to see Godzilla moving around. Godzilla sort of looks in their direction. Serizawa tugs on the boyfriend's rope and he gets pulled up to the waiting ship while Serizawa unleashes the weapon and the water foams and bubbles and Godzilla struggles a little.

Serizawa, doing his best to remain calm, wishes the two lovers all the best and cuts his air supply.

Emiko calls out to him. Everybody wants him to surface, but he is gone.

Emmi cries. The boyfriend tells her Serizawa's last words, wishing them happiness.

All in all, the boyfriend is okay, he tries to prevent Serizawa from offing himself. He loves Emmi.

The father is okay. He wants to further knowledge of the monster to prevent more from coming to destroy the world. 

Serizawa is a bloody hero. He deserves to live, but, well, without his fiancee, his life will pretty much suck.

So then we have poor heartbroken Emiko. Brave, promise breaking Emiko who saves Japan. She cries. In the end, she is forgotten, while the name Serizawa lives on to the latest Godzilla, King of Monsters movie where his  nephew follows in his uncle's footsteps and commits suicide to save the world, or in this case, save Godzilla.

Odd turn about of events, but works for me.

Thanks for the heroes who exist in movies!