After watching the English dubbed version of Godzilla: Singular Point, I am ready to give my thoughts on the anime as a whole. My consensus on this anime is that I thought it was only okay at best. I didn’t like the anime as much as everyone else. The first few episodes I felt it started off strong, but then by the half way point my interest in the story declined. There are some good things about the show that I did like, but there was a lot of stuff that put this show down for me. The story was not really all that there. It puts together this complex science to explain how the monsters exist and how to stop them. So it tries to be smart, but it’s science that I would not be able to understand unless I researched it. I don’t mind some science stuff, but there is so much of it in the show that it leaves very little room to let me get to know the main characters.
With every good story, there must be characters likable enough for me to get attached to. For instance, one of my favorite anime is The Rising of the Shield Hero, a story about a guy who was transported to an alternate world bearing the hero’s shield. He arrives with three other heroes that bear the lance, sword, and bow, but those guys are seen more favorably by the king while the shield hero is being falsely accused for crimes he didn’t commit by the princess and the king. Due to this, he begins hating the world he was brought to. However, after making friends outside the palace, he learns that the world is not that bad and the public learns that the shield hero is not the criminal that the king and princess made him out to be. It made me want to see the shield hero succeed. It made me want to see him get the justice he deserved after how he was badly treated by the king and the princess. It even goes into the technical side of how magic worked in that world, but the show doesn’t hammer me with so much technical stuff. It has this perfect balance of when the show needed focus on the characters and when to get technical. When it comes to Godzilla: Singular Point, it has entertaining moments, but the show really gets dragged down by mostly the science stuff and hardly leaves any room for me to know the characters enough to connect with them. The only characters I only got to know are Jet Jaguar and Professor Ashihara (even though this character was not around for most of the show).
I have had people tell me that the science is just too complex for me to understand and that Singular Point has a great story, but if the story is too complex then is it really telling a good story? The story is not complex to understand on a basic level, but having a show that is pure exposition does not make a good story. Sure, the science parts is interesting, but there is a point where the show needs something else to break it up. There is just too much to take in all at once. It just makes the show become "Exposition: the anime" just like Shin-Godzilla was just "Exposition: the movie." These characters need to have personal drama and I think that is what the Polygon trilogy got partially right. We learn about the characters on a personal level and their goals and beliefs. In Singular Point, they don't really have any other goals other than "We need to save the planet." Have them lose a loved one or lose a team member and have them look back at the memories of the time spent with them so they can learn from it. Make them fall in love and have it be a reason why these characters fight. The show needed to do something more with the characters. Something to help me connect with these characters on a personal level. Otherwise, the story just becomes tedious and boring to watch. It went from me enjoying the show to becoming more like a chore. The only reason to watch the show then would be for the fights.
Most of those entertaining moment are the monster fights. When they happen, it is usually Jet Jaguar fighting Rodan or Anguirus or the Kumonga and for those moments they were really fun to watch, but then it’s over after 3 or 4 minutes and it goes back to the slow and boring science stuff of the story. There are episodes where the episode begins with a Jet Jaguar vs monster fight, cuts to the boring part of the episode, and then cuts back to the fight at the end of the episode. I would not mind this if the story of the anime was not as boring as it was. This anime should have been called Jet Jaguar: Singular Point since Godzilla hardly shows up in this anime.
That‘s the other thing. Why did Godzilla have to show up so late to the show? And I am talking about the actual Godzilla, not his three forms because we all know that “Aquatilis” is Titanosaurus, “Amphibia” is Varan, and “Terrestris” is Gorosaurus. The whole thing with Godzilla going through three mutations was really dumb. When Godzilla first appeared it's an extravaganza, but then he doesn't have any memorable moments until the final episode when he fights Jet Jaguar. In fact, that is the only real fight we see Godzilla have. When "Terrestris" sees the giant Rodan flying towards him or "Ultima" is getting constricted by Manda it only takes two minutes for Godzilla to one shot them with his atomic breath. I waited for 10 episodes to see Godzilla and he doesn't get to have a drawn out fight with any of these monsters?
This was an issue with the Polygon trilogy, as well. Through out all three movies, we learn Godzilla Earth killed all of the monsters off screen in the first movie and then the one fight he has with another monster in the third movie is just Godzilla and Ghidorah floating in the air for a half hour. There was a lot of finger pointing where Kobun Shizuno blamed Shoriyuki Seshita and Seshita blames Toho and Toho blames both Shizuno and Seshita for not having Godzilla engage in any monster battles. Now with Singular Point, I honestly think Toho has instructed Studio Bones and Studio Orange to not show Godzilla having drawn out fights with other monsters.
There are some inconsistencies with the story, yet there is one glaring inconsistency that I noticed is how the Godzilla bones were discovered. Apparently, there was another Godzilla that appeared and attacked Ashihara's village before WW2 happened. However, this Godzilla was killed and was never explained how it was killed. Yet shortly after, everyone just seemed to have forgotten Godzilla's existence due to the war happening. Ashihara went out to look for the remains years later and had it shipped to the radio observatory, but then scientists that were studying the bones seemed to have forgotten about it after Ashihara had passed away. How can a whole village forget about Godzilla's existence despite being ingrained into their local mythology? How can scientists forget about the bones of a monster they were studying for years just suddenly forget they existed? Even if a war was happening or the bones were being studied, nobody would ever forget such events. You would think that the discovery of a giant monster would be a discovery of a lifetime, but apparently that didn't seem to be the case in this universe until the first episode when Rodan started to appear.
And what was Godzilla's motivation in this series? Usually, there would be some sort of motivation for Godzilla attacking. Was this Godzilla trying to restore balance to nature? Was it trying to replace humanity as the dominant life form? Did it want revenge on humanity for using the nuclear bomb? Did it want Japan to remember their history of World War 2? Was it searching for something that it lost? Well, the answer to this is unknown because it never showed or explain what Godzilla was trying to do. It may as well be creating a whole new universe on top of an existing one. All we learn is that Godzilla is a "singular point", which I think means Godzilla exists in some form in every alternate reality.
More so, we are introduced to Rodan, Salunga, and Manda in the very beginning of the show and continued to reappear through out the whole show. We are then introduced to a giant Rodan, Anguirus, and Kumonga and neither make any appearances later on the show after being killed. Why even bother showing a giant Rodan if it is just going to appear once and never appear again? The same goes for Anguirus and Kumonga, as well. I would have liked to have seen the giant Rodan have more screen time to understand what that was about and learn more about it. I also thought Kumonga and Anguirus should've appeared in a giant form, as well, just to say that they have not died off entirely.
Okay, okay, I know you want to know what I did like. One of them are the art and animation. The art and animation is vastly superior to the Polygon trilogy. It is exactly the style I expect from an anime. CG is still used for the monsters, but most of the monsters don't look very static. They have a lot of movement and it is hardly noticeable that the monsters are even CG, at times. The monsters blend in with the environment and interact with the characters really well.
I also liked how the anime had some haunting imagery like people wearing face masks, people evacuating, the swarms of Rodan and the red dust spreading all over the globe. It is haunting in the sense that these images are like how the coronavirus was handled. To this day, people are still forced to wear face masks even if mandatory mask mandates have been lifted because people are so scared of catching the virus.
I also liked some of the music, although, only two of the songs were memorable. The first one is the "Upala" song that kept playing through out the show and the other was Godzilla's main theme song. The rest of the soundtrack are not as memorable, but they're fine for setting up the mood of the scenes in play.
Overall, Godzilla: Singular Point was an okay anime series. The monster fights were great, but the story needed more improvements and I didn't care much for the characters. Godzilla needed to show up earlier in the show rather than show up so late. If a second season happens, then I would like to see the story be more focused on Godzilla and improve on character development.
Did you get to watch Godzilla: Singular Point? If so, what are your thoughts on the anime? What did you enjoy and what do you think needed to be improved? Leave a comment in the comments section of your thoughts on the show. Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Minds, MeWe, and Gab to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.
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