The 1964 film, Mothra vs. Godzilla, opens with a beach in Japan getting hit by a typhoon.

It’s certainly not the worst disaster that has ever hit Japan, though a government bureaucrat does show up to take credit for the recovery effort.  Instead of covering his speech, a reporter and a photographer stumble across a mysterious egg that has washed up on the beach.  The egg is beautiful and a local entertainment company, Happy Enterprises, has decided that they are going to build an entire amusement park and center it around the egg.

Then, the Shobijin, two twin fairies, show up and inform everyone that the egg belongs to Mothra, a giant moth who has actually been a pretty good friend to humanity in the past.  They explain that the egg was washed away from Mothra’s home on Infant Island.  Mothra really needs the egg back because the current Mothra is coming to the end of her lifespan and the egg contains the larvae who will become the newest version of Mothra.  Unfortunately, the Happy Enterprisises businessmen say that they’re going to keep the egg and that they really don’t care what Mothra wants.  Mothra flies over to Japan and takes the faeries back to Infant Island.  As they leave, the faeries say, “Goodbye, sorry you were so selfish!”

Unfortunately, shortly after Mothra and the faeries leave, Godzilla suddenly appears on the beach and starts destroying buildings and people with his radioactive breath.  Realizing that the only way to stop one monster is to bring in another monster, the humans head out to Infant Island and ask Mothra to help them.  When they arrives at Infant Island, they discover that the island itself has been turned into a wasteland by frequent nuclear testing.  The natives tells their visitors that they have no desire to allow Mothra to help them out with Godzilla.  The faeries say, “Tough.”  However, in the end, it’s Mothra’s decision whether or not to save humanity and Mothra, being the kindest of all the monsters, takes off to stop Godzilla.

It’s not really October without watching at least Godzilla film and Mothra vs. Godzilla is a good example of an old school Godzilla film, one that was released by Toho before Godzilla was reimagined as being a friend of humanity.  Indeed, a major message of Mothra vs. Godzilla seems to be that humanity doesn’t really deserve any friends.  It takes some nerve to refuse to allow Mothra to have her egg and to then expect Mothra to battle Godzilla for you.  That Mothra is willing to help is a reminder that, of all the big Japanese monsters, Mothra was the most friendly and willing to give humanity a second chance.  Godzilla, meanwhile, is just in a permanent bad mood.  In this film, he still represents the trauma of a nation that, less than 20 years previously, had been hit by two atomic bombs.  Godzilla fully represents the destructive power of the atomic age while Mothra, who is continually sacrificing her life so that she can be reborn, represents the hope for some sort of renewal.  In the end, both monsters fight their battle for the benefit of humanity and it’s exciting and fun to watch.  For a giant moth, Mothra is an agile combatant.  That said, most viewers will probably be Team Godzilla because he’s reminding humanity of the randomness of fate.  Myself, I was just happy with the knowledge that, regardless of who won the fight, they would both be back for future films.