Darth Wiki / The Perfect Family

The Perfect Family is a Godzilla Minus One fanfiction by WannabeHistorian371 on Archive of Our Own, also known as shonengirl on this wiki.

Godzilla has been defeated. Japan is at peace. And Koichi Shikishima has everything he could wish for. He has a beautiful wife, a lovely daughter, and great friends. His life is perfect, and any would envy it. After all that suffering, he has finally reached his happy ending, and his war is over.

Never mind that he’s constantly injured.

Never mind that he does everything in the house.

Never mind that Noriko refuses to even touch Akiko.

He couldn’t wish for a better life.

While the author’s other Godzilla Minus One post-canon fanfiction tends to go with the idea of a happy ending to the movie, this fanfic… takes a different approach. A very different approach. If her other post-canon fanfics are the Golden Ending or at least Happy Ending, then this one is the Bad Ending.

The fic is, of course, extremely dark, so discretion advised.

Tropes present in The Perfect Family

• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Noriko, for good reason. Squeeze a bit too hard and she can break bone. She barely goes near Akiko because she’s afraid of hurting her. Unfortunately, Koichi craves her touch and attention.
• Bedlam House: Mentioned. Mizushima innocently proposes that maybe they should get Koichi to seek the help of a professional. Dr. Noda and Akitsu immediately shoot that down, because this is 1948, and all the mental hospitals are basically these. They also mention the awful sanitary conditions of mental hospitals at the time, which often goes unmentioned in examples of this trope.
• Bridal Carry: Noriko does this to Koichi after he falls asleep during their cuddle session in “Knife”, carrying him to their bedroom so he has a good place to rest while they wait for emergency services to arrive. It seems like a cute scene, and Noriko notes that being able to do this is one of the few benefits to her situation, but the entire time Noriko is in constant fear that she could crush him. He sort of wakes while being carried, nuzzles her, and says “I feel so safe, with such a strong wife… wait, I should be protecting you…”, which breaks her heart because she sees herself as the biggest threat to his safety.
• Crazy in the Head, Crazy in the Bed: Sort of. Koichi becomes rather servile towards Noriko, and is rather eager to please, including in… that way. After he convinces her to sleep with him for the first time in a long time (with help from him mentally spiraling because he thinks it’s his fault that she doesn’t want to sleep with him), he’s apparently good enough, and he gets her worked up enough that kaiju mode takes over, and she roughs him up really, really badly. Koichi doesn’t mind, he even nuzzles her afterwards telling her “That was great, Noriko…”, but Noriko is horrified.
• Curse of The Ancients: Akitsu, much like in the author’s other works, swears. A lot. (Well not really. Explained under Sir Swears-a-Lot) Because the author tends to sprinkle her Godzilla Minus One fics, both prose and dialogue, with 40s (and some older) slang and vocabulary, this results in Akitsu having a wide vocabulary of curses ranging from “fuck” to “consarnit!”.
• Despair Event Horizon: Half the premise of the fic is that Koichi has crossed it, driving him insane.
• Domestic Abuse: Well… not really. On the surface, Noriko looks like an abuser. She physically hurts her mentally ill husband; her husband who has become rather servile, does most of the chores and childrearing, and regularly justifies the fact she hurts him. The hospital staff have basically become Koichi’s friends he’s in there so often. …But she genuinely doesn’t want to hurt Koichi, and can’t control her own strength. And it’s Koichi that makes her touch him. And it’s not like she can leave him to protect him either, because Noriko is sure that if she leaves, Koichi will break beyond repair and/or kill himself. On the flip side, Koichi also looks like an abuser on the surface, because he spirals when Noriko doesn’t show him love in the way he wants, and these always make Noriko do a thing that she doesn’t want to do. …But Noriko actually wants to do all those things, and to give him all the love he needs, she’s just afraid for him. And Koichi is genuinely spiraling all the times he spirals, it isn’t an act; he’s too far gone to be intentionally manipulative. So they both come across as abusers and abuse victims, but are actually neither.
• Happily Married: Or at least, Koichi thinks. They were this initially though.
• House Husband: Because of Noriko’s Power Incontinence, Koichi ends up taking care of Akiko, and doing most of the chores. He happily does so, having done chores in the month or so Noriko was absent after her “death”. Noriko feels useless in the household because she barely does anything anymore.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: In the Explicit version, Koichi ends up badly bruised with a bleeding hickey after a sex scene, where she blacked out and went into kaiju mode. It’s implied that she accidentally hurts him during sex other times too, one of the many reasons she rarely does it with him anymore, much to Koichi’s anguish. Koichi seems to believe in this trope. Noriko does not.
• I Reject Your Reality: How Koichi’s insanity mainly manifests. His brain absolutely refuses to acknowledge what is happening to Noriko. He thinks they’re the perfect family, a perfectly happy, functional family, despite the fact that Noriko is afraid to even touch Akiko and hurts him so often. This is his brain’s way of protecting him. And when Noriko is always sad, doesn’t cuddle him, and refuses to touch him, he blames himself rather than the fact that, you know, she’s mutating into something inhuman. He’s constantly living in this happy ending that’s an extension of their life before she started experiencing symptoms. He finally breaks out of it in the final chapter, with a lot of convincing from Dr. Noda and Noriko.
• Last Kiss: Just as Noriko is about to leave with Dr. Noda and the University of Tokyo scientists, she says she needs to do something, and runs back to Koichi. She gives Koichi a kiss on the lips. This being 1950s Japan, the others are a bit shocked to witness something so intimate, but Noriko wants to give Koichi that before she leaves for who knows how long.
• Laughing Mad: When Koichi snaps in “The Beginning of the End”.
• Love Martyr: Koichi is a weird example. Noriko genuinely loves him, and doesn’t want to hurt him. But she ends up hurting him because she can’t control her own strength. Yet, Koichi’s warped psyche not only doesn't see an issue with the injuries, but sees it as evidence of her passion for him. He’s in an almost constant state of lovesickness.
• Madness Makeover: Averted. Koichi is noted to not have changed much appearance-wise, he just feels… off. He apparently keeps himself well-groomed, shaving, combing, and periodically getting his hair cut, so he always looks good for Noriko.
• Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex: Or rather, Woman of Steel, Man of Kleenex. Noriko is terrified of hurting Koichi with her Power Incontinence. The one time they’re shown doing the deed, she indeed hurts him pretty badly.
• Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: Akiko in “Is This Normal?” draws Koichi cutting himself and Noriko with the black mark covering her face plus yellow eye at kindergarten. The teacher is of course horrified, and asks Akitsu, who is picking her up today, what the deal with it is. Though apparently Akiko was doing this on purpose to see if her life is normal or not, because she knows something is wrong, she just doesn’t know how. This is how she learns that another kid’s father is in the same situation as Noriko.
• Perverted Sniffing: In “Her Scent”, Koichi is waiting for Noriko to come to bed, and gets the idea to sniff her pillow. He gets really into it. The chapter just stops short of him pleasuring himself, just as Noriko enters.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: In the final chapter, Dr. Noda comes to the Shikishima household with possibly good news. There is apparently a team at the University of Tokyo researching Godzilla and its cells in collaboration with the Americans and with funding from the government, and they might be able to devise a cure for Noriko and others like her with further research. Koichi at first is indignant about it, asking why she has to be taken away. Then Koichi starts accusing Dr. Noda of wanting to break his family apart. But after Dr. Noda and Noriko are finally able to get through to Koichi, he breaks down into hysterical tears, and after the two calm him down, Koichi, broken, asks for confirmation that they can definitely save her. Dr. Noda says he can’t guarantee. Koichi acts like he did before Operation Wadatsumi, demanding confirmation, but this too they manage to snap him out of. A day later, Koichi, Akiko, Mizushima, and Akitsu watch as Dr. Noda takes Noriko away. What happens from here is left in the air.
• Self-Harm: When Koichi spirals because he thinks he’s a bad husband or father, he engages in this. In the fic, he’s shown banging his head, biting his hand, and cutting himself. When this is first shown, in “Knife”, Noriko comes across him in the kitchen with a knife on his arm. She of course screams and asks him what he’s doing. He flatly tells her “I deserve this. Please don’t stop me, Noriko. I’m sorry I can’t be a good husband to you”. This is in response to her refusing him cuddling. She lunges for the knife and ends up breaking his wrist, which he tells her he deserves too.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Koichi still has PTSD. He still has Flashback Nightmares, he even occasionally has catatonic episodes now which require another person take care of Akiko. In “Nightmare”, Koichi has the former, and Noriko wants so badly to touch him and comfort him. She can’t, and has to use only her words, even as Koichi begs to feel her touch. In “Catatonic”, the latter happens; Noriko wakes up to see Koichi frozen, unable to move, and with a Thousand-Yard Stare. As Sumiko is sick, she goes to call Dr. Noda (the only one with a phone) to pick up Akiko and care for her for the day.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Akitsu swears, well, like a sailor. Well… it’s complicated. Akitsu in Japanese speaks with a very rough manner of speech, never using formalities ever. Because the author’s Godzilla Minus One fics are written with Translation Convention in mind, and Japanese doesn’t have real swear words (it does have slurs, however), Akitsu is merely “actually” speaking very roughly, not swearing, his words are merely translated as swears. As evidence of this, he “swears” liberally in front of Akiko and no one bats an eye.
• Spit-Trail Kiss: In “The One Thing We Can Do”, a chapter exclusive to the Explicit version, Noriko realizes that she can touch Koichi in one way; they can kiss, as long as she doesn’t grab him back. Koichi is overjoyed at the idea. Their kiss is long and lingering, with a trail of spit being described connecting their mouths after. Koichi is so touch and sex-starved that he’s already very aroused after it, and wants more, but Noriko stops there. He finishes himself off in front of her. She deals with her own arousal after he goes to sleep.
• The Teetotaler: Noriko, judging by “Sake”, doesn’t drink because she’s afraid of what she’d do with lowered inhibitions. In said chapter, Koichi brings home a bottle of good sake for their upcoming anniversary, and she’s horrified because she doesn’t trust either her or him drunk. At the end of the chapter she has a visiting Mizushima sneak it away, and basically gaslights Koichi into thinking they just drank it already.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: What all the Koichi POV chapters/segments that aren’t “The Beginning of the End” are, including the first chapter. The first chapter opens with the world through Koichi’s delusion of a perfect family.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Basically the premise of the fic is doing this to Koichi and Noriko. After all they’ve endured, and all the trauma, they realize their pain will never end.