YMMV / Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

• Awesome Music: Michiru Oshima returns to score the film and its sequel, having previously scored the spiritual predecessor, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus. Her theme for Godzilla returns from that score, but is performed by a noticeably larger orchestra, and Kiryu is also given a fittingly heroic theme.
• Breakout Character: Kiryu is often considered the best incarnation of Mechagodzilla by many fans because of its sleek and mobile design, its unique origins as a cyborg, and its subplot of going rogue due to its genetic memories as the original Godzilla. Outside of this film and its sequel, it has appeared in numerous video games and promotional artwork.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Kiryu being built from the original Godzilla's remains sounds like something from Neon Genesis Evangelion, right? Hideaki Anno himself would eventually direct Shin Godzilla a decade later.
• Narm:
  • The brief shot of Mechagodzilla flying around like an oversized dinosaur-shaped Iron Man.
  • The Godzilla suit used for this movie and its sequel, the Kiryugoji, is noticeable for having an animatronic head with a mechanism that allows it to make many kinds of expressions. While this is certainly a neat effect and genuinely looks impressive in action, a good deal of Goji's expressions in the films are so over-the-top it's hard to take them seriously.
  • One of the characters laments on Godzilla’s escape before Kiryu could use its Absolute Zero weapon and goes rogue, but the way he says it in the Japanese language makes it sound like he’s saying Gojira suck dick.^note For the record, he is saying "ゴジラが去っていく"/"gojira ga satte iku", or "Godzilla's leaving."
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Widely considered to be a big improvement over Masaaki Tezuka's previous Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, thanks to a more complex and dynamic script, more interesting characters, and a better integration of human drama and monster action. While Megaguirus is generally considered So Okay, It's Average at best, Against Mechagodzilla tends to be be rated as one of the better films in the franchise in general.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Kiryu only goes rogue for one scene, as well as once again toward the ending of the next film.
  • Recent creator interviews bring up the possibility that Kiryu is Godzilla's biological father. This is never expanded upon, though it is somewhat hinted on in the next film.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The suits and animatronics used in the film are among some of the most expressive, detailed and fluent within the whole franchise.
  • The CGI is also a noticeable improvement compared to the past entries in that it actually looks like it belongs with the environments and flows naturally. The fact that they use it sparingly helps.

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