YMMV / Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Metphies once again has an Ambiguously Evil vibe, but he has been more helpful, up until he tells Haruo about Ghidorah. Is he really a good friend of the humans, or is he an evil Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who only trusts Haruo and no one else? Or is he has been manipulating Haruo by siding with him to kill Mulu Elu Galu Gu to gain his trust by doing the right thing?
  • It's revealed in the third film that he is in fact the Big Bad, who seeks to summon Ghidorah to "cleanse the earth": he's been subtly manipulating events to cause humanity to despair, and in their desperation offer their souls to his cult and bring forth "the golden demise".
• Awesome Music: "THE SKY FALLS" by artist Xai is a fitting theme song for City.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Ghidorah being the monster that destroyed Metphies' planet. Considering how much Metphies talks about how terrifying he is compared to Godzilla, it was probably one of the few Kaiju to fit. Not only that, Ghidorah is well known as a planet destroyer.
• Contested Sequel: Fans frequently debate over whether this was a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to the first movie with much larger stakes and better action and character development, or a Sophomore Slump that didn’t add anything to the story and wasted a perfectly good Kaiju fight between Godzilla Earth and Mechagodzilla City.
• Funny Moments: How do the main characters distinguish the twins? Miana has a demure personality while Maina has an angry look on her face. If you observe closely she actually blinks as if she's offended on how Haruo describes what expression she uses.
• He Really Can Act: Chris Niosi once again gives his all in the English dub. Especially after Yuko goes comatose, and Haruo believes her dead. Chris himself actually cried during recording of the dub.
  • Double points for Mamoru Miyano in the same scene, and this is the guy who voiced Light Yagami a decade ago, and the Insane Troll Logic-induced Large Hamtastic Kotaro Tatsumi from Zombie Land Saga.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common criticism for this entry in the trilogy is that the basic plot follows the same beats as the previous movie (the survivors find a potential method of killing Godzilla, it ends up for naught, and the ending has them even worse off than before, with the plan itself being the same method as the one in the last film at that) and does little to progress the overarching plot.
• Moral Event Horizon: Mulu Elu Galu Gu has his men integrating themselves within Mechagodzilla City, but only those who chose. Then he crosses this line and attempts to have the humans assimilated against their will. This includes integrating Yuko and Haruo with nanometal. As a result of being bathed in Mothra's scales, Haruo breaks free, but Yuko is partially assimilated and rendered comatose. He would have had Martin and the remaining humans assimilated if they didn't use their heads and run.
• So Okay, It's Average: When compared to the arguably more memorable and better structured first entry and the highly controversial third one, fans tend to look at this entry as such, with many praising the efforts to expand on the character drama and action, but found it didn’t do enough to progress the story any further.
• Special Effect Failure: Critics and fans alike have noted that the animation is seemingly stiffer compared to the previous movie. This is especially noticeable when Yuko is attacked by strange tentacle creatures in the deep forest, and during the final battle with Godzilla, where the frames become jagged and robotic when compared to the standards of the overall animation quality.
• Tear Jerker: Despite Haruo trying to save Yuko from the verge of death which is really gut wrenching considering that not only she's last closest thing as a family to Haruo before being killed along with her Grandfather. He couldn't really help but scream in agony from what happened.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Fans noted that the Anime's Mechagodzilla design does not resemble its previous incarnations. The fact is never actually fights Godzilla directly, and instead works through proxy with Vulture mechs and the City itself, caused even more of this. Just as many fans, though, note that the anime movies less about big monster-VS-monster setpiece moments and more about humans fighting monsters, and feel that the nanometal is a unique twist on the Mechagodzilla concept that works.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite supplementary material showing that they created a completely new CG model of Mechagodzilla and even an entire set of attacks, in the films proper, we only ever get to see the head and just one of its attacks (which is its forcefield and therefore not even an attack), because by the time the story is set, its entire body had melted into an immobile city construct that doesn't even vaguely resemble Godzilla anymore. In the end, Mechagodzilla never even fights Godzilla directly before being destroyed.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The Nanometal spelling out the movie’s title card is absolutely breathtaking in its slow, river like movements. Almost brings to mind imagery of the T-1000.
  • Yuko shedding a nanometal tear at the end of the movie, which looks and moves like it were 2-D animated.
• The Woobie: Yuko. As she admits, she followed Haruo because he gave her hope of a better world than the one she and the others grew up in. And then her loyalty earns her a horrible fate as one of Mechagodzilla's victims of assimilation. The Planet Eater reveals that not only will she never recover from her nanometal-induced coma, her unique nanometal could be used to fight Godzilla Earth...and thus perpetuate the cycle of revenge. Haruo refuses to let that happen.

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