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Reiwa era

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The Reiwa era (令和,   Reiwa), or Reiwa period (令和時代,   Reiwa jidai), is the current political era of Japan which began on May 1, 2019, following the abdication of Emperor Akihito and the ascension of Naruhito. Media produced during this era, such as that of the Godzilla series, may be identified as the Reiwa series (令和シリーズ,   Reiwa shirīzu) of their respective franchise. In the case of Godzilla, only one of the films currently categorized in this era will actually be released during the Reiwa era, with the others premiering during the Heisei era and being included retroactively. Like the Millennium series before it, the films of the Reiwa series do not share one continuity. The time span of the Reiwa series overlaps with Legendary Pictures' Monsterverse, but they are considered distinct series because they are produced by different studios.

Shin Godzilla and the GODZILLA anime trilogy were first identified as "Reiwa" at Toho International's Godzilla booth during San Diego Comic-Con in 2019,[1] with this classification reiterated in the official 2022 informational book Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters.[2] A new Godzilla anime series entitled Godzilla Singular Point premiered in 2021, the first Godzilla television series to be produced in over 20 years. Toho's next live-action film, Godzilla Minus One, was released on November 3, 2023.

The first production of the Gamera franchise in the Reiwa era, a 6-episode animated series entitled GAMERA -Rebirth-, was announced in 2022 and streamed on Netflix in 2023.

Films

Godzilla series

In 2004, Toho announced that Godzilla Final Wars, the sixth and final entry in the Millennium series, would be the last Godzilla film for a period of at least 10 years. In 2014, the American studio Legendary Pictures produced Godzilla, kicking off its Monsterverse media franchise. Toho, in the meantime, had begun pre-production on its own Godzilla film, hiring Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi to helm the project. Following the financial success of Legendary's film, Toho formally announced production of its own film. The movie, titled Shin Godzilla, was released in 2016 to considerable critical and financial success. Toho's Chief Godzilla Officer Keiji Ota later stated in 2018 that, while the company had no plans for a sequel to Shin Godzilla, they were considering creating a new fictional world capable of sustaining multiple new films in the future, in addition to continuing to push the franchise's visibility internationally.[3]

Following the release of Shin Godzilla, Toho Animation announced that it would be partnering with animation studio Polygon Pictures to produce the first-ever animated Godzilla film, tentatively scheduled for a 2017 theatrical release in Japan. In March 2017, Toho revealed the film's title, GODZILLA: Planet of the Monsters, and that it would be the first entry in a trilogy. GODZILLA: Planet of the Monsters was released to Japanese theaters in November 2017. The second entry, City on the Edge of Battle, was released in May 2018, followed by the third, The Planet Eater, in November 2018. All three films became available to stream internationally on Netflix exactly two months after their Japanese theatrical premieres. Despite being considered part of the Reiwa series, however, Toho does not include the GODZILLA trilogy as numerical entries in the franchise, likely because of their departure from live action; Shin Godzilla was therefore considered to be the 29th and most recent Godzilla film for several years.

Toho's next Godzilla film, directed by Takashi Yamazaki and titled Godzilla Minus One, released on November 3, 2023.[4] Yamazaki will return to direct another Godzilla film at some point in the future.

Future installments

In an interview with Hidden Remote published on July 27, 2019, Toho's Head of Project Development, Akito Takahashi, stated that Toho had not ruled out co-productions with Legendary Pictures or new animated projects.[5]

Short films

Other Toho films

Miscellaneous films

Television and web series

Godzilla series

Godziban, a puppet web series produced by GEMSTONE Godzilla contest winners Studio Koganemushi debuted on the Japanese Godzilla Channel on YouTube in 2019. It has gone on to run for four seasons and counting.

Another Godzilla Channel-exclusive series entitled I'm Home! Chibi Godzilla premiered in 2020 and was renewed for a second season which aired into 2021. The series is 3D-animated and based on Chiharu Sakazaki's Chibi Godzilla character.

In 2020, Toho announced a new animated series starring Godzilla entitled Godzilla Singular Point, which aired on Japanese television in 2021 and subsequently became available to stream worldwide on Netflix. Toho announced a new anime series based on Chibi Godzilla, Chibi Godzilla Raids Again, which will air as part of TV Tokyo's Eeny Meeny Miney Mo programming block beginning on April 1, 2023.

Other Toho series

Miscellaneous series

Other media

Officially licensed tie-in media for the Reiwa Godzilla films have been released.

Books

Video games

Other

Monsters introduced

Trivia

  • The Reiwa series is the first series of Godzilla films to include a fully-animated Godzilla film.
  • The Reiwa series and the Monsterverse mark the first-ever instance of two series of Godzilla films running concurrently.
    • Such a scenario could have occurred in the early 2000s, when Toho was producing the Millennium series films while TriStar Pictures considered various Godzilla-related projects of its own, had TriStar not elected to simply let its rights revert back to Toho in 2003.

See also

References

This is a list of references for Reiwa era. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. ↑ CriterionCast on Twitter: "Checking out the @TOHO_GODZILLA booth at #SDCC"
  2. ↑ GTOGKM preview 7.jpg
  3. ↑ Interview with Keiji Ota - Nikkei Style
  4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named G30
  5. ↑ Megan Peters (28 July 2019). "Godzilla Creators Say More Animated Projects Are "Absolutely" Coming". comicbook.

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