Western Professor is First to Translate Godzilla’s Original Novellas

Godzilla turns 70 this year, and fans of the OG Kaiju are ecstatic to celebrate his anniversary. But in America, there are parts of the Godzilla lore that are hard to come by, and hard to understand... mostly because the source material is all in Japanese.

But thanks to one professor at Western Michigan University, more of Godzilla's history is now easily available for Americans and any other English-speaking countries, as he has taken it upon himself to translate the material for the rest of the world.

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Professor Jeffery Angles teaches Japanese Literature and Translation at Western, and is a big fan of Godzilla. He, and other fans know, that the original movies from 1954 - "Godzilla" and "Godzilla Raids Again" - were turned into books based on the screenplays, and have been a popular item in the Japanese culture for seven decades.

But Angles realized, surprisingly, that the original books had never been translated from the native Japanese, to English.

So, he got to work, painstakingly translating the screenplays, and ran into some interesting issues. For one, Godzilla is never referred to with any pronouns in the original versions. So after toying with using "it," discussions with his students helped him land on using "he" to identify Godzilla.

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In an interview with WMUK, Angles also mentioned some issues trying to translate the iconic Godzilla roar into text. The books also were far more detailed on the anti-nuclear protest message that is more of a sub-plot in the original films.

But after months of work, Angels got the novellas fully translated, and in late 2023, the first English versions of the books were released after being pressed by the University of Minnesota.

It's the first time these stories have EVER been seen in English, aside from English subtitles in the films, and you can get your copy in the link below, just in time for Godzilla's 70th anniversary, which is officially on Oct. 27, of this year.