In addition to the new characters from Season 2, Chibi Minilla (CV: Uchida Maaya), Chibi Gabara (CV: Kimura Ryohei), and Chibi Titano (CV: Kimura Subaru), Chibi Gigan (CV: Miyano Mamoru) will also appear in October, making the story even more exciting.
In this article, we interviewed Jun Fukuyama, who plays Chibi Godzilla! He talked about the appeal and highlights of the film, his favorite episodes, and more.
-First of all, can you tell us your impressions of the Godzilla series?
Jun Fukuyama (hereafter Fukuyama), who plays Chibi Godzilla: I’ve been familiar with the Godzilla series since I was a child. The first movie I saw at the cinema was Godzilla vs. Biollante (released in 1989). I’d also watched some of the earlier films on TV and read anthology-style manga and magazines. I knew about the older films, such as Destroy All Monsters (released in 1968), in which Minilla and his friends appear, but I hadn’t covered them all. However, I did know that Godzilla had fought King Kong (King Kong vs. Godzilla).
In the early days, Godzilla was depicted as a kind of natural disaster, but in later works he became a friend of humans, an enemy of mankind, and even made his way to Hollywood… I get the impression that he is a character that has been allowed to be portrayed in a variety of different ways.
–That means it’s a subject that’s very worth depicting.
Fukuyama: When watching anime and special effects, you can see homages to Godzilla in various works. After a while, you realize, “Oh, this was a joke about Dr. Serizawa (Daisuke)!?” The Hollywood version also paid homage to the “Oxygen Destroyer,” but when you hear it in real English, it’s funny because it sounds fishy (laughs).
–Given this trend, it could be said that “Chibi Godzilla Strikes Back” is one of the films that depicts Godzilla from a new perspective.
Fukuyama: I knew about the character development of Chibi Godzilla several years before I was involved. Since the design is cute, I expected it to be drawn in a mascot-like way, but when I read the script, I thought, “I see. So they went for a surreal direction.” It made sense to me that it would be surreal as a result of taking a middle ground between “a terrifying being” and “everyone’s idol.” However, since it is aimed at all ages, the key to whether a surreal comedy will be accepted is “whether or not you know the original Godzilla.” If someone who doesn’t know Godzilla watches this film, they will probably wonder, “What is this?” I think this approach would only be possible if Godzilla had the strength of being a kind of education for children that they learn from their fathers and older brothers.
–The dialogue between Chibi Godzilla and each character has a good tempo and is full of humorous elements that make me chuckle every time.
Fukuyama: If it were a 30-minute anime, everyone’s voices would be too loud (laughs). Because it’s a morning show, you’d probably be told not to speak so loudly, but because it’s a 3-minute anime, I don’t think it would bother you that much. There’s energy in every line, so it feels like a comedy skit or comedy.
When you watch a program you watched as a child as an adult, you sometimes wonder, “Was it really like this?” When you’re a child, you watch without thinking about it, and you unconsciously fill in the gaps in your mind, so things that come in through “sound” tend to leave a strong impression.
When I voice an anime movie and watch it at the theater, I try to see where children react. After all, they react differently to adults. While adults take in the content of the words and the character’s personality, children read the strength of emotions from the sound. For this work, I thought it would be better to appeal to children’s emotions, so I’m basically going for full throttle.
–What kind of reaction have you received since the anime actually started airing?
Fukuyama: There are many people with children at the workplace, so I often hear people say, “This is the first time I’ve heard a voice like Chibi Godzilla,” and I read comments on YouTube. However, there is one problem: even if someone asks me to do the voice of Chibi Godzilla, I can’t do it right away. With that high energy and voice volume, it’s easily affected by my condition at the time (laughs).
Also, I think that people who buy merchandise only see him as a character, so I try to check as much as possible how people see him. It makes it easier to work just by making sure that “the current Chibi Godzilla is correct,” and I think it would be good to go even further.
–There are various collaborations and merchandise available for “Chibi Godzilla Strikes Back,” but it seems like there could be many other developments as well.
Fukuyama: I think we could do a comedy skit using picture stories, costumes, and puppets. However, if we were to do it at an amusement park or on the rooftop of a department store, kids might not understand the TV anime format (laughs).
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