or even previous Godzilla films made by Toho Studios, Minus One is a standalone film that takes us back to basics in post-war Japan. But the latest entry in this 70 year old franchise is anything but basic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nGodzilla Minus One follows a former WWII kamikaze pilot named K\u014dichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who ended up on Odo Island just as a monster soon to be named Godzilla shows up and destroys the place. Only K\u014dichi and mechanic S\u014dsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) survived, but even two years later, the guilt of surviving when the others didn\u2019t still plagues his every moment.<\/span><\/p>\nSo when Godzilla rears his scaly head again, heading for mainland Japan no less, K\u014dichi sets out to save his country and find redemption, but most importantly of all, he wants to protect the new family he\u2019s created with his partner, Noriko \u014cishi (Minami Hamabe), and their adopted daughter Akiko (Sae Nagatani).<\/span><\/p> Godzilla Minus One ending explained<\/b><\/h2>\n
Following Godzilla\u2019s first attack on Tokyo, Noriko and thousands of other Japanese citizens remain unaccounted for, with many presumed dead. The danger isn\u2019t over just yet, though. Mutated through exposure to postwar nuclear weapons, the threat of Godzilla is inevitable, yet the United States refuses to help, and Japan itself also fears rocking the boat internationally with new warfare across the ocean. That means it\u2019s up to civilians like K\u014dichi to save the day.<\/span><\/p>\nA former Navy officer named Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) leads the charge with a smart plan to use Freon tanks against Godzilla. By attaching them to the monster, he can theoretically be pulled so far under the surface of the ocean that the pressure will destroy him. If that doesn\u2019t work, pressurised balloons will then quickly force Godzilla back up to the surface, killing him via explosive decompression. It\u2019s a genius move, using the ocean\u2019s strength to defeat what they cannot, but both plans fall at the last hurdle. That means Godzilla isn\u2019t dead. He\u2019s just injured and p****d off, which is far from ideal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThank goodness for K\u014dichi, then. Sensing the plan might not work, he prepared earlier by asking S\u014dsaku to repair a kamikaze plane he could use to fly directly into Godzilla\u2019s mouth, exploding in that vulnerable spot where the monster\u2019s hide can no longer protect it. It works, bringing redemption to K\u014dichi after he failed his previous kamikaze mission. Except, he never failed. Living the life he did post-war was more important than a meaningless death in the name of battle. And by surviving that, K\u014dichi lived long enough to save countless more people by ending Godzilla\u2019s devastating rampage.<\/span><\/p>\nStill, his sacrifice here is perhaps even more devastating, for us at least. But then we discover that S\u014dsaku secretly added an ejection mechanism to K\u014dichi\u2019s plane, which K\u014dichi used to escape Godzilla\u2019s jaws at the very last moment. As if that wasn\u2019t shocking enough, we then discover that Noriko is still alive too, and the pair are set to reunite as a happy family with Akiko. No, we\u2019re not crying. <\/span>You\u2019re<\/span><\/i> crying. Except, wait. Get ready to cry even more because it turns out that Noriko is suffering from radiation poisoning from the atomic bombs that hit Japan a few years earlier.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n