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Written
by Masahiro Kitada
Translated from the original Japanese by Masahiro Kitada
Paraphrased by Constance A. Goodnow
When I
was surfing the World Wide Web, viewing homepages that many organizations
and people from all over the world have composed in order to post messages
looking for information about the West Coast of the United States, suddenly
Godzilla, breathing forth streams of radioactive fire, popped up on my
display.
Godzilla,
who had his advent in the land of the Rising Sun, is dead in the twenty-second
(22nd) movie of his long-running series, "Godzilla vs. Destroyer" released
in January of the new year, but he is alive and well and still wreaking
his havoc on the World Wide Web.
It
was a homepage that a graduate in California State, who couldn't bear to
abandon a strong attachment to his idol, secretly built using the computer
in the dorm at the university. I sent him an E-mail asking his about his
page. But his reply suggested that he had been reprimanded for using the
university's computer for his hobby. He requested anonymity in the newspaper.
After
I received his E-mail, I clicked on one of the links at the bottom of his
page. This link led me to the page maintained by a suburban housewife,
Connie Goodnow, age 22. Godzilla is alive and well in this homepage too.
I sent E-mail to her at once; she replied: " I am definitely a woman though,
so that would be Mrs." Not all fans of Godzilla are male!
Connie
has a three year old daughter and a one year old son. She has a large family
with her mother and younger sister; she is very busy with housework and
childrearing. However, she has made time to build her Godzilla page in
the interim. She has been a fan since she watched a Godzilla movie when
she was three years old; and she enlisted the aid of her husband who is
a computer consultant. "My husband thinks it's stupid, but I love Godzilla.
It brings a sense of familiarity to the upside down world." I thought,
" she must always be cheerful".
I
requested a color photograph of her in order to include it in an article
about her Godzilla page. She immediately put it on her homepage for me.
You can see it in this article.
At
this time, there are seven sites devoted to Godzilla, including the USA,
where most of them are located; as far as I can tell. In Europe it is seen
in both Netherland and Germany. Connie put in some brief comments and ratings
of every Godzilla movie; in other sites, we can enjoy exciting scenes in
the movies and hear Godzilla's roar if you have the right equipment.
Mituhiro
Takemura, an associate professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design
who is familiar with the status-quo of media in foreign countries, had
this to say: "Before most Japanese noticed it, things that are produced,
such as animation of Sailor Moon are getting around at terrific speed.
The leading figure among them is Godzilla."
----Masahiro
Kitada |
