History of Godzilla movies in Hungary

For those interested in this topic, I recommend checking my Google Doc, which is still being updated whenever I come across relevant info. The main body of text is currently over 30 pages long, followed by close to 20 more pages of thoughts, observations and trivia. The text below is a shortened summary.

I originally created this document in 2018 after researching the history of Godzilla films in my home country, with a cursory look at King Kong too. It should be an interesting read to those who might be curious about the franchise's impact in places far away from Japan and the United States. I also tried to work out general European trends but since these weren't my main focus and I don't have much data on other countries, most observations about Europe should be taken as broad generalizations. Every country is different, after all.

Here are some cinema attendance stats for all the Kong and Godzilla movies released in Hungary for which I found data, ordered according to their Hungarian release dates. And here is a trio of even better charts comparing American, worldwide and Hungarian box office numbers, very roughly converted to 2024 U.S. dollars (some stats are incomplete). The graphs seemingly tell a lot but they need context. Do these numbers correlate more with the films' popularity or with the changes in entertainment trends across the decades? It's really both, but the document explains it better. I will only give a brief rundown here.

• When discussing the Godzilla brand and its international reach, you really are mostly talking about a bubble encompassing Japan and the United States. Godzilla is a good example of a cultural phenomenon whose influence has largely been confined to select parts of the globe and is not nearly as ubiquitous as its fans like to assert. Whenever American fans gush about Godzilla's supposed status as a popular, global icon of cinema that everyone knows... well, they're just laughably wrong. Godzilla is not a global property, it's more like a weirdly specific, minor Japanese and American cult brand that the majority of the world knows very little of.

• The US and Japan have held close ties since World War II, establishing a continuous shared circulation of media and pop-culture that simply doesn't exist in most of the world in such a strong form. While the Godzilla franchise and the genre of Japanese kaiju films remain cult classics among American audiences, with devoted albeit niche fan followings, the rest of the planet still regards them as little more than obscure, worthless Z-grade trash (known in Hungary as "Zs-grade", since zs is the the Hungarian alphabet's last letter) that most people would rather avoid.

• During the past 40 or so years, America has cultivated a lineage of film enthusiasts who managed to strip kaiju films of their hateful stereotypes and put them under a new light, analyzing them from more informed perspectives, placing them and their creators into historical context. Many monster movies are now hailed as masterpieces rich in themes and their makers are respected in cult circles. In Europe, especially its eastern half, this shift in perspectives has sadly yet to take place. The old stereotype that kaiju films are no more than "sweaty slant-eyed morons in shoddy rubber suits stomping on cheap cardboard models" still holds strong. Kaiju discourse is not even in its infancy yet, even after over 60 years. Online surfaces are dominated by hate and indifference any time kaiju related topics are brought up.

• In most of Europe, Godzilla these days is a near-dead brand, as it has almost always been, and only some meager efforts have been made to popularize it. Godzilla is hardly seen as a part of 20th century cultural zeitgeist as understood by Europeans, and rarely is it ever associated with Japan. For two decades, the American-made Godzilla 1998 has had more cultural presence than all Japanese Godzilla films combined. There are very few movie releases and precious little merchandise. Japanese special effect (or tokusatsu) productions might be a niche interest in the US, but in Europe they are absolute fringe stuff. Few official toku releases reach the US, and Europe barely gets the table scraps of that.

• Like all former East Bloc states, Hungary was secluded from much of the world after World War II and the following political mess that technically still hasn't subsided. Because of this and its already convoluted history full of conflicts, Hungary is still culturally distant not just from Japan and America but most of Europe too.

• Europe is everything but a homogeneous culture, every country presents different hardships for marketing a foreign niche cult property like Godzilla. Some countries like Germany have a head start, as they've already released many Japanese fantasy and sci-fi films from the 50s onward, and still have a small Godzilla fan community and official distribution channels open toward new releases. On the other end of the scale is Hungary, where marketing kaiju films is basically a lost cause, as even more popular media properties often struggle to keep up.

• In the late 50s, one Czech film historian opined that tokusatsu films were the antithesis of the type of Japanese movies Eastern Europe wanted to see, and that such naive, insubstantial spectacle films were made to mimic and pander to the simplistic, low-brow tastes of Americans. Films about Japan's reaction to the atomic bombings would have been right up Eastern Europe's alley, but the inclusion of giant monsters ruined them. People would have rather watched movies that dealt with the matter in a realistic, no-nonsense way, rather than representing atomic energy with the metaphor of a silly monster. Critics didn't accept monster films as "true" Japanese cinema.
  
  

• There is still a notion that there are insurmountable cultural differences between European and Japanese/American entertainment that hinder the acceptance of tokusatsu productions. The basic thinking is "just leave this garbage to those weird Japanese and Americans!" I too have talked to people who were bewildered that as I, a European, would care about kaiju films. Being open-minded, accepting the films for what they are and analyzing them on their own terms from their own historical background is a wholly unimaginable concept. This entire genre has next to no cultural relevance here. At worst, monster movies are considered the degeneracy of the far west and east, and the bare idea that anyone might like them is seen as insanity. At best, people are simply apathetic to them.
  
  

• People's distaste for vintage Japanese monster films doesn't mean they reject old movie as a whole. Quite the opposite, some of Hungary's (and by extension, Europe's) most beloved movies are French and Italian comedies from the 70s and 80s, like the films of Louis de Funès, Bud Spencer and Terence Hill (one book author even said that they, alongside James Bond and Godzilla, are cinema's true uncrowned kings). No matter how hokey the stories and acting can be, they are monumental pillars of culture and entertainment, the films and their characters resonate with viewers on a deeply personal, human level. Kaiju films are sadly not granted that friendly reception. They are far too foreign, too fantastical, too juvenile, visually unappealing, gimmicky and "inhuman", meaning too removed from our basic everyday experience. To many viewers, they are worth only scorn and ridicule. People have to suspend their disbelief to entertain the idea that giant monsters could exist. To many, this is already too much to ask. When you add all the weird monster designs, their powers, the "cheap" man-in-suit and miniature effects, the outlandish plots and oftentimes laughable acting, the films become borderline impossible to take seriously.
  
  

• Even the Soviet Union mostly refrained from importing Japanese special effect movies and Russia only began releasing the Godzilla films in the 90s.
  
  

• The original 1954 Godzilla film was not released in Hungary. After a failed anti-Soviet uprising in 1956, communists oppressed the country for the following decades, isolating it even further. Monster films were among those foreign products that were mostly ignored by Hungarian distributors
  
  

• Locals' understanding of foreign culture was shaped mainly by European and Soviet influences and an increasing influx of American media, especially toward the end of the century. Of Japanese cultural imports, we got very little, least of all tokusatsu productions, despite that many other countries in Europe did release a variety of Japanese special effect features.
  
  

• Monster movies were obscure overall. 1933's original King Kong did come out but was mostly forgotten during the century. The 1976 remake (released here in 1984) was very popular though, and re-established King Kong as the biggest name in the giant monster genre. Godzilla was often described as a Kong copy/ripoff. This confusion is partially due to how several European releases of Godzilla films added "King Kong" to their title. Godzilla never earned the beloved icon status of King Kong, though.
  
  

• Ticket prices were relatively low and cinema had little competition prior to the 90s, which explains the impressive stats of King Kong '76. Today, even the most popular blockbuster movies don't get that many viewers.
  
  

• In the late 50s, some version of the original Godzilla (titled "Godzilla the Sea Monster") was released in regions of neighboring countries that had formerly belonged to Hungary and are still home to major Hungarian populaces, mainly Transylvania (Romania) and Vojvodina (Serbia), but not within Hungary. Most contemporary Hungarian press discussing Godzilla come from these places.
  
  

• Critical reactions to the film were mixed. Some praised it as a relevant and artistic anti-war movie, others blasted it as shoddily made blemish on Japan's film industry. Depicting atomic energy via a monster was seen as a particularly bad choice by one naysayer. To read some of these articles in English, go here.
  
  

• During the 70s and 80s, Hungarian-populated foreign areas kept releasing random Japanese special effect films like Godzilla vs. Megalon, Terror of Mechagodzilla, The Return of Godzilla and Submersion of Japan, they were even marketed with Hungarian titles (generally based on the films' old English titles), but the films didn't reach Hungary itself.
  
  

• The tokusatsu-inspired 1975 Hong Hong film The Super Inframan came out in Vojvodina in 1978, and ten years later this one finally managed to find its way into Hungary. It ran in theaters and even got a VHS release, with subtitles, becoming a very minor cult favorite of trash enthusiasts.
  
  

• Toho's 1980 disaster epic Magnitude 7.9 (also known as Deathquake) also came out in Hungary.
  
  

• Hungary's first Godzilla movie was 1974's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, released in 1989 with a dub featuring an all-star voice cast but a nonsensical script full of inane mistranslations. The dub claims there are several Godzillas in the film, including one that's killed by Mechagodzilla and another one that appears at the end.
  
  

• For a very low-interest film release, GvsMG did okay compared to other Japanese films imported that year, but not good enough to warrant importing other parts of the series. It had no cult following. Critics tore it to shreds, calling it one of the worst sci-fi films ever. A couple of them did try to look for deeper themes though, such as the dichotomy of original products (Godzilla) and their ripoffs (Mechagodzilla) in modern consumerist culture.
  
  

• The film came out on VHS, the only Hungarian home media release of any Japanese Godzilla movie, and was shown on some regional TV networks.
  
  

• Widely available German TV channels also aired a host of older Godzilla movies during the 90s, which was the only way Hungarians could watch them... although newspapers advised them not to, saying Godzilla films are so horrible that they only repel viewers and are good for nothing more than ridicule.
  
  

• The American Godzilla adaptation from 1998 became a cult classic and Hungary's 10th highest attended foreign movie of the 90s. Despite critics hating it, most of the complaints American fans had with the film meant little over here, where this movie remained "the" Godzilla for a decade and a half (and arguably even now). It was this movie, rather than the Japanese films, that etched itself into public awareness for the following couple decades.
  
  

• To this day, there are still people who firmly believe the 1998 film is the original Godzilla and that the later films made by Toho and Legendary were unfaithful adaptations or unofficial imitations. Hungarian kaiju fans never had the presence or visibility of the American fanbase, so their ideas and opinions have made little impact on public discourse. This could be one reason for the '98 film's long lasting popularity. Screenings of it were still in demand in recent years. American Godzilla fans often bash those who say nice thing about this movie, claiming that it's a "hot take" to say it's a good film. But here and in other parts of Europe, this is the top Godzilla outing with a fanatical group of defenders. While many Americans dismiss the movie as rottenly uncreative, unfaithful and unfulfilling, they don't realize how well it aligns with the tastes of those who have zero attachment to or knowledge about the Toho films. So director Roland Emmerich was by no means alone in his view that Godzilla had to be radically changed to appeal to everyday people. He approached the film from a non-fan mindset that's still widespread in among general viewers.
  
  

• One of the main things that makes Godzilla '98 so appealing to large parts of the audience is precisely how little it has to do with its source material. No silly beam-spouting rubber suit folk fighting larger than life battles in fanciful sci-fi worlds. Just a simple monster on the loose, an oversized vermin and its babies that can easily be killed by realistic military weaponry, and the film doesn't even take itself too seriously. This is indeed what many people wanted, whether American Godzilla fans like it or not.

• The matter of perceived realism is one of the key notes in this whole document. For years and years, on a near constant basis, most of the common criticisms targeting the Godzilla films produced by Toho and Legendary Pictures has been their fantastical nature. Monsters with powers, monsters fighting each other, surviving military bombardment are all trademark aspects of the Godzilla films that attract mockery rather than acceptance. America and Japan embrace fantasy that expands their world-view, suspending their disbelief and having fun as imaginative stories take them out of their mundane lives. Europeans generally refuse to meet such films halfway. They prefer art that reflects reality rather than opening a window to a fantasy world. American and Japanese fans criticize Godzilla '98 for being a bad adaptation. European fans adore the film precisely because they think the source material merits no respect by its very nature.
  
  

• The film also has tremendous name recognition: Sony, Roland Emmerich, Matthew Broderick, and especially Jean Reno are all names strongly associated with Godzilla. No layperson knows what a "Toho" is or that the Japanese casts and crews were actual people -- to the average European, they're all just "the Japs". Toho and Godzilla had no legacy to tarnish here. In the eyes of many Europeans, the '98 film was far from a bastardization. Emmerich simply took what many people considered to be an unremarkable series of cheap, worthless trash flicks made by a bunch of talentless and moneyless Asian hacks, and elevated it to a watchable status.
  
  

• The American fanbase has been crassly underestimating the 1998 film's wide spanning impact for over two decades. A lot of the negative feedback coming from the US did not fully expand into other markets, resulting in a kind of bifurcated international view of the Godzilla franchise, as it was this film that introduced most of the globe to the brand. I've occasionally read or heard American fans say that people have long moved on from this film, that it has become obscure and forgotten in the wake of the following Millennium series and the later American-made MonsterVerse movies, supplanted in popular consciousness by the more faithful re-imaginings of Godzilla. I'm sorry to say, but that just isn't the case, at least not in Europe where the '98 movie still tends to dominate discussions about the franchise.
  
  

• Godzilla '98 might rightfully be called the most strongly hated and also the most widely beloved film of the franchise. While many American fans clamored for fantastical elements like Godzilla's powers or his fights against other giant monsters, a lot of Europeans thought that getting rid of these was the right choice. Even to this day, Godzilla's atomic breath and his vast monster cast are among the most derided aspects of the franchise, far too silly and unrealistic to be taken seriously. When Legendary Pictures began making their American Godzilla films in 2014, many viewers were shocked and dismayed at their more traditional monster interpretations, labeling them massive downgrades. Godzilla's atomic breath ability was often singled out as a target of mockery, it reportedly made audiences either laugh or groan in disbelief. I know this may seem surprising to American fans, but both them and the official companies involved with the franchise should realize that the rest of the world works and thinks differently than the Western and Japanese fanbases.
  
  

• None of the Heisei or Millennium films came out here officially, although a couple English-translated Heisei VHS tapes could be bought in select video game stores that offered foreign film imports via the partnership of a UK distribution company. We at least got the 1998 cartoon series, which was still reran on TV as late as the mid-2010s.
  
  

• Hungary did release the Asylum studio's low budget monster movies and 1999's Yonggary, which have almost irreparably tarnished the reputation of the genre. Even the notion of giant monster battles is more commonly associated with Asylum than with Godzilla.
  
  

• The Legendary MonsterVerse films showed an interesting decline. Each successive film struggled to amass the opening week viewership of the previous entry. Godzilla 2014's overall box-office numbers were less than Godzilla 1998's opening weekend sales, 2019's King of the Monsters made less than G'14's opening numbers, and the full attendance of 2021's Godzilla vs Kong just barely reached KoTM's first weekend data. This downward trend stopped at 2024's Godzilla X Kong: A New Empire, as it would have been nearly impossible to go lower than GvK's attendance.
  
  

• Godzilla vs. Kong was the most disadvantaged of all, having been released during Hungary's COVID-19 lockdown when most theater chains were closed. Then once they opened, only vaccinated people were allowed in. By this time, most people have either pirated the film (as it came out in the US months in advance) or stayed clear of it due to the negative reviews.
  
  

• Aside from piracy and restrictions being factors in the MonsterVerse's failure, the films just had a rough time finding an audience. Europe lacks the built-in monster film cult following that America has. The MonsterVerse had to prove itself to completely uninitiated audiences, and it fell flat on its face. All of the films had mixed-to-negative reviews, becoming some of the most hated big budget Hollywood films of recent memory, some even calling them the worst movies of all time, with both critical and general viewer reactions getting worse after each entry (the divide between critical consensus and audience reception that American fans often allude to does not exist over here -- neither "side" was fond of the movies). These films are everyone's punching bags, the rock bottom of cinema, basically objectively and nigh-universally regarded as unimpressive films, with low audience ratings on film database sites to go along with their disappointing box-office numbers. KoTM and GvK in specific were touted by some as two of the worst films ever made. People just wanted more of Godzilla 1998, or the kind of film that Godzilla 2014's early, darker toned trailers seemed to promote, rather than the movies we ended up getting. Kong: Skull Island from 2017 was at least moderately popular and didn't follow the decline of the Godzilla films.
  
  

• When you tally the box office income (source: Film Distributors' Association of Hungary) and calculate inflation, Godzilla 1998 made over twice as much money as all MonsterVerse Godzilla films put together, and generally has higher user scores on online film databases. The 1998 monster design itself is reasonably popular, most people preferred this powerless and sleek, horizontally postured take over the silly old Japanese Godzilla, while they were less accepting of the post-2014 redesigns and Godzilla's powers, calling them too goofy, old fashioned and unrealistic. They didn't understand why Godzilla and other Legendary monsters had to resemble their Japanese counterparts, rather than being reimagined, "improved" versions like the '98 design.
  
  

• The Legendary films at least introduced a new generation of kids to Godzilla. They showed that there was more to Godzilla than just the '98 movie and cartoon. Sadly, this uptick in brand visibility was also met with a lot of bitter hatred, and the MonsterVerse might have done a lot more unintended harm to Godzilla's mainstream image than good. It deepened the already steep divide between local and foreign fans, and especially between fans and laypeople. Even if a new Japanese Godzilla project is announced, people's kneejerk reaction is to dread that it might be related to the loathed Legendary films.
  
  

• There are fans who credit the MonsterVerse with bringing about positive changes in how the franchise is publicly perceived, saying it has turned Godzilla from a ridiculed obscurity to a more respected, popular and mainstream brand. But Europe is, as always, different. Here, the MonsterVerse was met with public trashing and an avalanche of negativity, turning Godzilla from an unknown franchise into a hated one. People proclaiming to like Godzilla were already seen as weirdos before. The MonsterVerse ruined the reputation of the brand and its fans even harder.
  
  

• With all this in mind, it's difficult to describe the performance of the MonsterVerse in this part of Europe as anything but a tremendous misfire, made with the best intentions but achieving the worst possible results. Most American fans sadly aren't aware of the damaging side effects of the Legendary series in international markets.
  
  

• 2016's Shin Godzilla wasn't released, though it got a couple positive-to-mixed reviews, with one mostly favorable review calling the film pointless and irrelevant because its subject matter is "too Japanese". This country imports very little Japanese media, so an obscure, fringe (dare I say unwanted) property like Godzilla had zero chance of being screened here. Online reactions were unsurprisingly dreary, with some calling the film unwatchable, laughably cheap and something that should be avoided. In fact, certain people were shocked that Japan would want to make a Godzilla film at all in the modern age. There still exists a snobby, discriminatory attitude that giant monster movies cannot be considered legitimate cinema, especially if they're from a country like Japan that has no Hollywood-level budgets. People's perceptions have changed little since the 1950s in this regard.
  
  

• The 2017-2018 anime trilogy came out on Netflix with official Hungarian film titles but no dubs or subtitles were made. People hated them.
  
  

• 2021's Godzilla Singular Point anime series also came to Hungary via Netflix, and for once this one got subtitled. The country's anime market is basically nonexistent outside of occasional releases on streaming platforms (plus a small cottage industry of unofficial, crowd-funded but professionally produced anime dubs), so it's kind of a miracle that this show got subbed at all. Interest in the show was minimal, most anime fans never giving it a chance, while those who saw it had mixed reactions.

• The MonsterVerse series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was also subtitled, as the show is on the Apple TV+ streaming service, which doesn't produce Hungarian dubs. This, sadly, greatly limited the series' accessibility. However, the series did at least see some decent reception.

• As was the case with Shin Godzilla, Toho's 2023 live-action film Godzilla: Minus One was not released here theatrically, despite distribution rights having ostensibly been obtained for a full pan-European release and certain news sites touting a worldwide release. As usual, "worldwide" in the Godzilla franchise mostly means "Japan and the United States", with only a random few other territories. The film was dubbed into Hungarian for a 2024 Netflix streaming release, making this the second ever Japanese Godzilla film to receive a Hungarian dub. Though the film did get some online media attention and a few positive reviews, with many fans wishing for a theatrical run, interest was minimal and it also received some harsh criticism. Nevertheless, this is still a milestone.

• 2024's Godzilla X Kong: A New Empire continued the trend of being a punching-bag for critics, same as with the other MonsterVerse movies. This time, though, sentiments were even harsher, with critics bemoaning that this "atrocious" film was released in theaters, while the critical darling Minus One was not. Even its box office was unimpressive, though its opening numbers showed a slight improvement over KoTM's. Both KoTM and GxK were given a restrictive 16+ age certificate in this country (Hungary's age rating system is incredibly inconsistent and even minor details can bump a PG-13 movie's rating up to 16+ or 18+), which probably didn't do any favors for the box office intake. Though a smashing success internationally, GxK was yet another MonsterVerse film Hungary simply didn't care much for.
  
  

• Unlike anime, which has a large albeit niche fanbase, tokusatsu here is essentially fully absent, so obscure as if such a form of media had never existed. When it comes to television series, only five random Power Rangers shows ever came out here, that's about it. Apart from Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, the only other semi-notable tokusatsu release was the American version of the original 1965 Gamera movie (titled "Gammera the Invincible"), which aired as part of a late-night cult film TV show in 2014, for viewers to laugh at.

• Much like the rest of continental Europe, Hungary has very little Godzilla merchandise aside from a few stray MonsterVerse-inspired Funko Pop and overpriced Hiya, SHMA and some leftover NECA figures sold in a select few shops. Even the more recent toys put out by the company Playmates are tough to find on the continent, and usually demand high prices, multiple times their US cost.

• There are no books and very few articles discussing the movies in a non-biased way. Whenever kaiju films were mentioned in the press or in film magazines, such as the horribly unprofessional Godzilla retrospective review series in the Hungarian version of Fangoria, they nearly always got dismissed as "so bad it's good" tripe made by nobodies with no worthwhile aspects to them. For every half-decent article that actually tries to give meaningful analysis to kaiju movies and lay out their themes in a respectful way, there are hordes of low-effort and low-brow clickbait articles such as "Crappiest Movie Monsters of All Time!" or "Incredibly Lame Japanese Monsters that Give You Second-Hand Embarrassment!" Media has always liked to gang up on these movies and bully them, making it less of an uphill battle and more of a lost cause for fans to stand up to the films' merit. People look at out of context clips from the cheapest, shoddiest kaiju productions aimed at children from the 1970s and proclaim that they are representative of the entire genre.
  
  

• The Japanese live-action Godzilla movies have still not been released in any capacity after Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla's distribution rights expired in 1994. Not even the original. There is no market for them and the franchise is still largely regarded as embarrassing, Z-grade schlock that should have ended long ago. To local fans, pricey imports and piracy are the only ways to go.

• This is likely the case in many other countries as well, which don't get talked about in English kaiju discourse. Godzilla fans of the Anglosphere tend to discuss the franchise in terms of grand umbrella statements like "this movie is widely beloved" or "that movie is universally hated", ignoring, dismissing and ridiculing outsider viewpoints, even if those views are far more widespread than they think. The more comments and discussions I read from English-speaking fans, the more I'm convinced they're living in their own deluded reality. (This is of course true of any subject, not just of kaiju films.) It's sad to see their ignorance also spread to official media companies. This hinders the franchise from becoming a truly world-spanning property.
  
  

• The thing is, while America is the de-facto leader of monster movie-related discourse in the west and the main hub of the genre's cult fandom, it is also severely out of tune with the rest of the world. Common, widely accepted sentiments in the US-based fan community would be seen as fringe insanity in Europe. Proclaiming things like "Godzilla '98 is the most popular" or "the MonsterVerse sucks" would garner you a lot of ridicule or even outright hatred and rejection in the American kaiju community. However in Europe, and Central-Eastern Europe in particular, you could hardly make less controversial remarks than these. "Of course G98 is the best, who would even dare to argue with that?" and "Of course the Japanese and MonsterVerse movies are horrible, what kind of person could possibly like them?" -- opinions like these very much define the mainstream view of the genre outside of America and Japan. On this side of the planet, it's the American fans who are laughed at for dismissing the TriStar film and sucking up to the Toho and Legendary movies. We still live in different realities, which is one of the main reasons why this genre has failed to take off in Europe. Were America to produce yet another Godzilla '98, people here would eat it up without any second thoughts.
  
  

• American Godzilla fans have a right to complain that they aren't getting every piece of kaiju media and merch that Japan has, but compared to the indifference/hate-filled wasteland of Europe and other parts of the globe, they are practically living in a kaiju paradise. The American fanbase appears to be at constant war with itself, with sub-communities fighting and throwing dirt at each other over the most minute differences in opinion. They don't realize how good they have it. Meanwhile, most of Europe hardly even has a fanbase to speak of. We're ignored by Toho, by distribution companies, by the rest of the fans, and dismissed and mocked by local film lovers. The niche cult status that Godzilla enjoys in the US, with large and active fan communities, official film and merchandise releases, any kind of positive outlook regarding these movies, all of that is a far-off dream to us.

• The online toxicity surrounding Godzilla movies can be disheartening. Over the years I have seen so much deep-seated, vehement, preposterous, borderline psychotic negativity on internet surfaces, whether it's news articles, comments, forums or social media posts, that it can feel like they drown out any positivity coming from European fans. It would take decades of cultural exposure to change this mindset, which is why the Godzilla franchise's prospects in taking a foothold in Europe are slim. With the MonsterVerse films being more in the public's eye and Hungarian Godzilla fans being more active online, a slow progress might have taken place, but it will take some time to see the positive results of this shift.
  
  

• One of the main takeaways I'm trying to get at is that the Godzilla franchise's international representation and cultural reach are woefully unbalanced. In Japan and the States, it has established itself as a relatively strong cult classic that most people don't care for but it still has a devoted, self-replenishing fanbase. America produces its own Godzilla movies and releases the Japanese ones, there is a buzzing market for merchandise and all kinds of tie-in media like comics and games. Some American fans (and presumably Japanese ones too) are perfectly satisfied with this and don't really want Godzilla to be bigger and more mainstream. They already have what they want. The rest of the world isn't in such a position, the Godzilla brand is not even a niche, it's a non-entity. A low interest, unmarketable import item that barely any company cares about distributing. European fans are not satisfied, they want more but they're not getting it.
  
  

• If you want a taste of vintage Hungarian kaiju action with visually expressed, heavy-handed social commentary, take a peek at the 1978 surreal collage animation Panic.