After making his debut as the terror of Tokyo in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the character of Showa-era Godzilla changed from Walking Radioactive Beast of Destruction to Superhero Defender of Japan. Driving this change in part was Toho Studios’ decision to craft the films to appeal to a more juvenile audience. But unfortunately, although generally less expensive – the low budgets of some Showa kaiju eiga are notoriously conspicuous – some of the films proved box office disappointments, and one of the milestones that concluded the Showa period was Toho’s decision to put its Godzilla films on hiatus for a while. (Daiei Studios’ Gamera would continue to soldier on until 1980.)

Fortunately, Toho decided to send Godzilla out in style. Toho brought back original Godzilla director Ishirô Honda after a five-year absence to helm 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla (Mekagojira no gyakushu). Although Godzilla once again defends the Earth from aliens and their daikaiju allies, Terror of Mechagodzilla offers a grimmer, more mature storyline and some truly spectacular kaiju rumble action.

Some time back, Sony released several early Godzilla films on a set of no-frills but inexpensive – $10 or so – DVDs. Featured titles included the original Godzilla: King of the Monsters (the American version, with Raymond Burr), Godzilla vs. Mothra, Rodan and Godzilla’s Revenge. Not long ago, I was pleased to discover Terror of Mechagodzilla among these cheap but decent DVD offerings.

The film kicks off with footage of Godzilla’s battle with Mechagodzilla from the previous film playing under the opening credits. As the story begins, a Japanese research submarine meets a mysterious fate. Interpol agent Jiro Murakoshi (Katsumasa Uchida) and marine biologist Akira Ichinose (Katsuhiko Sasaki) listen to a (reel to reel!) tape of the sub’s final transmissions and hear the captain’s reference to a monster and a distinctly un-Godzilla-like roaring. The two men suspect a previously undiscovered undersea monster is responsible for the sub’s destruction.

The two men decide to consult Dr. Shinji Mafune, a once-prominent research scientist who was forced to resign in disgrace due to his theories about a surviving undersea dinosaur. When the men visit Dr. Mafune’s island home, they’re greeted by his daughter Katsura (Tomoko Ai), who informs them that her father is dead. Even more, he had ordered all his notebooks burned. Ichinose explains why they’ve come, and it’s clear that he’s attracted to the quiet and somewhat moody young woman.

But Dr Mifune isn’t dead after all – he was hiding in his basement lab. As Katsura describes the investigators’ visit to her father, he exults in the knowledge that his once-rejected theories are being vindicated, and gloats that the knowledge will come too late to save mankind. (In another nice bit of continuity, Mifune is played by Akihiko Hirata, who starred as Dr. Serizawa in the original Godzilla, as well as several later entries in the series.)

Mifune has allied himself with the latest in a long series of aliens bent on using giant monsters to conquer Earth. This time, they aren’t sexy women in silver leotards, but sunglasses-wearing dudes in goofy metal helmets, who hail from the Third Planet of the Black Hole. As usual, they plan to conquer the Earth with the aid of giant monster, including the undersea creature (named Titanosaurus) and a newly-rebuilt Mechagodzilla.

Unfortunately for their plan, Katsura and Ichinose develop a mutual attraction, so that when the young scientist proposes to follow the ill-fated sub in search of Titanosaurus, the young woman is concerned for his safety. She provides him with some of her father’s notes which, she says, weren’t burned after all.

But the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, at least in an Ishirô Honda kaiju flick. Unbeknownst to Ichinose, poor Katsura is a cyborg, whose body – mortally wounded in an accident in her father’s lab – has been replaced with robotic components by the Black Hole aliens. And they added another new feature – her mind now telepathically controls Titanosaurus and the aliens’ trump card, the newly repaired Mechagodzilla. Fortunately, a captured Interpol agent manages to get word of Mechagodzilla’s reconstruction to Murakoshi, so our heroes aren’t caught entirely unprepared.

The aliens unleash their monsters on the oft-beset Tokyo, and the battle is joined. Under Honda’s sure direction, Terror of Mechagodzilla boasts some excellent kaiju fights as the monsters square off against each other, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and various sections of Tokyo real estate. At one point, Godzilla even tears Mechagodzilla’s head off – but, of course, it’s a robot, so the damage is far from fatal. Akira Ikifube’s tense score adds the perfect element of excitement to the battles.

Sure, the film sports some amusing 1970s artifacts, including groovy sideburns, ultra-wide lapels and reel-to-reel tape players. But Terror of Mechagodzilla is a serious, even occasionally grim film that recalls the series’ roots as a horror film even as Godzilla once again saves Japan from invading aliens and rampaging monsters...

By reuniting original director Honda and master composer Ikifube, Terror of Mechagodzilla ended the Showa Godzilla cycle in style. The film departs from the juvenile storylines of preceding films to attain a darker, more somber tone. And there’s plenty of kaiju action, with Godzilla going solo against two fierce foes...kaiju fans shouldn’t hesitate to add this worthy flick to their collection.

The seventies marked the final decline of the original series of Godzilla movies. And Terror of MechaGodzilla would be the last Godzilla movie until 1984. While it was struck from the same mold as of all the other later Godzilla films, with Godzilla repelling some sort of invasion by aliens who look down on humans ("They're so ignorant," moans the alien leader), Terror is actually a step up from what came before. The special effects are a little better, the story moves a little quicker than Godzilla vs Gigan or Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla, and the whole production just seems classier, probably thanks to Godzilla director Inshiro Honda's return to the series after a long absence.

Most of the movie has to do with a monster called Titanosaurus, a sort of sleeker, fishlike version of Godzilla. It seems that the big T has destroyed a undersea research sub, and the usual 1970's collection of sweater-wearing Japanese Interpol agents suspect aliens might be involved. These agents are supposed to be the film's heroes, but we found them so boring we really couldn't be bothered to tell them apart.

Much more interesting is the mad scientist Mafune and his cyborg daughter, Katsura. It seems that Mafune was a respected researcher on the subject of undersea habitation, but at some point he became an outcast. We suspect it has something to do with the fact that he was researching how to control sea life, but used rats as his test subjects, as the still-photo flashbacks reveal. Mafune also became convinced that there might be a dinosaur living in the ocean. Ha! Who would believe that? Everybody knows that all the dinosaurs are extinct. Except for Godzilla, Manda, Baragon, and Gorosaurus, and a bunch of other Godzilla villains. But Mafune suggests there may be one more? That crazy guy.

Now for the story of how Katsura became a cyborg. One day she was assisting Mafune with an experiment of some sort (obviously, Mafune has crossed the threshold and is now a mad scientist, because he has stopped combing his hair), when the equipment blows up and Katsura falls down. Suddenly men wearing red velvet outfits enter the lab and take her away. Using alien technology they save Katsura's life, and make her stronger, faster, and better, to boot. And then they hand Mafune a bill for $6,000,000.

Just kidding. The aliens actually equip her with the ability to control monsters, including Titanosaurus and the newly rebuilt MechaGodzilla 2. The fact that these major monsters are controlled by a pretty young lady means that the turtle-neck wearing Interpol agents will have something else to do in the film other than build a super-science invention that will help defeat the aliens. They also get to engage Katsura in a lot of deep conversations about the nature of humanity. But fear not: these mutton-chop-sporting Interpol agents will eventually get around to building that super-science invention.

The aliens this time around are predictably goofy. They all wear silver jumpsuits and earth-style sunglasses, sometimes complemented by the silliest helmets you've ever seen. At least one example of the alien tecnology we see came straight out of an Erector set box. And while these aliens are smart enough to build a cool robot like MechaGodzilla, they put the controls for the robot into a human, despite their contempt for humans in general.

Of course what makes or breaks a Godzilla movie is the monster footage. Terror of MechaGodzilla delivers some pretty neat stuff. MechaGodzilla's rampage through Tokyo is suitably explosive, even if we do see the same building blow up twice in a row at one point. The monster fights have a fair amount of energy, even if they are the kind of wrestling-heavy monster fights that predominated the end of Godzilla's first series. But a lot of sins can be forgiven when a Godzilla movie is scored by Akira Ifukabe. He was always the definitive Godzilla composer, and he is present to score Godzilla's swan song.

This would be the last Godzilla movie for a decade, and it also marks Godzilla's last appearence as a super-hero. We can't say we were all that sad to see super-hero Godzilla go away, but if all of the later Godzilla films had been as good as this one, we might have been.