Godzilla: Singular Point Part 1 Episodes 1-4

A mysterious signal begins emanating from a long abandoned mansion, a song of unknown origin.  Within a matter of hours, a host of Monsters begins to emerge across Japan: flying Pteradons dubbed Rodan, as well as giant serpents in the sea.  As the country scrambles to defend against these creatures, a tech guru, Yun Arikawa, and a Grad Student, Mei Kamino, begin investigating the signal from different ends, beginning a quest to find its origin and see if it can stop a possible Catastrophe to come…a Catastrophe revolving around a legendary monster known as “Gojira”.

In a decades long existence, Godzilla: The King of the Monsters, only just recently found his way into the world of Anime.  Sadly, his first foray was the increasingly terrible “Planet of the Monsters” Trilogy from 2017 and 2018.  I reviewed all three of those movies as they became available and their scores gradually decreased, with the grand finale “The Planet Eater” getting a much deserved 0/10.  So it’s understandable that I exercise caution entering Godzilla: Singular Point.  Sure it looks better animation wise but also comes with the usual Godzilla film concerns from the previews: too many humans and only brief glimpses of Kaiju or Godzilla himself.  Still, minor comfort comes from the animation being in the hands of Studio Bones (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Fullmetal Alchemist, Rahxephon).  With all that said, I’m ready to jump into this special bonus three part review I’m adding to Godzilla Month.  So, how does Godzilla: Singular Point begin and does it put any of my fears to rest.
 
The Human Element is always an X Factor in any Kaiju or Giant Monster feature.  We go into movies or TV Series expecting a hefty amount of monster carnage and epic battles as creatures the size of skyscrapers square off in the middle of a city.  Since Singular Point is a TV Series, I can see them not wanting to jump into the action right away, at least the grander stuff.  And in this instance, while the Human Cast has its detractors, like an overzealous old man who thinks Jet Jaguar is the greatest thing ever (table that for now), it’s the dialogue that is gonna be Singular Points greatest enemy.  Rather than just being a straightforward mystery of where the Kaiju are coming from and why, Singular Point demands you switch on your brain in full because it’s about to take you through an Advanced course on Meta and Astrophysics without dumbing any of it down for the average viewer.  To be honest, I might try to sum up what’s being talked about but I make no promises.  I can already tell Singular Point is in love with the sound of its own voice and while it acts like it’s the smartest Anime in the room…that doesn’t mean I’m going to love it.  Clearly whoever wrote this Anime missed the notice that they were supposed to be writing a Godzilla epic, not their 500 page thesis for their Double Doctorate Masters Class.
 
What about the humans themselves reciting all these advanced mathematical and theoretical factoids?  Our two main leads are Yun and Mei.  Yun looks like Gintoki from Gintama (right down to the hair).  He seems lazy but has a Sherlock level intellect, hell he even makes AI as a side project.  Mei is a Grad Student who is delving head first into the aforementioned Mathematical theories that are apparently the key to solving the mystery of the signal that’s drawing the Monsters to Japan.  Both have their own likeable qualities: Yun is heroic when he needs to be and dammit Mei is cute as heck.  Theyre some of the smartest people in any room but their growth as characters feel hampered by all that talking about stuff we don’t want to hear about.  Backing them up is at least a dozen other characters at this point including: Goro, Yun’s boss who’s obsessing over building a robot called Jet Jaguar; Sato, an employee of the Misakioku building which houses a big bombshell secret in its basement; and Pelo 2, the AI Mei downloads from Yun’s website who is so adorable, it’s become the stand out character of the bunch.  Like most Godzilla outings, we’ll be spending time with this bunch and a lot more instead of the Big G himself and he hasn’t even made a (proper) appearance yet.  As much as I want to like some of these characters, no amount of cute designs or plucky heroic attitudes can make their dialogue any more tolerable.
 
When we do get to any Monster action, Singular Point shows its true potential.  Rodan’s brand new design is a good benchmark for every monster to come.  He now looks like a more traditional Pterodactyl with similar features and build.  Rodan’s even rocking his traditional Kaiju voice, proving that someone wants to make a competent take on these classic monsters and not type up theoretical physics lectures.  Rodan is the main Monster we see in this opening set and whether it’s a solo beast or an entire flock, they are always impressive and intimidating.  The other non human character (other than Pelo 2) to get any substantial screentime is the one thing I was most worried about coming into Singular Point.  Jet Jaguar was only ever in one Godzilla film: Godzilla vs. Megalon, and never made an appearance afterwards.  He was basically an Ultraman knockoff meant to get his own movie before Godzilla was thrown in to ensure it did well.  To bring him back feels so…weird.  It’s not helped that the old man who built him, Goro, seems like an insert for the one JJ fan out there who wanted to see him in Anime form.  The Rodan vs. Jet Jaguar fight in the first two episodes is visually great.  But I feel like Jet Jaguar is meant to play a bigger role than I think I might want him too.
 
Therein lies a major problem: they pushed the crap out of Jet Jaguar in the promos for Singular Point, to the point (no pun intended) that it felt like it was meant to be HIS Anime and not Godzillas.  I fear it goes a bit beyond that back into the Human cast.  Yun and Mei feel like theyre both in separate shows at this point.  Yun is directly involved in the Kaiju attacks so his feels the closest to a traditional Godzilla movie.  Mei, meanwhile, is tracking down the science and theory angle so hard I’m not even sure she’s even relating it to the Monsters at this point and not trying to solve some random energy crisis.  With all the “smart” talk, endless lectures, sparce creature action and emphasis on showing off Jet Jaguar, the last thing Singular Point feels like so far in its debut is a Godzilla Anime.  If I’m not being clear with my thoughts: that is a problem.
 
There is hope though.  The Rodan design and the promise of more monsters is enough to keep anyone invested…but then again I once said the same thing about the Planet of the Monsters Trilogy too.  Though, Singular Point does seem poised to deliver on the promise that trilogy never could.  We did get a terror inducing image of an army of Rodan flying across the sky and Serpants (Manda?) poking out from the sea and a hint at a very old friend to appear at the beginning of the next set.  If Singular Point can just shut up with its science talk and let the Monsters do their thing…well that would be great.  Guess we’ll see what happens.  Part 2 of our 3 part review of Godzilla: Singular Point continues tomorrow right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.