For the first time ever, Godzilla is getting his own anime film, with the movie set to get a theatrical run in Japan later this year. Once that run has been completed, Netflix will be giving the film a worldwide release through their streaming service.
Although the anime project was first announced last summer, it has remained shrouded in secrecy for several months. All we've really known is that it's directed by Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita from a script by Gen Urobuchi, and that the imagery shared from it has had a distinctly futuristic look. There is a Godzilla anime stage event scheduled to happen at AnimeJapan 2017 this Sunday, March 26th, and I had assumed that any further details were being saved to be revealed there. There may well be further details being saved for AnimeJapan 2017, but an update to the anime's official website has spilled some information a couple days earlier than expected.
Among the website's reveals are the fact that the film, which had been simply known as GODZILLA to this point, is actually titled GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET.
The site has also provided us with a plot synopsis:
The last summer of the 20th Century. That day, the human beings learn that they are not the only ruler of the planet Earth.
The appearance of the giant living creatures “Kaiju's” and the ultimate existence that destroys all monsters: Godzilla. Through the battle against kaiju's that lasted for half a century, human beings has experienced continuous defeat, and finally plans to escape from the Earth. And in 2048, only those who were selected by the A.I. managed under the central government boarded the inter-sidereal emigrant spaceship “Aratrum” to head for “Tau Cetus e”, the planet beyond the distance of 11.9 light-year. However, the environmental condition differences between that of the Earth and Tau e, which they finally arrived after 20 years were far beyond the predicted numbers, and was not an environment considered to be habitable by human beings.
The young man on the emigrant ship: Haruo, who saw his parents killed by Godzilla in front of his eyes when he was 4 years old, had only one thing in his mind for 20 years: to return to the Earth and defeat Godzilla. Shut out from the possibility of emigration, as the living environment in the ship deteriorates, the group of “Earth Returnists” led by Haruo became the majority, and determines to head back to Earth through a dangerous long-distance hyperspace navigation. However, the Earth they have returned has already passed the time of 20,000 years, and has become an unknown world with the ecosystem reigned by Godzilla.
At the end, will human beings win back the Earth? And what will Haruo see beyond his fate?
Godzilla has done a lot in his 60+ years of being a cinema icon, but ruling over Earth 20,000 years in the future is something very new.
The GODZILLA: MONSTER PLANET vocal cast includes Yuuki Kaji, Takahiro Sakurai, Mamoru Miyano, Junichi Suwabe, Kana Hanazawa, and Tomokazu Sugita. Those actors will all be present at the AnimeJapan 2017 event.