reintroduced the King of the Monsters into modern Japan, Shin Godzilla both entertains and tackles relevant issues, much like the original Godzilla did.

As a result, Shin Godzilla was able to build plenty of high esteem among critics and fans of the franchise. With awards season underway, it may not be much of a surprise to see Shin Godzilla hardly making an impact in America, but it did work incredibly well for Japanese audiences. In fact, the film was such a resounding success, that Shin Godzilla may now be able to take home a number of Japanese Academy Awards, including a possible Best Picture award.

The nominations for the 40th Japan Academy Prize were recently announced and it is great to see that Shin Godzilla has picked up 11 nominations. It will be competing with mystery-dramas Rage and 64: Part 1, films much more grounded, compared to this giant monster movie. Regardless, Shin Godzilla's nominations include Best Picture, Best Director (Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi), Best Actor (Hiroki Hasegawa), Best ing Actress (Satomi Ishihara and Mikako Ichikawa), Best Music (Shirou Sagisu), Best Cinematography (Kousuke Yamada), Best Art Direction (Yuji Hayashida and Eri Sakushima), Best Lighting Direction (Takayuki Kawabe), Best Sound Recording (Jun Nakamura and Haru Yamada) and Best Film Editing (Hideaki Anno and Atsuki Sato).

This is quite the accomplishment for the franchise. With the last Japanese-produced Godzilla film, Godzilla: Final Wars having come out back in 2004, it's quite amazing to see this series not only get a stellar revival, but pull off getting multiple Japanese Academy Award nominations. Clearly the film won critics and fans over, which is in no doubt due to the work put in by writer and directors Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. Having worked largely in animation (Attack on Titan), their experience may have somewhat set them up for a film like this, but it paid off in of creating a great, new giant monster movie and one that tackles some relevant issues.