"In 1954, Japan's Toho Studios-in what appeared to be merely an imitation of the 1953 American film “Beast from 20,000 Fathoms”-unleashed “Godzilla”. The film was Japan's first international hit, inspiring sixteen sequels and a dozen other radioactive dinosaurs. Today, Godzilla has achieved icon status in Japan and America, making plausible James Twitchell's jibe in “Dreadful Pleasures” that “it is one of the first images Westerners think of when they hear the word 'Japan.'” If the word “Japan” evokes Godzilla-and not Hiroshima, 1885's $62 billion trade surplus, and compact cars-one wonders why these films are so easily dismissed by Twitchell and ignored by others. That this genre-Japan's most popular filmic export-has been neglected seems in itself to indicate a mechanics of repression at work. These movies are ascribed the same attributes as those “made in Japan” products that in the fifties connoted shoddiness. When examined, however, they reveal a self-conscious attempt to deal with nuclear history and its effects on Japanese society."