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Kaiju don’t need much of a selling point. They are big destructive weird monsters with super powers and then they fight each other. If you can’t understand the whimsy that creates then I feel bad for you. But it always struck me as odd that in a gallery of giant lizards, dinosaurs, sea serpents, and dragons, why would there be a big moth?
Mothra is my favorite kaiju after all and her ability to stand out in this sea of scales and tails certainly worked on me, but it wasn’t until my local zoo posted this image and wished everyone a happy national moth week.
I realized that there may be more to Mothra’s concept other than just a big bug. I mean, did Toho really just think big insects are cool? Are insects cool? Are moths sacred in Japan? What does Mothra even symbolize and how are moths involved? Do we really need an entire week dedicated to moths? These are questions I set out to answer and turns out, there is a lot more to Mothra and her insectoid relatives than I realized.
Mothra first took to the silver screen in 1961 with her movie “Mothra” directed by Ishiro Honda. Yeah, that guy, the man responsible for kaiju movies, creating iconic characters like Godzilla, Rodan, and even working alongside one of Japan’s greatest directors Akira Kurosawa.
The movie follows explorers that discovered Mothra’s island and the iconic twin fairies, the Shobijin. A greedy businessman kidnaps them, they pray to their moth god, Mothra and Mothra wreaks havoc saving them. The movie was a success and Mothra would continue to appear on screen with other Kaiju legends even to this day. This was a different type of kaiju flick than audiences were used to because Ishiro Honda wanted something different. Where Godzilla, Rodan, and Angirgus were primitive beasts angry at the world, Mothra wasn’t a symbol of destruction, but rather a symbol of protection. Though she destroys quite a bit, she is doing it for good rather than just an animalistic urge. She is on a mission to save the fairies who were kidnapped, and her destruction is only a side effect of her godly power. You can even see this in her design. She has a bright and vibrant color scheme; she is very mystical compared to the prehistoric designs of previous kaiju. She is fuzzy and cute. Where other kaiju were dark, jagged, and pointy, Mothra went in an entirely different direction.
Mothra was going to be a different type of kaiju movie that was a risk for the company and Toho wanted to make sure people would like it, so they did what any movie studio would do to test the waters...they wrote a book?
Instead of gambling on a giant moth’s success, Toho hired 3 novelists to create a high quality story that would later be turned into a movie. Their literary backgrounds and collaborative efforts allowed for a deeper and more nuanced kaiju script. But instead of just making a hardcover and sending it off to local bookstores, they decided to serialize the book in the Japanese magazine "Weekly Asahi Extra". This allowed for the story to be seen by a broad audience and Toho could test what audiences liked about the story and adjust, not to mention it was a great way to promote the film. So the team created the story "The Luminous Fairies and Mothra'' and honestly it is just an outline of the film but obviously readers liked it so much that Mothra got her movie debut.
But all this info only raises more questions. With all of the crazy characters they designed over the years, why choose an insect that flies at lights and eats your clothes? Why hire seasoned story tellers to build this deep mythos about a bug? Why did audiences enjoy a story about a big moth and I refuse to accept the simple answer of “I don’t know man, it’s just kind of cool”...shut up. I have never heard anyone in my life think moths are cool. And this is no hate to moth enthusiasts but it isn’t a common thing like butterflies. So I figured there must be something special about moths in Japan.
Japanese people are perceived to have a relatively more favorable disposition towards insects than other nations. I figured then that since Mothra is a god and worshiped as such, Japanese mythology would be ripe with moth stories helping humanity and well, I couldn’t find much of any insect story but I did find something called a Shinchu.
Shinchu are yokai, which are supernatural Japanese entities, and the Shinchu are depicted as a silkmoth the size of an elephant. They have saucer-like eyes, a huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth, eight legs, an enormous wingspan, and a long stringer at the end of their body. So you may already be seeing the parallels of different iterations of Mothra with her giant eyes, a large wingspan, and even a stinger in her monsterverse iteration.
As ferocious as they looked, they didn’t attack people. They instead fed on demons and evil spirits especially ones that caused diseases and spread epidemics. It is said that every morning a shinchū will consume three thousand demons, and every evening it will devour three thousand more. So you can understand why shinchū play an important role in protecting humans and that leads us to what Mothra actually represents.
Mothra is purely virtuous and always works to keep nature balanced. Much like the Shinchu, she only fights against evil and wants to save her people. She protects the world against natural threats like Godzilla and even goes off to fight an invading force, King Ghidorah, alone even though she is completely outmatched which then inspires Godzilla and Rodan to work together. She often gets beaten and hurt but never stops fighting to protect the balance of the world even if it means sacrificing her life. As the Shinchu of old, Mothra defends nature against the monsters that wish to spread destruction.
Shinchu literally translates to divine insect and they are seen as gods. Mothra’s symbolism is filled with spirituality and environmentalism. She is worshiped by an entire island. She even has two twin priestesses that have a psychic connection with her. She is the protector of her people and nature in general. She represents the symbiotic relationship between all living things. Much like mother nature, you can't destroy her, her energy just goes somewhere else. She doesn’t fear death like us humans, she welcomes it if it keeps the world turning. This is because she cannot die. She reverts to her cocoon, is born as a larva, and transforms into her adult form. This life cycle continues for as long as Mothra is needed.
It is this physical transformation and life cycle of rebirth that makes not only Mothra such a deep and symbolic character, but moths in general. Shinchu are modeled after the silkworm moth which Mothra takes alot of influence from given her cute fuzzy design, her fragility in combat, and her silk spitting ability. The Japanese considered silkworm moths as holy creatures because of this representation of rebirth but also for the precious silk they produce and the ability to make silk adds a whole nother level to Mothra’s depiction of a moth because moths in Japan were not just symbolism in folklore, they were crucial in the history of the entire country because like how Mothra saved humanity over and over, the silkworm moth saved Japan from Western colonialism.
Since 1635, Japan had isolated itself from foreigners. Fast forward 200 years, and the U.S. became interested in Japanese ports to compete with China. As the US worked out deals in Japan, America shared the western technology Japan was missing out on. What the Japanese learned though was that they were also not being colonized by western forces like many parts of the world. This pushed an industrial revolution in Japan.
Industrial Revolutions however cost a lot of money and Japan’s economy was based mostly on rice production, so they looked to the silkworm moth to foot the bill.
Japan started producing and exporting so many tons of silk that it accounted for nearly half of the export revenues. This was possible because the European silk industry was being ravaged by silkworm diseases…probably could have used a Shinchu…and China was in the grip of a civil war and they were the primary sellers to European countries. This made Japan and their real life Mothras hot commodities.
The increased demand for raw silk further pushed the industrialization of silk production, which made the country more money, which allowed them to continue modernizing their country, and like Mothra’s life, the cycle repeated.
There is no explicit interview or text that explains why Mothra was a moth. Honestly maybe it was just that silkworm moths were cute, but it is impossible to deny the shockingly dense symbolism and history of moths in Japan and I truly believe that Mothra is a reminder of what moths did for Japan.
Her silkworm design influences give off her cute friendly demeanor and tell audiences she is no threat. Her spiritual mythos references her godly presence and brings the legend of the Shinchu to life. Her silk abilities and her desire to save humanity is like a retelling of how the silkworm moth saved Japan so many years ago. However you choose to see it, Mothra is more than just a cool big bug with powers and her stories continue to bring joy to kaiju fans of all ages and even push fans like myself to learn something new.
In my research for this video, I learned that all over the world, Moths are often overlooked and underappreciated creatures however, they play a crucial role in maintaining the balance of nature. They pollinate, they are food sources for animals, their presence tells us alot about environments. There are countless conservation efforts to keep them around and that is why we have a national moth week because most people don’t know how important they are.
It’s amazing how a kaiju movie could not just inspire a Japanese icon that is still blessing our screens with her godly presence but also intrigue us to learn more about insects that we are quick to shoo away and it is interesting to see how insects are used as symbols in great works of art because a similar thing also happened to another kaiju story where a short novel about a man turning into a bug influenced the kaiju genre in a really unique way. And to hear more about that, you can check out this video, right here.
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