Chapter 255: Killing the Body… and the Heart Too?!
The Godzilla figurine tossed into the trash can, and the silhouette of the person who discarded it walking away without looking back—this photograph, while lacking aesthetic beauty and slightly flawed in composition, perfectly captured the intended emotion and atmosphere.
As soon as the photo, titled "Abandoned Godzilla", was published, it became irrefutable ammunition for the Type-Moon fandom's online army to attack the Godzilla film.
Look! Even free merchandise is being thrown away by moviegoers. That's how awful the film must be.
Shibamatsu himself soon saw the photo.
But he didn't feel his portrait rights had been violated—after all, his face wasn't visible.
What he did regret, however, was not realizing there was a reporter nearby at the time.
Otherwise, he would've staged the photo better.
"If I'd known there were reporters, I wouldn't have used the trash can right by the entrance."
Inside the Young Magus Club, Shibamatsu shook his head while looking at the photo in the newspaper.
"What? You embarrassed now?"
Aoko teased with a grin.
"No. I should've bought a ticket to Super 8 and then tossed the Godzilla toy into the trash can by that theater's entrance instead."
"That way, the reporter would've captured me throwing away the toy and walking into the Super 8 screening."
"You're not just killing them—you're going for a kill and a heart strike?" Aoko commented with a hint of sympathy.
"Poor Toho, they're already suffering. Your photo alone dropped Godzilla's screening count by a ton."
"Toho's suffering has nothing to do with me. I'm a magus."
Aoko rolled her eyes and couldn't be bothered to argue with him anymore.
In truth, Aoko wasn't entirely right.
While Shibamatsu's photo did have a huge impact, it wasn't the main reason Godzilla's screenings were reduced.
The real cause was the disastrous Friday box office numbers.
By the end of Friday, the older film Super 8 earned a whopping $10.47 million, while the brand-new Godzilla only brought in $6.02 million.
The cinema owners knew that Godzilla was finished.
That's what led major theater chains to immediately cut Godzilla's screenings starting Saturday.
Of course, they didn't go too extreme right away. On Saturday, the screen allocations for Super 8 and Godzilla were still about equal.
But when they saw Godzilla's Saturday earnings weren't improving, they didn't hesitate to reduce its showings even further, giving more slots to Super 8.
Normally, a disappointing film like Godzilla wouldn't get its screenings slashed this quickly.
But Super 8 had another edge: its 3D tickets were nearly twice as expensive as Godzilla's 2D ones.
The math was simple—even a fool could see which one made more money per seat.
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As the sun rose once again over the horizon, Sunday quietly arrived.
Tokyo – Toho Headquarters Building
From the start of the workday, the atmosphere within the company had been tense.
The secretary who entered Executive Director Takayuki Ikeda's office to deliver coffee could feel it more than anyone.
He didn't even dare breathe too loudly.
To him, Ikeda and Matsuoka Hiroyasu—sitting across from each other—felt as intimidating as the monstrous Godzilla himself.
After placing the coffee down, the secretary quickly retreated from the office, terrified that the two men might lash out and fire him simply for stepping in with the wrong foot first.
But the secretary's worries were misplaced.
Both men sitting on the sofas—Ikeda and Matsuoka—were far too focused on the financial reports in their hands to care about him.
Especially Matsuoka Hiroyasu—since just moments ago, the corner of his eye had been twitching nonstop.
Not out of excitement, but out of disappointment and fear.
The box office performance of Godzilla was even worse than he had anticipated.
Originally, he'd hoped that with Paramount's help in North America, the opening day earnings would at least hit $13 million.
Meanwhile in Japan, with Toho's exclusive release rights, they were supposed to overtake Super 8 in domestic earnings.
That projection had already been a huge downgrade from his earlier ambitious expectations—akin to lowering the passing grade from 100 to a "celebrated" 60 just to save face.
But reality had dealt them a harsher blow: they hadn't even hit 60—they didn't even come close.
Godzilla's first-day box office in North America was a mere $8.42 million, and in Japan...
Well, let's just say Toho's cinema chains hadn't seen such dismal daily earnings in over a decade—and that was because they were exclusively showing Godzilla and not Super 8.
"This difference… we're finished…"
Matsuoka muttered, despair dripping from every syllable.
Godzilla had a massive production budget of $80 million, not to mention untold millions in marketing and promotions.
With such high stakes, how was Matsuoka ever going to justify these numbers to the board?
"We should start thinking about how to wrap this up gracefully."
Compared to Matsuoka, who was nearly emotionally paralyzed, Takayuki Ikeda still maintained a semblance of composure.
He had doubted the project's viability from the start, so his personal involvement had been minimal.
But due to his close association with Matsuoka, even if he hadn't played a major role in the Godzilla project, his future within Toho was likely to suffer all the same.
"My guess is the board will call an emergency meeting tomorrow. We have one day to prepare and preserve some dignity."
Matsuoka just responded with a bitter smile.
He still couldn't understand—where, exactly, had Godzilla gone so wrong?
Sure, he admitted that Godzilla wasn't as good as Super 8, but it shouldn't have bombed this badly. It shouldn't have been this poorly received!
Yes, Matou Shinji had been raking in cash at the box office the past two years, but it's not like other films were flopping because of him.
In fact, many moviegoers had developed a habit of going to the cinema because of Matou Shinji's films.
What Matsuoka couldn't come to terms with was the shockingly bad word of mouth surrounding Godzilla.
During earlier test screenings, reactions had been decent.
Even if hardcore Godzilla fans weren't thrilled, the general audience didn't seem to hate it either.
Yet somehow, after just one official day of release, the audience approval rating had plummeted to 63%!
And as more people saw it, that number would only continue to drop.
This pretty much slammed the door shut on any hope for a rebound in box office performance.
Ironically, many critics who despised Matou Shinji were now going out of their way to praise Godzilla.
Among them, critic Kawachi Ippei lavished the film with praise in his column:
"At the end of the movie, seeing Godzilla howl in pain as it lay on the bridge—I was overwhelmed by the urge to cry."
"This monster, created by humanity, lived only to reproduce its species, yet was mercilessly exterminated by humans."
"What did the baby Godzillas do wrong?! They were just born, trying to survive, only to be slaughtered!"
"The real evil behind it all was humanity itself!"
"Godzilla and its children are the true victims of this film!"
"Though it's marketed as an effects-heavy disaster movie, the deep humanistic message embedded within is its emotional core."
"Compared to other films that blindly glorify light and completely ignore the darkness of human nature, Godzilla is the real commercial cinema—offering both thrilling spectacle and food for thought."
Unfortunately, that article was completely useless.
According to Matsuoka's assistant, Godzilla's rating on IMDb had already dropped to 6.7, and it was still falling.
For someone as old-school as Matsuoka Hiroyasu, the concept of online "astroturfing" or "internet shills" was foreign.
All he understood was one thing:
Young people didn't like this movie.
Which meant, for a film that had been clearly marketed toward a younger demographic, Godzilla was a complete and utter failure.
But there was something Matsuoka didn't understand.
Sure, casual audiences gave decent feedback during test screenings, but those very same casual viewers were the easiest to influence.
And the core fans, the ones who hated Godzilla's design—they were the loudest, most vocal group.
During the test screenings, audience surveys were submitted privately, so the negative opinions of hardcore fans didn't spread much.
But once the film hit wide release, those negative views began echoing constantly in the ears of the casual crowd.
"If so many people are criticizing it, then Godzilla must be a terrible movie."
—That became the unspoken truth in the minds of most moviegoers.
Then came the online platforms—boosted by Type-Moon fan trolls—amplifying those hardcore fan complaints even further.
The result: a nationwide public backlash.
This sort of basic cause-and-effect logic would've been common knowledge in the modern world that Matou Shinji came from.
But in this alternate Nasuverse, where the concept of "internet shills" barely even existed, people simply couldn't see it for what it was.
All they knew was that Godzilla was being hated by a lot of people, so it must not be worth watching.
"Sigh… At this point, let's just hope the merchandise sales look a little better…"
Just as Matsuoka was trying to console himself, there was a knock at the door.
His secretary entered with a file in hand.
"Mr. Matsuoka, this is a preliminary report on yesterday's merchandise sales."
Matsuoka immediately stood up. "Give it to me, quick!"
He grabbed the report and his eyes darted straight to the sales figures.
Ikeda also leaned over to peek, just as desperate to know the numbers.
Then he witnessed a performance worthy of a Sichuan opera face-change show.
Matsuoka's expression first turned pale, then flushed red, and finally drained back to ghostly white.
"…Ikeda."
Matsuoka silently handed him the report. "See for yourself."
Ikeda's eyes landed right on the numbers:
North America merchandise sales: $500,000
Japan merchandise sales: 20 million yen
Even if this was just a rough estimate that didn't include all the licensing fees and side deals, Ikeda was certain—even with everything included, Godzilla was still a corpse.
Then he suddenly remembered—yesterday, Bandai had announced the sales figures for their newly released Ultraman Ace Transformation Ring Collector's Edition.
3,000 units sold in Japan alone.
At a price of 10,000 yen each, that one item alone had outsold all of Godzilla's Japanese merchandise.
And not just by a little.
It was a blowout.
What does it mean to kill someone and crush their soul?
This. This was soul-crushing.
Before Ikeda could even respond to the disaster, the secretary's phone rang.
After a tense conversation, she turned back with a horrified expression.
"Director Ikeda, Director Matsuoka—The Tokyo District Prosecutor's Special Investigation Division is here. They want to have a chat… about your salaries."
"...Fuck."
Matsuoka could only curse once—before collapsing straight to the carpet in his office.
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