America made Godzilla a superhero. In Japan, he’s still a monster.

polygon.com:

The licensing agreement that gave both Toho and Legendary Entertainment the rights to make Godzilla movies — so long as they aren’t in theaters at the same time — has produced wildly different approaches to the world’s most famous kaiju. In particular, America and Japan seem to have radically different ideas about who Godzilla is and what he symbolizes, at least in the modern era.

Godzilla has evolved considerably from his 1954 Japanese debut to the latest franchise installment, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. And in his most recent incarnations, clear national lines have been drawn between Toho’s version and Legendary’s. America’s modern Godzilla franchise, the MonsterVerse, follows the lore and spectacle-heavy template of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to make Godzilla a heroic protector of humanity. Japan, meanwhile, has reached back to the character’s roots to tell deeply introspective and political stories about the country’s role in the world. Both approaches have produced hits and misses. But is either one the “right” version of Godzilla?

In the 1960s, Japanese Godzilla movies often portrayed Godzilla (and associated kaiju, like Mothra) as protectors of humanity, while the villains were anyone who would exploit them. The MonsterVerse takes up those early themes again, but reframes them through the lens of the modern superhero blockbuster. The Hulk hasn’t had a stand-alone movie since 2008, but Hollywood’s latest run of Godzilla operates under many of the same rules as Hulk stories. Godzilla is also a big, green, nearly unstoppable, nuclear-powered monster-slash-misunderstood hero, and the real villains of his films are people who would stand in his way or try to use his powers for their own profit.

Without Bruce Banner to ground these stories with a human voice, the MonsterVerse movies and the live-action Apple TV show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters spend more time on Monarch, the series’ answer to Marvel’s SHIELD. Both Monarch and Godzilla: King of the Monsters