Daigo Fukuryū Maru
Prior to the release of the film, skeptics predicted the film would flop. At the time of the film's release, Japanese reviews were mixed. Japanese critics accused the film of exploiting the widespread devastation that the country had suffered in World War II, as well as the "Daigo Fukuryū Maru" incident that occurred a few months before filming began. Ishiro Honda lamented years later in the "Tokyo Journal", "They called it grotesque junk, and said it looked like something you'd spit up. I felt sorry for my crew because they had worked so hard!" Honda also stated, "At the time they wrote things like 'This movie is absurd, because such giant monsters do not exist.