"Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence)" official artbook The Art of Shin Godzilla is worth to buy

The Art of Shin Godzilla, an official artbook of the movie Shin Godzilla (Godzilla Resurgence), was scheduled to be sold towards the end of August 2016 at first, but its release was postponed until the middle of September 2016, then postponed again until November 3, 2016, then postponed for the third time until the middle of December 2016, and it was finally released on December 30, 2016. The release date is not postponed for nothing: the number of pages is increased from 528 to 560 pages, and many creator interviews are added. Maybe this artbook has every contents of Shin Godzilla, except the making-of which should be enclosed in Blu-ray (which will be released in March 22, 2017).

We've ordered the Art of Shin Godzilla on Amazon.co.jp, and it was finally arrived.

It's too heavy to hold by one hand.

It weighs 3.55 kg.

So thick.

Removing the shrink-wrap: the red sticker is an application ticket for the jacket cover with autograph of General Director Hideaki Anno on it. You can apply for it until February 28, 2017.

Inside the white carton box, there are a bookmark (notification for the Blu-ray) and leaflet (notification for the Godzilla 4th form replica). According to the leaflet, they are now planning to make the Godzilla 2nd and 3rd form replica, too. Maybe it will be exhibited in Wonder Festival 2017 [Winter].

The artbook and the script are put in the richly bound box.

The bound of the box is like an old book in the school library. It uses cloth, so it's called "clothbound", and the book title "the Art of Shin Godzilla" is embossed on it.

Left: an official archives, right: a completed script in same specification as the script for the movie staff.

The cover of completed script is as follows.

The script is also thick (more than 300 pages).

8 volumes in total, release date: July 29, 2016, running time: 1 hour 59 minutes 42 seconds 00 frame, 10,773 feet + 00 frame.

The explanation of each volume.

The list of characters.

Mansai Nomura, the actor who portrayed Godzilla through motion capture, is given special treatment in the list.

All the related parties are listed, too.

When you read the script, it reminds us of every scene of the movie. Then let's move on to the official archives: Godzilla is designed on the cover. which make use of the length of Godzilla's tail.

It weighs 2.45 kg.

The size of the book is transformational A4 (height: 30.5 cm), and the book is full-color printed.

width: 23.3 cm.

About 3.7 cm in thickness.

Under the Godzilla cover, an embossed cover appears.

Inside of the cover, there are a map which is used in the movie, and newly drawn illustration posters by Kenji Tsuruta and Mahiro Maeda.

Left: Kenji Tsuruta, right; Mahiro Maeda.

Backside of the posters.

The table of contents.

Notes by Hideaki Anno on July 5, 2013, the beginning of the movie.

First image design by Mahiro Maeda, based on the first Godzilla movie on 1954.

There was an idea that Godzilla will do self-multiplication, but Toho Company, the distributer of the movie, turned it down.

The plastic artist Takayuki Takeya made Godzilla 2nd form model, using MR. SCULPT CLAY.

Making of Godzilla 4th form model.

With the help of Animation director Kenji Kamiyama, they started writing the plot. After Kamiyama left the team, Hideaki Anno continued to write it independently. The plot memo on July 1, 2015, is the prototype of script, then Hideaki Anno started to write the script based on the prototype. On this book, there are 3 among 70 versions of plot, and a semi-final script, a final script, and a completed script.

A lot of photos from location hunting. Those photos were taken since February 2015, and many photos were taken from June to July. They also took photos on August after they finished film shooting.

Storyboards are arranged in order, so we can see that each person has a feature and an accent when drawing storyboards. The followings are storyboards by Ikki Todoroki.

Storyboards by Masayuki.

Storyboards by Kazuya Tsurumaki.

Storyboards by Shinji Higuchi, special effects director.

Storyboards by Hideaki Anno.

Capturing Mansai Nomura's motions.

Godzilla 4th form was printed using a 3D printer. It seems they used Zortrax which we also used when we made SD card case with GIGAZINE logo.

The book also contains many art designs. The following is the photo of Toho Studio No.9 Stage. There are a set of a crisis center in official residence basement floor and a executive conference room on the right, a Prime Minister's office on the left. The details of those sets are also appeared on this book.

You can also see the plan of each room, which is really surprising. It is quite few that the plan appears in these kinds of books.

The overall schedule list which contains actors' schedule and many information and request from every direction (this is really rare). Staffs in the production department and the filming location shot the film based on this schedule. Besides, another schedule list which contains the schedule of the next day was made and passed out to the staffs in photocopies and by emails.

This photo shows the scene "S149 the collapsing slope face". They made a miniature slope face using kapok, and they destroy it by human power when shooting the film. The earth and sand is dropped by human power as well.

The scene "S344 inside the collapsing building" is also a miniature in 1/4 scale.

The Animatronics Godzilla in 1/38 scale, based on the model by Takayuki Takeya. There are some mechanisms such as air cushions inside Godzilla, and it is operated from outside.

Toshio Miike took charge of the scenes with miniature special effects. He suggested visual effects on the series of Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman after Heisei period, His interview is very substantial: miniature for CG materials, how to collapse the office, pride of miniature special effects and so on.

Description of CG is awesome as well. For example, you can see the Zbrush data (Subdivide level) of Godzilla 2nd form. The total number of polygons is 108,764,238.

Godzilla 4th form has 316,902,016 polygons.

At the last spurt of making VFX/CG, they used this check list of remaining numbers. When they reached to 99 %, Hideaki Anno wrote "There is many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip" on the list. And there are interesting episodes such as the number of servers they prepared and the time they spent for the rendering.

KADOKAWA DWANGO CORPORATION Chairman Nobuo Kawakami contributed to government-related coverage, and you can read his interview on this book.

Interview with Hideaki Anno is well worth reading. He says "I resisted against Japanese film-shooting system as strong as I could, and I feel like I did everything that I could."

You can see the monitor images closely, which appeared only for a moment in the movie.

Souvenirs for the people who participated as extras. You can read funny episodes of those souvenirs.

Production period: from June 5, 2013, to July 4, 2016, running time: 1 hour 59 minutes 42 seconds 00 frame, total number of scene: 332, total shooting data: 90 TB.

The Art of Shin Godzilla is a very substantial book. Its price is about 10,000 yen and it's a really good buy. If you love the movie Shin Godzilla and have seen it twice or more, you should just buy it.

ジ・アート・オブ・シン・ゴジラ ([バラエティ]) | カラー、東宝, 庵野秀明 |本 | 通販 | Amazon