Alternate Titles: Rebirth of Mothra II
Year: 1997
Director: Kunio Miyoshi
Special Effects Director: Koichi Kawakita & Kenji Suzuki

Another silly Rebirth of Mothra movie. Sillier than the first, actually.

It's called "Undersea Battle". The hero is a moth. I think it's a given that this movie is going to be pretty damned silly.

The movie begins with lots of little Mothras returning from space.

This has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, so i can only assume that this is Mothra successfully completing its mission to stop that asteroid from Godzilla vs. Mothra.

Or whatever. I think the whole "I've got to go find an asteroid" thing was a total ruse.

Then we see the actual full sized Mothra (Leo) playing with dolphins while the Elias from last movie look on. But things take a turn for the worse when we get our first glimpse of a sea monster, not quite visible yet, and then scenes showing all of the pollution in the sea. That culminates in some fishermen finding a weird starfish...

...that spits acid on one of them, badly injuring him. Then another pair of fishermen find a weird thing that looks like a Furby, although we don't get a good glimpse of it yet, and the thing escapes, leaving a gold bracelet behind.

We also meet our human cast for this film. Even moreso than last time, the cast is entirely children. There are two boys that are bullies, not just because they try to scare the girl with a catepillar but because after class they try to beat the girl up for tattling on them. There's a ridiculous sequence where the girl knocks the catepillar away and it winds up in one of the boys' mouths, and he then spits it out and it lands in the (female) teacher's shirt. Not only is it a silly, juvenile, scene, but the caterpillar is CGI and the action of it getting knocked around the classroom is poorly animated.

The lesson that the teacher was giving before the caterpillar incident is conveniently relevant to our plot. It's said that around 150 million years ago, the land around Okinawa disappeared into the Okinawa trench. And that there's evidence that the land used to be populated by humans, because the remains of a city are now in the trench. This movie takes place on and around Okinawa, which Toho fans may recall is where King Caesar comes from (although he's not in this movie). The girl, our main character, is "from" Okinawa, unlike the boys who i guess moved there more recently.

Min was initially pleased to see a female character playing the lead role in a children's adventure movie, but i suspect less so by the time the movie ended.

When the girl, Shiori (played by Hikari Mitsushima) gets home, she sees the two fishermen that saw the Furby talking to her mom (her mom says that they are friends of hers), and then her mom sends her to pick wild flowers. Shiori initially tries to refuse to do this, and we soon see why, since the place where the flowers are picked seems to be miles and miles away from home.

Are they going to eat the flowers? Are they magic flowers? Or did mom want some alone time with her friends?

While Shiori is picking flowers, she finds the Furby.

The thing looks weird enough in the above stillshot, but it's compounded by the fact that it moves by "bouncing", i.e., by being pulled up and down on a string. And sometimes they animate the eyes with CGI, creating big cartoony eyes like you'd see in a Bugs Bunny cartoon when a character is surprised.

It's at this point that the two boys find Shiori and try to beat her up. She runs from them, but they catch up with her. The situation ends only because they find the Furby, and then Belvera (also from the last film) shows up.

Belvera demands that Shiori hand over the Furby, which is really called a Ghogo (sounds more like Gorgo in our English dub). Shiori seems to comply, but it turns out that she's actually giving Belvera a basket full of flowers and no Ghogos.

When Belvera finds out, she chases the kids...

...who throw the Ghogo around like a football to keep it from her. Belvera wants the Ghogo to get the treasure of Ninai Kanai, which is said to grant magical powers.

The kids eventually make it to a populated beach and Belvera follows no further. One of the kids scraped his knee while running, and the Ghogo pees on it, which causes the wound to heal.

Min: When did these 2 asshats become allies? They ganged up to beat up on the girl 5 minutes ago. Ghogo should let him bleed.
Fnord: Well, it did pee on him.

The good Elias then show up to explain the situation to the kids. It's said that Ninai Kanai was part of the Mu empire, and the people of Ninai Kanai once created a monster called Dagahra to eat their garbage. But the monster eventually went out of control and destroyed the civilization. Now, thanks to the increased pollution on Earth, the creature has returned.

Seems like as part of the Mu empire, Dagahra has cousins in Megalon and Manda, and as a pollution monster, has a potential rival in Hedorah. Considering the location, he may have had occasion to battle King Caesar in the past, as well. None of this is in the movie, of course. Just trying to fire up your fan fiction processes.

I mentioned in the last movie that in our dub the Elias' names sounded like Laura and Mona even though it's supposed to be Laura (or Lora) and Moll. In this movie (which is on the other side of the same disc as the last one), the name is pronounced Moll. I hadn't yet told Min about the name discrepancy from the first film, so she was confused about the name change. But as i was telling her, this scene came up...

...and of course my explanation was interrupted by, "What the hell are they wearing?!?!?!".

Dagahra actually produces the mutant starfish that we saw earlier. They are called Barem, and there are a lot of them.

Beaches are closed because of the "red tide".

This conversation is all happening around Shiori's Mac computer...

Wow. I feel old.

...and eventually the Ghogo takes control of the computer to show them a map of a nearby island where it wants them to go so that they can find the treasure of Ninai Kanai and stop Dagahra.

Then we cut away for another tease of Dagahra.

Fnord: Uh oh, a submarine.
Min: But it's a children's movie. They wouldn't blow up a sub, would they?
Fnord: Yep, here we go!

We still don't get a great shot of Dagahra but you can see that he's weirdly shaped.

Wow. I didn't think you could make a monster that looked stupider than Destoyorah. Is the goal to make the widest monster possible?

Now we go back to the kids, who apparently don't have parents that will miss them if they take a boat to another island overnight (Shiori's mom still thinks she's out picking flowers.). The kids are pursued by the fishermen that initially found the Ghogo. Belvera found them and conscripted them into her service.

Aren't these the two fishermen who were introduced as friends of Shiori's mom? Mom's friends suck.

The kids get their canoe over the ruins of Ninai Kanai, which are apparently just like right there...

...and then the Ghogo jumps out and sinks down into a hole in one of the buildings and generates a green light that simultaneously pulls the kids into the temple while raising the whole structure above the water.

Dagahra then shows up, pooping Barem as he goes. He starts attacking the temple.

Fnord: He's weird looking.
Min: He's a lizard-fish.
Fnord: Like, there's too much of him on the sides. Is he supposed to be a turtle?
Min: I don't think the people of Mu were thinking right when they designed him.
Fnord: We should make a giant dragon monster with huge shoulders. He can eat our garbage!
Min: He was a first draft. They did better when they made Megalon.

The Elias explain that Dagahra doesn't have a grudge against the pyramid specifically. He just knows that his enemies are inside.

The temple has defenses that fight back against Dagahra...

...but the Elias decide that they should summon Mothra.

Back in the day you would always have Mothra with you. Oh god they're going to sing again, aren't they?

It's the conga version of the Mothra song again.

You know, there used to be a time when i got excited when the singing in a Mothra movie was about to happen. They've ruined that for me.

Mothra Leo does have a beard, right? I'm not making that up?

Repelled by the temple's defenses, Dagahra goes on a random rampage.

Dagahra, this is outside your purview. You're supposed to eat garbage, specifically in the ocean. That's what we heard. I don't know how you can even breathe air.

Mothra comes and chases Dagahra out of the city.

They continue to battle over the ocean. Dagahra can apparently fly. I guess those things are wings.

His body makes no sense.

And of course everyone has lasers.

Dagahra also shoots some kind of pink cloud stuff out of holes in his shoulders.

Belvera flies alongside the monster.

The temple makes for a nice backdrop.

Mothra and Dagahra ram each other, and once again the fuzzy moth comes out better than the giant dragon in that encounter. But Dagahra keeps going deep enough under the sea that Mothra is unable to follow, which gives the dragon a chance to recuperate. The first time, it jumps out and bites Mothra.

When Dagahra gets back in the water, Mothra blasts the ocean with his lasers.

But Belvera tells Dagahra to dive deeper, and then taunts Mothra saying that he can't hurt Dagahra. We don't know why Mothra didn't just eat tiny Belvera at that point. Chomp!

For its second attack from under water, Dagahra creates a huge whirlwind...

...and Mothra winds up covered in Barem.

Barnacles, son, barnacles.

The Elias fly alongside Mothra, singing a more tense version of the Mothra song, and blasting the Barem off. Oh god. Do you have to do that hand gesture every time? But it's a slow and ineffective process, and Mothra winds up crashing into the temple.

Meanwhile, inside the temple, the girl is kidnapped by the two fishermen guys.

The Ghogo bites the fishermen (off screen), and then the girl follows it as it bounces around the temple.

I saw strings!

The kids eventually find a fancy door.

Back outside, Mothra falls into the water, where he continues to get attacked by Dagahra.

Min: What is happening here? Mothra should just be suffocating due to the fact that moths can't breathe under water.
Fnord: Well they're not really underwater. It's just a screen filter.

Mothra flies out and lands on the temple, looking sick and hurt. The Elias fly into the temple, stopping the fishermen from attacking the kids again. The Elias are about to zap the kidnappers further when one of the boys asks them to stop, saying that he accepts their apologies. Projecting a little there, kid? We never did resolve the fact that you and your friend were getting ready to beat up a girl when this all started. But it turns out that they were lying, and they take the kid hostage. Then Belvera shows up inside the temple as well.

There are two perfectly good laser-shooting giant monsters outside of this temple. Can we just leave these stupid kids to fend for themselves and get back to the monster fight?

The hijinx continues, including a scene taken straight from the invisible bridge in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But eventually all the humans and Elias wind up in the Ninai Kanai treasure room. The bad guys assume some of the gems on the statues in the room are the treasure, but taking them causes all the doors to seal, trapping everyone inside. It also summons a hologram of the princess of Ninai Kanai.

Outside, Dagahra transforms, growing spikes.

He continues to attack poor Mothra, who just has to sit there.

And i can tell you, the kids and the Elias have not been acting with any sense of urgency inside.

That is a total understatement. They're taking their sweet time like they're visiting a museum. Hurry the fuck up, you assholes! Mothra is DYING!

The good Elias and Belvera make opposing arguments to the princess. Belvera says that the humans need to be destroyed, and points to all the pollution they've made as evidence. The Elias point to the innocence of the kids, saying that it's not their fault. The princess sides with the Elias, and zaps the fishermen. She reveals that the treasure of Ninai Kanai is in fact Ghogo (it seems that there's actually only one Ghogo, so i'm going to stop calling him "the" Ghogo, like it's a species). The princess tells Shiori to take Ghogo to Mothra so that Mothra can be restored and fight Dagahra. The other kids put the gems back on the statues so that the doors can open, but Shiori just stands in the center of the room with the princess, saying and doing nothing. I mean she is completely catatonic and even the princess eventually gets annoyed and tells her to hurry up and go already.

OMG this girl! Remember when i was excited to see a girl be the action hero? ARRGGHHH!!!

One of the two bad guys gets left behind as they flee the treasure room, which is crumbling thanks to the battle going on outside. But when they get to the Indiana Jones bridge room again, the invisible bridge cracks. The other crook helps the kids jump across, and there is either some really bad special effects going on or the room has amazingly low gravity. But one of the kids doesn't jump with the others, and he's afraid to jump by himself. Then the crook that got left behind shows up, looking bloody and angry for having been abandoned. However, he picks up the kid over his head (which he doesn't look strong enough to do) and throws him over the crevice, again with the low gravity being in full effect. Then a rock falls down causing a catapulting effect that throws the crook over the crevice as well. He's injured, but that's ok, because Ghogo can pee on him.

Shiori continues to act like she's in a daze and has to be pulled around by the arm. There's no explanation for this, and poor Mothra is getting pounded outside. Everyone else is cartoonishly screaming every time a rock falls or whatever. This movie is terrible. Belvera seems to have a change of heart and helps everyone get out of the crumbling temple. They finally get out, and you'd think at that point they'd run to Mothra and toss Ghogo at him or whatever. Instead they all seem to have forgotten that that's what they're supposed to do. I'm sure Mothra appreciates this.

After an endless amount of nothing, Ghogo seems to say, "Fuck it, I'm gonna have to do this myself", and he floats up to Mothra.

In fact, past Mothra, up into the sky. Really surreal looking.

At this point Shiori seems to wake up, although only to shout, "Ghogo!" repeatedly.

The Elias say, "It's a real miracle. The water spirit has revealed itself."

I think there were drugs in that temple.

Mothra is transformed.

It's not a Heisei film if there isn't an excess of glitter.

Mothra is cleared of Barem, and given a new color scheme again.

He's also got a forcefield.

Dagahra is nothing if not persistent. All while the kids were traipsing around the temple, Dagahra kept getting repulsed by the temple's defenses, but he kept coming back. And now he's facing a renewed Mothra with no sign of letting up.

My god. Give up. Go eat garbage like you're supposed to.

Before continuing the fight, Mothra parts the sea like Moses so the humans can go home.

The humans make it about halfway down the path that's been cleared for them, but then suddenly stop to watch the Mothra/Dagahra fight.

Min: I don't know about you, but i would not stop for anything if i was surrounded on both sides by a raging sea that could close up on me at any time.
Fnord: You do know about me. You know that i would stand there and watch the fight.

Mothra is getting the best of Dagahra, but as before, Dagahra can keep going under the sea to hide from his blasts (although judging by how shallow the water is where Mothra cleared a path for the humans, it really shouldn't be that deep).

But that's no problem. Mothra will just transform again.

OMG! He turned into Fish-Mothra!

The battle continues under the sea..

...with each side throwing odd shaped lights at each other...

...but then things take an even weirder turn, and Mothra transforms into a million smaller versions of itself...

...and flies into Dagahra's mouth.

From there we are in pure video game territory, with the tiny Fish-Mothras fighting against Barem inside Dagahra.

Why is this happening? Why did this movie turn into a video game?

Alright, everyone. S-foils in attack position. We are going for the main reactor at the core.

This weakens Dagahra and the princess of Ninai Kanai says that she's going to take him back into the temple, which subsequently transforms into water. At this point whatever was holding the ocean back gives way and, as Min predicted, the stupid humans in the middle of the sea have to run for their lives to make it to shore.

Shiori still seems distraught to have given up Ghogo, but the Elias tell her, "Don't be sad. Look at Mothra's wing.". She looks, and sees nothing. The Elias tell her, "Imagine Ghogo is there!". Well sure, ladies, i can imagine lots of things, but i want my Furby back.

It turns out that Shiori has been holding on to something, and we find out that Ghogo pooped a pearl into her hand before leaving. When she looks at the pearl, it turns into the Earth.

I mean, i didn't hallucinate this movie, right? This really happened? Because i feel like maybe someone slipped me something bad.

The voice of the princess says, "Children are the future of civilization. The future of this plane is entrusted into your hands." Only the children can hear her. The Elias say, "Grownups can't hear her, that's why." One of the boys says something crazy like, "it must be like that brainy kid who knows too much." Uh, yeah. Maybe the princess should talk to some adults instead of entrusting the fate of the world into these particular kids.

That was terrible. That was THE worst, so far. I thought War In Space was bad. But this is the worst. Poor Mothra just sits there getting attacked the whole movie, and no one cares. And those kids. The screaming! I'm so glad we don't have kids.

Godzilla Drinking Game
	A submarine explodes.	These Rebirth of Mothra movies don't give us a lot of our usual drink opportunities, but we got our submarine explosion.

Monsters Appearing: Dagahra, Mothra