Three Percent Podcast #208: Translating Godzilla & Mothra

About this episode

A discussion on the translation of 'The Luminous Fairies and Mothra' and its cultural implications.

Jeffrey Angles (translator of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again and many non-Kaiju related titles) joins Chad and special guest Joanne Bernardi ( Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement , Provenance and Early Cinema (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema (ed.), and the multimedia resource, ReEnvisioning Japan ) to talk about the recent release of The Luminous Fairies and Mothra by Shin’ichiro Nakamura, Takehiko Fukunaga, and Yoshie Hotta, recently released by University of Minnesota Press. They discuss how this project came about, the relationship between the books and the films, the political ideas evident in Mothra , the gender of Godzilla and Mothra in the original texts, and how Mothra is related to Doctor Doolittle. A very interesting, lively conversation about “monster studies,” translation, and cultural representation from two experts, who are also big Godzilla-verse fans! This episode’s music is “Mothra’s Song.” You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple , Spotify , or wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review ( Apple , Spotify ) and Mining the Dalkey Archive ( Apple…

People in this episode

Host: Chad

Guests: Jeffrey Angles, Joanne Bernardi

Topics covered

• translation
• monster studies
• cultural representation
• Godzilla
• Mothra
• Japanese cinema

Keywords

• Godzilla
• Mothra
• translation
• Japanese cinema
• monster studies
• cultural representation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Minnesota Press

Books & works: The Luminous Fairies and Mothra, Godzilla, Godzilla Raids Again, Writing in Light: The Silent Scenario and the Japanese Pure Film Movement, Provenance and Early Cinema, Routledge Handbook of Japanese Cinema, ReEnvisioning Japan, Mothra’s Song

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