Psychologically Devastating Indictment of 60s Japan

As a Godzilla movie, maybe not the best (though certainly not as bad as any Jun Fukuda effort). But as a social document, it's nearly unparalleled. Ichiro's world is borderline apocalyptic, filled with abandoned factories, dirt, menace, not to mention absent parents. The latchkey kid was a new symptom of Japan's economy in the 60s, and Ishiro Honda paints a rather stark portrait of the issue. The kids only refuse from the nightmare of his life is the fantasies that the genre Honda was largely responsible for creating. He intentionally leaves the question of whether kaiju even exist in the world of the film completely vague. Ichiro is completely abandoned by his society, and as a result, he ends up being a violent delinquent to deal with his situation. Even the mother cries at the end, realizing what is happening to her son, but powerless to do anything about it.