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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/AbraxasNowhere on 2024-08-02 16:12:04+00:00.

Content Warning: Mentions of Graphic Content (which will be redacted in quotations), Some R-Rated language

Writer’s note: Given the forum-centric nature of this story, links to archives of the original posts are limited. Most of these websites are defunct or in a state of disrepair and trying to navigate old forums on the Wayback Machine is spotty at best. Therefore I had to rely on recollections from people who were present (including my own) but I will post links to original pages and forum threads when I can.

2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the Godzilla franchise, and the King of the Monsters has never been, pun partially intended, bigger. A franchise once mocked for its man-in-rubber-suit special effects now receives Oscar recognition for its visuals. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire stands as one of the highest grossing films of this year. Godzilla merchandise is more common than ever in Western markets. IDW’s comic series1 give love to the whole stable of Toho kaiju, not just Big G. Franchise crossovers abound; seeing the King of the Monsters tangle with the Power Rangers, the Justice League, Ultraman, and some weird ant game on mobile. Godzilla has more fans than ever, but in a time before Discord, reddit and open-for-all Facebook, a much smaller fandom existed in a network of fan-made websites and forums. This is the story of a flamewar that spilled out of one site and consumed three more and behind-the-scenes manipulation fueling the fire.

Part 1 - Countdown

Hey! What do you know about the old days? If you all keep thinking like that, you'll all become prey for Godzilla!

—Gojira (1954)

To understand this conflict, one must understand the state of the fandom circa 2005. It was not unlike any number of fandoms at the time. Aside from a small yearly convention, the community was mostly confined to a handful of online forums. It had much in common with anime communities given the Japanese origin, reliance on dubs of questionable quality, and rampant flamewars.

Godzilla films hadn’t received wide theatrical releases in Western markets since Godzilla 2000. The poor quality English dubs of the Toho Studios films that earned the genre much mockery were the only easily-available versions for fans to watch, though Sony’s DVD releases of Godzilla films in the USA were making the original Japanese audio tracks more accessible. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the standout video games Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee and Godzilla: Save the Earth2.

Something else that is very important to know going into this story is the identities of Godzilla fansites were very much defined by their respective admins and moderators. The fandom was large enough to justify multiple popular communities, but not so large as to only need more than small teams of very visible staff. Their personalities radiated outward and set the ‘tone’, then G-Fans would flock accordingly to the communities they liked best. Fans didn’t just go to war for their franchise, they’d strike out to defend their favorite forums too.

Now is a good time to meet the belligerents of this conflict:

• Maser City: 99% Uncensored Kaiju Discussion. This Urban Dictionary definition puts it perfectly: “A now defunct Godzilla site and at the time mildly infamous message board that was run by a gang of mentally ill sociopaths who were never as smart as they thought they were.”3 The site was run by the supreme edgelord Project Pimp and was populated by people banned from other Godzilla forums. Look up archives of the forums at your own discretion, for reasons that will be elaborated on later.
• Tokyo Monsters: The Kaiju Eiga Multimedia Resource. Tokyo Monsters was the place to get your fix for kaiju photos and video, often presented in the famous Super Saturday Updates. The site posted news and reviews of media releases of kaiju films and kept a detailed catalog of which films were distributed by which companies. The admin James Ballard was a lifeline to Western fans through his frequent travels to Japan and insider connections at Toho Studios.
• GojiStomp: Godzilla Stomp. The Site. A typical fansite of the time with the expected movie reviews, kaiju profiles, photo galleries, and more. Their most notable feature was a collection of histories of individual suits used across the films along with arguably the best web and graphic design of any major Godzilla fansite of the time. The staff and members of GojiStomp had a longstanding enmity towards Maser City because of numerous trolling raids.
• Kaijuphile:  Monster Site. Monster Obsession. The forums of the beloved fansite Rodan’s Roost, known for its incredibly detailed profiles of kaiju abilities/personalities, while the forums were famous for their yearly community-voted kaiju battle tournament Daikaiju Desumacchi4, massive works of collaborative fanfiction, and the co-founders Morgoth and Sauron’s fiery hatred of the 1998 American Godzilla film5 and George Lucas6.

In 2004, the fandom braced itself for an upcoming drought of content. Toho Studios had consistently produced one Godzilla film every 1-3 years since the franchise revival in the 1984 film The Return of Godzilla (known in the west as Godzilla 1985), which initiated the Heisei Era of the franchise. A four-year gap followed after the Era’s conclusion in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. That made way for the infamous 1998 Roland Emmerich film, which spurred Toho Studios to action to quickly initiate the Millenium Era with 1999’s Godzilla 2000. Four more films followed that slowly dipped in box office returns. 

After that, Toho made a bold decision: they would produce an anniversary film for the King’s 50th birthday in 2004 then the series would go on a ten year hiatus. That film was Godzilla: Final Wars; an over-the-top mess that crammed in 15 monsters (including the 1998 American Godzilla7), an alien invasion, and a puzzling The Matrix-meets-X-Men subplot. Western fans in the meantime were stuck with movie screenshots and spoilers from English-speaking fans in Japan, but hope would soon (seemingly) arrive in March of 2005. 

On March 17th, a member of the Maser City forums proclaimed they had a bootleg video file of Godzilla: Final Wars to share. The film had already made the rounds on BitTorrent, but this was the first high profile, public download link, or so it seemed. The video file itself was of horrendous quality and revealed itself as an obvious prank. No uploads are known to exist today but it was described as: 

The image is crap and stretched as well as only running about 20 minutes in length. The movie goes completely berserk when Rodan opens his wings in front of the moon. Cutting rapidly to a few other scenes, until finally you hear the manic laughing of the [Xillien] Controller.

Of course, hungry western fans weren’t about to let a likely troll post from a troll den rain on their parade. News of the download spread across the fandom, popping up on Tokyo Monsters, GojiStomp, and Kaijuphile. Tokyo Monsters admin James Ballard warned members to not post about this download out of concern that blame could fall on him and damage his connections within the Japanese media industry. It was a fandom sensation even as moderators and admins attempted to clamp down the spread of the file link.

Part 2 - Detonation

Let them fight.

—Godzilla (2014)

Consequences seemingly reared their head on March 21st as both Maser City and the bootleg link disappeared from the Internet. Most assumed Toho Studios caught wind of the file and issued a takedown notice to Maser City’s web host. Project Pimp took to the Tokyo Monsters forum to accuse James Ballard of tipping Toho off about the file download, a deeply personal betrayal since James helped set up Maser City’s forums. Pimp also claimed it was unfair for Maser City to be taken down for a prank post since he believed James was the original source of a real Final Wars video file circulating BitTorrent. Several denizens of the Maser City forums joined in to back Pimp up in the ensuing flamewar. In the end, James stepped in to clamp down the ho...

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