The Ending of Godzilla: The Planet Eater Explained

Godzilla: The Planet Eater, the third film in the Godzilla anime trilogy, is more a psychological treatise than a movie about two giant monsters battling it out. As is par for the course for Gen Urubochi (the writer behind Madoka Magica, Psycho-Pass, and Fate/Zero), it dives deep into subjects like Nihilism and revenge–and doesn’t shy away from using surreal visuals and lengthy stream-of-consciousness conversations to explore them. Because of this, it’s no surprise that the ending can be more than a little difficult to unpack. But don’t worry, I’m here to help.

*Spoiler Warning: This article is nothing but spoilers for the ending of Godzilla: The Planet Eater.

Picking up after the defeat of Ghidorah, the humans spend more than half a year (judging by how much Maina’s pregnancy is showing) assimilating into the Houtua culture. They have discarded their weapons and no longer wear their space suits for the most part–steadily adopting the Houtua’s tribal dress. Despite the failure to kill Godzilla and the nearly complete extinction of humanity, they are generally happy. This especially applies to Haruo who seems to have found peace with his new lover and soon-to-be-born child.

Then Martin Lazzari, biologist and resident science guy, makes a discovery. Using the nanotech in Yuko’s brain-dead body, he is able to reactivate Mechagodzilla-infused technology–namely the remaining mecha suit piloted in the fight over Mechagodzilla City. With control over its nanites, it could soon become possible to use them to make production facilities and the like–possibly even advancing their technology to the levels of the Bilusaludo.

With his military rank, heroic renowned, and marriage to Maina, Haruo is basically in charge of the human survivors. However, as he learned with the Exif cult previously in the film, if popular opinion shifts, he will have less and less control over the situation. Hell, it’s already slipping: He didn’t even know that Martin was doing his research. Now his soldiers are talking about how happy they are to be getting their technology back.

However, Haruo knows the truth: Mechagodzilla is a civilization-ending threat. With the exception of the Houtua, all civilizations seem to be destined to evolve to a certain point before somehow creating a world-ending monster. Mechagodzilla was the Bilusaludo’s.

In other words, it’s likely that as long as such advanced technology exists, humans would continue the cycle and create another monster–taking the Houtua down with them. It’s only when the remnants of humanity are forced by circumstance to adopt the Houtua way of life that humanity will have a chance for survival.

To bring about a hopeful future there is only one thing Haruo can do: destroy all remaining Mechagodzilla technology. For better or worse, he is the only one capable of pulling it off. He is perhaps the last remaining human or alien able to pilot the mecha suit. Likewise, he is the one person who could remove Yuko from her room and get into the mecha without raising suspicion.

And so he does just that and heads right for Godzilla–counting on Godzilla’s thermonuclear breath to destroy the last traces of Mechagodzilla and the threat it represents. As Godzilla prepares to attack, Haruo doesn’t eject. He won’t. He fears that there is one other threat that could destroy both Houtua and humans alike: the hatred he carries in his heart.

At the moment, the Houtua exist in harmony with nature–living as friends to their own supposed world-destroying monster, Mothra. They are even able to live alongside Godzilla. And while they do fear him, it’s important to note that the Houtua don’t hate him–they don’t hate anything really. Godzilla is just a force of nature to them. It’s hard to hate a storm for being a storm after all.

However, nothing Haruo has seen or done has made him hate Godzilla any less. And while he has contained it and put it aside in recent months, it’s still there. He fears that, whether meaning to or not, his smoldering need for revenge on Godzilla could teach the Houtua to hate. In its own way, that is just as much a threat to the Houtua as Mechagodzilla technology–it could throw off their balance with nature. And from there it’s only a matter of time until Mothra, Godzilla, or another monster rises up and destroys them.

The Houtua live with a simple philosophy: Living is winning. Dying is losing. But in the face of the cultural threat he, himself poses, Haruo sees that their philosophy is wrong. Sometimes, you need to die in order to win. So he lets himself and all his rage be vaporized alongside Yuko and the cursed technology–forcing Godzilla, the destroyer of human civilization, to be the one to ultimately save the last vestiges of it.  

In the post-credits scene, set decades later when Maina is an old woman, we see the results of Haruo’s actions. The Houtua are still alive, the humans having seemingly assimilated completely into the tribe. But something is different: They have a new ritual.

A group of children sits before a wooden effigy of the final mecha suit–the one Haruo died in. Each of them holds a string with many knots in it. These strings are a kind of Quipu–a knot language. Woven into each is a list of the children’s fears. They take these and burn both them and the effigy so that they may be free from fear for the coming year.

After all, this is exactly what Haruo did. He took his fears from the future–his fears of the remaining Mechagodzilla tech and of his own endless hatred–and burnt it all in Godzilla’s thermonuclear fire. While Maina may not have understood anger, she understood her lover and his actions all too well–and wasn’t willing to let his lesson be forgotten.

Godzilla: The Planet Eater will be released in Japanese theaters on November 9, 2018. It is scheduled for release on Netflix sometime after. For more on Godzilla: The Planet Eater, check out my full review of the film over at Anime News Network.