Cinemas around the world are slowly recovering after having been closed for so long due to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, thanks to releases of movies such as Godzilla vs Kong, which is a film that is breaking box office records during the pandemic. It has reaped a box office collection of more than 122 million dollars so far.
In a recent interview for Polygon, Adam Wingard, the director of Godzilla vs Kong, has claimed to be inspired by anime—but specifically one series—when making the film (something that is a bit curious if we consider that he is the director of the infamous adaptation of Death Note on Netflix). For this, he has taken from classic anime such as Akira, Robotech, and, finally, Macross Plus.
Directed by Shoji Kawamori (Last Hope, Project Omega) and Shinichirô Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo), the Macross Plus anime was made in 1994 as an OVA. It has a plot set in the year 2040, where two old friends turned into bitter rivals are selected as pilots of two programs competing to develop their own experimental transforming fighter jets.
The sequence that Wingard cites as direct inspiration in the movie Godzilla vs. Kong is seen in the film’s first aircraft carrier fight, and the shooting of the Hollow Earth hovercraft during the film’s midpoint is the so-called “Itano Circus.” The Itano Circus is a visual trope in the anime, seen in any scene where a small, unique character or object is shown trying to outrun a swarm of incoming projectiles, often illustrated as a strip of lasers or missile trails, launching in unison.
