All right haters, bring on the tomatoes! All Monsters Attack is good, and you should all feel bad about hating it. In 1969, Japan was in the midst of an economic boom. Long since merely recovering from the war, government policy had been focused on, and succeeding at, doubling the size of their economy. Industrialization and social safety nets transformed Japanese life from just getting by to having more disposable income to spend recreationally, and the US’s partnership offered an enormous market for exports. Would they have been so successful if the US hadn’t been trying to combat communism? Foreign aid and trade deals were given as a way to ensure that Japan was a success story in spreading democracy, and that its citizens did not become disgruntled, impoverished, and susceptible to Soviet influence. With all this though came a social epidemic: the latchkey kid. Many families became two-income households, and children were often left to their own devices after school. All Monsters Attack is a meta-film that uses kaiju as an escapist backdrop while wrestling with feelings of loneliness and anxiety, and learning the importance of self-reliance.

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