Charles Liu

Now, the thing about Godzilla, which is extra special to me, is that it can be that kind of subway monster.

Loud, scary, and it burns you with its atomic breath and everything like that, right?

But, culturally, when it came to the United States, it took on a different kind of life.

You see, in Japan, monsters since time immemorial have not necessarily been these evil, scary creatures.

They are just a non-human creatures.

And as a result, they can be different from humans in ways that you can find in literature, in stories, in mythology that allows you to tell things much like the gods of Olympus did say in ancient Greek times about things.

that we don't understand and are trying to understand, not just of nature, but of human nature.

Yes, we have Draco the dragon.

Draco the dragon.

Wrapped around the North Star.

Those are pretty monstrous too, right?

Yes, and that is precisely how I see monsters based on that kind of cultural thing, right?

Not only playful, but noble and very helpful and so forth.

The constellations of the Chinese zodiac that you know, right?

The dragon is kind of in the middle.

The story is very long, but to cut it short, the reason it's number six, as opposed to number one, because it's such a powerful creature, is because it saw a rabbit in trouble crossing a river.

And so he went back to help the rabbit cross the river and let the rabbit finish in the contest before he did.

So the rabbit comes before the dragon.

That is some kind behavior.

It is the one truly mythological creature.