In the original ‘Godzilla‘ (1954) movie, the first place on land where the gigantic amphibious bipedal lizard arrived was Shinagawa which he promptly destroyed. Presumably ‘Shin Gojira‘ (2016) was paying homage to that and the 120 minute film features a few minutes of scenes from this ward which lies on Tokyo Bay.

N.B. The time codes given are approximate and may be slightly different to the DVD or blu-ray versions.

All the Shinagawa-based scenes occur between 23 and 26 minutes with the main road located right outside Kita-Shinagawa station (below) appearing first.

The map outside the station (below) even includes a Godzilla icon on it (to mark the entry point for the monster lizard back in 1954) which is a nice touch and one I’d like to see for ALL the filming locations in Tokyo and not just this old apartment building which is supposedly in the background when Gojira falls down.

The beauty of ‘Shin Gojira‘ for movie location fanatics like myself was that screen captions reveal where each scene is. This includes Shinagawa Shrine (below), one of only three shrines to have it’s torii gates decorated with dragons, which is less than a 10 minute walk from Kita Shinagawa Station on the Keikyū Main Line. A crowd of people are seen running away from the monster by climbing up the shrine’s stone stairs. However, when I went to the shrine I soon realised that the one seen on screen was most definitely not that in Shinagawa.

My subsequent research has revealed that it was actually shot at Ichigaya Kamigaoka Hachimangu Shrine (4-1 Ichigaya Honmura-cho, Shinjuku-ku) and further details and match-up shots for that will appear in a future ‘On The Trail Of Shin Godzilla’ post. Click here for details.

Take the Takanawa exit (west exit) out of Shinagawa station and head up the road to the left and you will soon hit Yatsuyama Rail Bridge (below) which is quite literally what Godzilla did in this film which was directed by Hideaki Anno. It’s a pretty cool looking bridge I think.

Whenever any Tokyo Fox post is linked on another website I get a notification. Earlier last year there was one that included a link to the Gojira slide in Yokosuka which was featured among many of the same Godzilla-related places in Tokyo which I included in my bike ride in 2014. However, there were a couple of places I wasn’t aware of and one of them was in the old fishing village of Higashi-Shinagawa at a restaurant called Shinagawa Yakatabune Mutsumimaru (below) which is located at 1-1-11 Higashishinagawa, Shinagawa-ku. Standing outside the entrance are two different sized stone Godzilla statues. 

Bonus: On my travels to Utsunomiya in Tochigi prefecture I was surprised to be confronted by a Godzilla statue outside a gyoza restaurant by the station. I didn’t know why it was there at the time but have since discovered that some of ‘Shin Godzilla‘ (2016) was filmed in this city so maybe that explains it. The colour may be different but it looks like it came from the same mould as the one in Higashi-Shinagawa.

Click here to read ‘The Godzilla Bathhouse’ 

Click here to read ‘Dining Out: The Godzilla Hotel’ 

Click here to read ‘Cycling The Godzilla Tokyo Trail…In One Day!’

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Gojira-Koen (Godzilla Park)’ 

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Filming Locations #5 – Godzilla (1954)’ 

Click here to read ‘Review: Films Set In Japan – Godzilla (2014)’

Click here to read ‘Review: Films Set In Japan – Godzilla (1954)’