GKIDS/Toho StudiosGodzilla Minus Zero upgrades the King of the Monsters in several ways, and one of the more unexpected ones is that it’s the first Godzilla movie to receive an “R” rating in the United States. That’s partially becaise of the monster action: The climactic kaiju battle incorporates realistic gore into the creatures’ sci-fi regenerative abilities, making for a more intense viewing experience than in Godzilla Minus One. But the really grisly stuff involves the human characters, who once again receive an extraordinary level of attention in writer-director Takashi Yamazaki’s second Godzilla film. These include sobering nods to Godzilla’s nuclear origins, including a scene of Godzilla attack survivors filling the halls of a hospital that recalls a similar moment in Ishiro Honda’s original 1954 Godzilla — but this time in bloody full color. Kazuaki Kishida was a producer on the film, and confirms that the hospital scene in Minus Zero is meant as an homage to Honda’s original. That scene was one of many cut from Godzilla when it was imported to America in 1956. And as Kishida tells Inverse in an interview at New York Comic-Con, avoiding that kind of censorship was important to the Minus One team.“Some of this dates back to the original 1954 Godzilla, which, when it was exported from Japan and imported to the States, was very heavily edited. All references to nuclear arms were basically censored from the film,” he tells Inverse. “We didn't want that to happen with Minus Zero ... We wanted to make sure that the movie was uniform, whether you're in Japan, the States, or anywhere.” Kazuaki Kishida with the stars and director of Godzilla Minus Zero. | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesIn 2026, such heavy censorship of the sequel to an Oscar-winning film was unlikely. But the nuclear trauma did earn Minus Zero an R rating in the United States, something that Kishida says did not come as a surprise: “When we were preparing Godzilla Minus Zero for the North American market, it was flagged that we might get an R rating before we actually got it,” he says.Still, the team decided to stick to their principles, even if it meant lowering their profits. (Traditionally, R-rated movies make less at the box office, although the success of The Odyssey suggests that’s changing.) “We had a conversation internally at Toho and with Director Yamazaki,” Kishida says. “We decided to not compromise the visual expression, the message, or the theme of the film, because it was more important to preserve that than edit the film for a PG-13 rating.”Besides, it’s only a problem in the U.S. “It's rated G in Japan, which is the lowest you can get for all audiences,” Kishida says, laughing. “The Japanese rating system is perhaps slightly more lenient.” From Toho and GKIDS, Godzilla Minus Zero opens in IMAX on November 3rd, and in theaters everywhere on November 6th.