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Lone Tokyo cab driver offering passengers his personal thesis on latest Godzilla movie

Master Blaster Nov 1, 2017
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And in doing so becomes a legend.

For a twitter user by the handle of Nikol, an everyday taxi ride took a turn for the surreal when his driver handed him a dissertation on last year’s Godzilla Resurgence (Shin Godzilla in Japan).

The older gentleman began some mid-trip small talk by asking Nikol, “Have you seen Godzilla Resurgence?” The question caught Nikol off guard as the film was released well over a year ago. His puzzled expression must have said it all.

“It’s just…” the driver continued, “I want to talk about it but no one has seen it. I think the things written about it online are a little off the mark, so I wrote out my own interpretation of it.” The man then handed Nikol a plastic clip-bound bundle of papers with a color printed poster of Godzilla Resurgence on the cover.

The brief but unusual story captured the attention of many on Twitter, resulting in over 56,000 likes and 37,000 retweets. The comments were pretty much unanimous.

“I want to read that!”
“Let me read that!!!”
“I really, really want to read it.”
“I’m surprised every one he talked to hadn’t seen it.”
“I don’t know why, but I’m dying to know what this guy thought of the movie.”
“I like the personal touch of that. It’s like way back when people made their own websites.”
“I have got to find that taxi.”

There were also many online who suspected Nikol of lying and covering up the fact that he had written the essay himself. Skepticism is also fueled by the fact that Godzilla Resurgence will be making its Japanese broadcast TV debut later this month.

It seems unlikely that Nikol is the author though, as he is not revealing the contents of the booklet aside from simply explaining, “It is the thoughts of the taxi driver about the movie.”

The timing of this incident does point to a piece of stealth marketing, but if that’s the case then it is one of the more ballsy attempts, as this tweet wasn’t especially attention-getting in the first place and could have easily gotten lost in the ocean of oddity on Twitter.

Assuming it is the real deal, to the many who are dying to read it, Nikol simply suggests that they try to bring up the subject of Godzilla whenever taking the taxi in Tokyo and hope they get the right one. Hopefully someone does and we can verify the existence of this self-publishing movie-analyzing cabbie with a second copy of his review.

If you do happen to find him, you may need this handy guide of Japanese taxi driver slang to help read his highly desired treatise and learn if he thinks Godzilla Resurgence is an obake or a nagare dama.

Source: Twitter/@nikoled14, Hachima Kiko
Top image, video: YouTube/tvasahi