| “ | Is your war finally over? | „ |
| ~ Noriko to Koichi Shikishima after he reunites her in the hospital. |
Noriko Oishi (大石典子, Ōishi Noriko) is the deuteragonist of the 2023 kaiju drama film Godzilla Minus One. She's a survivor of the Bombing of Tokyo and the companion and later girlfriend/wife of Koichi Shikishima who lives together with him, raising an orphan girl by the name of Akiko. Her apparent death at the hands of Godzilla serves as the catalyst for Shikishima joining Operation Wada Tsumi in order to kill the kaiju.
She's portrayed by Minani Hamabe, who also portrayed Yumeko Jabami in the live-action Kakegurui TV Drama series.
History[]
Background[]
Noriko was a resident of Tokyo during World War II. According to her, she had lost her parents during the bombings of the Great Tokyo Air Raids performed by the United States army. During the event, she met with a dying mother who handed her baby, making her promise to take care of her after her death, to which Noriko complied, taking the little girl, by the name of Akiko, under her wing.
Godzilla Minus One[]
After the end of the war in December 1945, Noriko is living among the ruins of the city as a street urchin. During one of her escapades, she steals some blankets from a group of men in order to keep Akiko warm. While running away from them, she crosses paths with the ex-air force pilot, Koichi Shikishima, who initially tries to stop her in her tracks. Noriko then rapidly hands over Akiko to the young man and runs off to go into hiding nearby. Upon meeting Shikishima again, Noriko is impressed by the fact that he had not abandoned Akiko and introduces herself to him. After a bit of convincing, Shikishima decides to let Noriko live with him on his shelter and help her taking care of Akiko, alongside his neighbor, Sumiko.
A year later in 1946, Noriko is still living together with Shikishima and taking care of Akiko. Upon finding out that he had found a new job as a government naval minesweeper to help provide for the two. Noriko is initially aprehensive due to the dangerous nature of his job, saying that he should not risk his life after having just gotten out of the war, but Shikishima assures her that the job is safe and pays well. One night Shikishima is affected by night terrors and is woken up from a nightmare about the Godzilla attack on Odo Island. Seeing his distress, Noriko wakes him and tries to comfort him with a tea. Shikishima, however, begins to panic and grabs her by her arms, desperately asking her if he's truly alive and whether or not she was just a dream, causing Noriko to throw Shikishima off her.
As the city gets rebuilt, Noriko and Shikishima begin adjusting to a newfound normalcy. Thanks to Shikishima's job, the two renovate their house and begin living together with Akiko. One night, Shikishima's coworkers from the Shinseimaru come over to the house for dinner. There, they have drinks and joke around. After Seiji tells Kenji that she is a married woman after the latter compliments her looks, Noriko rebukes by saying that she's not Shikishima's wife, much to their surprise.
A year later, in 1947, Noriko finds herself a job in the city of Ginza as an office worker as she felt Shikishima's commitment was preventing him from finding an actual wife. Though initially Shikishima is aprehensive of her decision, Noriko assures him that he does not need to worry about Akiko as Sumiko would look after her while they're both away. At the same time, the Japanese government begins detecting a giant monster rapidly approaching the archipelago. After Shikishima returns from a mission to find the beast, he finally decides to come clean about his past to Noriko, revealing to her that he was a Kamikaze pilot who had fleed his mission last minute and that he also was present on Odo Island during Godzilla's first attack which killed nearly everyone there. Overcomed with guilt, Shikishima tells Noriko that he feels like he should not have survived the war and that he should have died, to which she responds by saying that everyone who came back from the war is meant to live. Shikishima once again begins panicking and wondering if he's actually dead, but Noriko comforts him and assures him that she is real.
One day while Noriko is taking the train to Ginza to work, her ride gets stopped after another train gets thrown on the tracks. She then sees from the window a now mutated and gigantic Godzilla slowly approaching in the distance. The monster then uses its enormous jaws to bite into the train and lift it in the air. Noriko manages to hang in a metal bar, but eventually falls, landing on a body of water, managing to escape. As she tries to run away from the monster, Noriko gets swept up by the crowd and paralyzes with fear by the sight of the creature. Shikishima, who had come all the way from Tokyo after hearing about the attack on the radio, suddenly appears and tries to help Noriko escape. Much to everyone's horror, Godzilla then begins charging up his atomic breath and fires it on the horizon. The blast creates a massive nuclear explosion that causes a shockwave that destroys everything on its path. Seeing the impeding doom, Noriko sacrifices herself by pushing Shikishima into an alleyway before she gets swept away by the shockwave, presumably killing her. Filled with grief and regret over not marrying her when he had the chance, Shikishima decides to join Kenji Noda's task force known as Operation Wada Tsumi in order to kill Godzilla and avenge Noriko's apparent death.
Eventually, in the end of the movie, Noriko is revealed to have survived the blast, having been taken to the hospital where she's visited by Akiko and Shikishima, who had just returned from Operation Wada Tsumi after destroying the kaiju. However, in the final scene, it's revealed that Noriko was affected by the radiation as seen by a black spot forming on the back of her neck, implying she might be infected with Godzilla’s DNA.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Noriko Oishi is Minami Hamabe's second role in a tokusatsu film after Ruriko Midorikawa in Hideaki Anno's Shin Kamen Rider. Curiously, both movies are reboots of their respective franchises and both came out in 2023.
- Minani Hamabe's appearance in the movie continues the long-running tradition of an actress discovered by the Toho Cinderella Audition starring in a Godzilla film.
External Links[]
- Noriko Oishi on Wikizilla
- Noriko Oishi on the Godzilla Wiki
