Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Godzilla is known as “King of the Monsters,” but if you absolutely hate people who ruin movies, that title should belong to 39-year-old Wataru Takeuchi of Japan.
Takeuchi ran an entertainment “spoiler site” and, in ways that would legally come back to bite him, he was very good at his job. That’s because his site curated extremely detailed spoilers. We’re not talking “Oh, by the way, Darth Vader is actually the father”-type spoilers. We’re talking stills, specific dialogue and detailed plot summaries from the films and TV shows it covered. Those include 2023’s Godzilla Minus One as well as the popular anime Overlord III, whose respective owners filed suits against the site, claiming copyright infringement.
Godzilla learns that a random spoiler site has been unlawfully using his likeness. (2023 Toho Co., Ltd.)
According to their suits, Takeuchi’s content didn’t just constitute spoilers, commentary, or even summaries for that matter. They claimed the articles were literal “adaptations” of the works themselves. Congratulations, Takeuchi, you’re one of Japan’s most prolific movie producers, and you didn’t even know it!
Like any good producer, Takeuchi himself didn’t do the grunt work of actually writing the material. That’s what his contractors were for. He did, however, profit from the 38 million yen, or roughly $240,000 USD, in ad sales garnered from the site. So, fortunately for the administrator of Odd News, I will not spend the rest of this article going into a full scene-by-scene plot summary of the latest kaiju movie. You’re welcome.
