In the West, he's most well known as a prolific director of Godzilla movies. However he expressed a very harsh opinion of these films, describing how it felt like opening up an old wound when Toho provided him a VHS copy of one of his Godzilla films. He was never fond of making them, preferring to instead focus on general youth-oriented action, comedy and drama movies. He lambasted the series for the increased focus on monsters and held the opinion that there should have never been any sequels to the original
Gojira (1954). Despite this, he considered it a pleasant surprise to learn that many people have cherished his Godzilla movies from their childhood.