I like The Return of Godzilla.

Its feel is very "Sakyo Komatsu". It feel a lot like Submersion of Japan and Virus, both of which were adapted from Komatsu's books: big, tragic, very Cold War paranoia infused and heavy on the title cards. I think if Toho had let Kinji Fukasaku make a Godzilla film in the 80s while he was working mostly for Kadokawa, it would most resemble this one. The problem is that the characters in Return, unlike in one of Fukasaku's films, aren't very interesting and thus all the human scenes are rather monotonous, but Godzilla's rampage upon Tokyo is quite a sight to behold, hampered only by stock footage from Prophecies of Nostradamus (Teruyoshi Nakano was sure proud of his "freeway pileup" footage).

In some ways, Godzilla 1985 improves the pacing of the film by cutting a lot of the monotony, but those American scenes are horrifying.

I also love Reijiro Koroku's score; it's very beautiful if a little 80s.