A model of Godzilla's head greets passers-by outside a Tokyo store during a promotional campaign for the latest in a long series of movies featuring the fearsome reptile.

TOKYO — In this country of order and consensus, taxpayers can take out some of their frustrations at the monster movies.

In the latest Godzilla film (Godzilla vs. King Ghidora), the target of the giant tyrannosaur's wrath is the new Tokyo city hall, a $1-billion, 48-story building in Shinjuku complete with bathroom floors of Italian marble.

Critics considered the lavish double skyscraper a boondoggle of taxpayers' money, and in this Godzilla film, which premiered Saturday, Godzilla turns their anger into action by smashing the building into bits during a fight with King Ghidora.

According to the film's promoter, this destruction of buildings is what makes Godzilla so popular among Japanese.

"Godzilla always destroys buildings in the news, buildings either popular or controversial at the time," said Hidekichi Yamane, promotion manager of Toho Company, the firm that handles distribution and production of the Godzilla films. "Godzilla does something people could never do. He does it for them. This time Godzilla's destruction target is the City Hall."

In the first film, the short-armed dinosaur destroyed the Diet, Japan's parliament. But Godzilla's political agenda goes beyond destroying civic buildings. From the beginning, the monster has also carried an anti-nuclear message.

"The first movie was made in 1954. Japan at that time was still dragging the shadow of the war in which the country was defeated," Yamane said. "The movie was made after Fukuryumaru No. 5 (a fishing boat) was exposed to radiation in the Bikini hydrogen-bomb experiment. The film was made to warn people against the danger of nuclear power."

Since then, the monster has starred in 17 other movies that have drawn 72 million movie-goers. The 1989 film alone brought in 2 million viewers and a billion yen (about $8 million at 125 yen to the dollar), Yamane said.

The new film, which cost 1.5 billion yen ($12 million) to make, should attract more than 3 million people and net a profit of 2 billion yen ($16 million), Yamane said.

But he said producers are now more concerned about viewers having fun than picking up any political messages from Godzilla. "The very first film was made with an anti-nuclear message because of the time it was created. But we now see Godzilla as a representative of Japanese entertainment."

Stripes translator Eiko Miyamoto contributed to this report.