Ishiro Serizawa

"The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around."

- Ishirō Serizawa (Godzilla)

Ishirō Serizawa 芹沢猪四郎 (Serizawa Ishirō) is a scientist character created by that first appeared in the 2014 Godzilla graphic novel, Godzilla: Awakening, before making his first live-action appearance in the film, Godzilla. He will return in the 2019 sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Personality
Dr. Serizawa is a somewhat stoic individual with a deep respect for the organisms he studies. He is very critical of the human race, particularly towards their attempts to dominate the planet and their scant regard for the rest of nature. His father taught him the value of mankind co-existing with nature and the harmony needed with nature at a young age. Though he is secretive about his past, he loved and respected his father Eiji so ever since he died, Ishirō keeps his father's broken pocket watch as a keepsake and reminder of humanity's hubris at Hiroshima. He believes Godzilla's existence is in the good of nature, as he appears to restore balance when it is disrupted. After the events of 2014, Serizawa is a more respected figure in the world as governments look to him as the leading authority on the Titans. Being a reserved person, his interests include the works of the composer Wagner and poet Matsuo Bashō. Despite being considered royalty in the ranks of Monarch due to his father being one of the agency's founding fathers, Serizawa chooses not to carry a title as he doesn't believe in a higher order, only in an equal balance.

Vivienne Graham
Serizawa and Dr. Graham are two intellectuals who are the guiding force behind Monarch. After he recruited Graham into Monarch, Serizawa noticed her brilliance in paleo-forensics and fossil analysis. He also likes how she challenges him with her scientific focus.

William Stenz
Understanding of Stenz's job and position in ensuring the safety of civilians during the MUTO crisis, Ishirō respects him enough to tell him about his father's pocket watch. Even though Stenz doesn't always listen to him on how to deal with the MUTOs, Serizawa sees the admiral as a reasonable man and the two share a mutual respect.

Godzilla: Awakening
Before the bombing of Hiroshima, Ishirō Serizawa was born in 1945 to Japanese sailor Eiji Serizawa and his wife. After the atomic bomb fell, Eiji found Ishirō alone in the ruins of Hiroshima and left him with his grandparents in Kyoto for the next several years.

In 1980, Ishirō visited his father in Tokyo when he called him urgently. Eiji began telling him things he said he would tell him when he was older: That he didn't work for a cargo company and in reality worked for a secretive government unit. Then Ishirō learned about Shinomura and Gojira. He attended his father's funeral the next year in 1981 and was approached by his father's old friend, Shaw. Knowing why Shaw's there, Serizawa said he's ready and joined Monarch.

Post-Awakening
In the late 1980s, Serizawa was introduced to Landsat employee Rick Stanton by colleague Dr. Houston Brooks, as whispers of the 1973 secret mission to Skull Island piqued Stanton's curiosity. Knowing a true believer when he sees one, Serizawa offered Stanton a job at Monarch shortly afterward and Stanton joined in 1989. In 1997, during a speaking engagement at Oxford University, Serizawa noticed paleobiology doctorate candidate Dr. Vivienne Graham. She joined Monarch two years later and Serizawa became her mentor. Impressed by her talent and passion, their dynamic evolved into a close partnership. In the same year, Serizawa and Dr. Graham are called to the Philippines to investigate a collapsed mine. There, they discover the skeleton of a long-dead member of Godzilla's species along with two giant spores, one of which has hatched.

In 2005, Monarch detected a sonic pulse wave signal originating from Boston similar to a previously recorded Titan song. Believing the signal to be the sign of a new Titan emerging, Serizawa, Dr. Graham, and a field team are dispatched to investigate. They follow the signal to a lab at MIT and find Drs. Mark and Emma Russell testing their prototype of "the Orca", a potentially revolutionary device that could change the face of interspecies communication. Two years later, as the couple continues to make breakthroughs with their research, they are both brought into Monarch.

Godzilla
"Nature has an order. A power to restore balance. I believe he is that power."

- Ishirō to Ford Brody, about Godzilla

In the 15 years following the 1999 Janjira power plant incident, Serizawa, Graham, and a team of Monarch scientists study the male MUTO while it is cocooned and feeding on the plant's reactor. After the MUTO breaks free from its cocoon and destroys Monarch's research facility, Serizawa and Graham are taken aboard the U.S.S. Saratoga to help the U.S. military, under the command of Admiral Willian Stenz, hunt and destroy the MUTO.

After discovering that Godzilla has resurfaced, Serizawa believes that he has risen to kill the MUTO, which was his kind's natural enemy. Serizawa is proven correct when Godzilla swims underneath the Saratoga and confronts the MUTO in Honolulu. After Godzilla and the MUTO both leave Honolulu, Serizawa begins studying the MUTO's echolocation patterns more carefully. Serizawa concludes that the MUTO was communicating with a female --the dormant spore - which at this point was moved to a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. A team of soldiers is sent to the facility in Nevada and discovers that the female has hatched and is attacking Las Vegas.

When the military forms a plan to lure all three monsters offshore and try to kill them with a nuclear warhead, Serizawa protests, claiming that the bomb will have no effect on the monsters and that Godzilla is only there to kill the MUTOs and restore balance. Serizawa's pleas fall on deaf ears however and the military carries out the plan, which fails after the male MUTO steals the armed warhead and delivers it to the female at their nest in the center of San Francisco. After this, Admiral Stenz agrees to Dr. Serizawa's plan to withdraw military effort to destroy the MUTO and let Godzilla handle them. After Stenz refocused military efforts to extracting the bomb, Serizawa tells an extraction team that the MUTOs have likely laid eggs underground and are keeping the warhead there.

After the battle, Serizawa and Graham gather around the seemingly dead body of Godzilla in the ruins of San Francisco. When Godzilla stirs and returns to the ocean, Serizawa looks up in joy as the monster he has dedicated so many years of his life to studying returns to his home in peace.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Ishiro is confirmed to return in the 2019 film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Trivia

 * Ishirō Serizawa, at least in surname, was inspired by Daisuke Serizawa from the original 1954 Godzilla film.
 * His forename is also a reference to the late legendary director Ishiro Honda.
 * In issue #18 of Godzilla: Rulers of Earth a character bearing a striking resemblance to Ishirō Serizawa can be seen running from Godzilla and Ebirah, along with a character who closely resembles Vivienne Graham.

Films

 * Godzilla
 * Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Comics

 * Godzilla: Awakening
 * Godzilla: Aftershock