Dr. Ishirō Serizawa
"Nature has an order. A power to restore balance. I believe he is that power."
Portrayed By: Ken Watanabe
Appears In: Godzilla | Godzilla Awakening | Godzilla Aftershock | Godzilla: King of the Monsters
"The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around."
Monarch's leading scientist and a leading expert on the Titans. He has a deep reverence for Godzilla in particular, viewing him as a guardian who exists to restore balance to nature rather than disrupt it. He's the son of Monarch founding member Eiji, and the father of Ren.
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A-I
- Age Lift: The 2014 movie's novelization makes him younger than in the movies: the 2014 novel describes him as being in his forties in 2014 when canonically he would've been at the end of his 60s at this time.
- Asian and Nerdy: Naturally, being an American Godzilla movie's adaptation of Daisuke Serizawa in name. On top of being an egghead like most Monarch scientists, he's one of the most keenly aware of Godzilla's role in nature.
- Batman Grabs a Gun: Implied. In his first movie appearance, he deeply protested to the usage of nuclear weaponry against Godzilla and the MUTOs, mostly on logical grounds, but also partly because his father was a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb (as was he in his infanthood according to the Canon Discontinuity graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening). But in King of the Monsters, when King Ghidorah is reigning over the other Titans and destroying the entire world, Serizawa subsequently has no objections to being part of a plan which involves throwing a nuclear warhead at a crippled Godzilla in an effort to heal him rather than kill him, so that he can take out Ghidorah. Serizawa even manually detonates the nuclear warhead himself after complications with deploying it arise.
- Breaking Old Trends: This incarnation breaks a few of Daisuke Serizawa's in the original movie, surprisingly enough. The original Dr. Serizawa sacrificed both his life and life’s work to see Godzilla dead, while this Serizawa instead sacrifices himself to save Godzilla. The original Serizawa was horrified by the results of his research (the Oxygen Destroyer), and ultimately decided to take it with him to his grave, while this Serizawa ultimately passes his research on to ensure that his work continues.
- The Cassandra: He seems to be entirely right that Godzilla exists to restore natural balance when other Titans (or possibly humanity) disrupt it, yet in all his appearances before his death, his claims about Godzilla are dismissed by Admiral Stenz, the U.N. Security Council or the U.N. Senate, with catastrophic consequences or risk thereof. Even after Serizawa's death and the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters made the world start seeing Godzilla as a hero, as shown in Godzilla vs. Kong, humanity is still almost ridiculously quick to turn on Godzilla and assume he's made a Face–Heel Turn.
- Category Traitor: In the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization, his son Ren views him as a traitor to humanity who cared more about Godzilla than about human life because of his Parental Neglect towards Ren and his "let them fight" stance.
- The Champion: He virtually worships Godzilla – scientifically seeing him as a global keystone species and non-scientifically seeing him as a guardian sent by nature to restore order – and he tries to support Godzilla from the human side and circumvent mankind from attacking him. In the first Monsterverse movie, Serizawa protests the plan to nuke the kaiju in favor of suggesting they stand back and let Godzilla kill the MUTOs for humanity, hoping that Godzilla will then leave mankind in peace (which he does). In Godzilla: Aftershock, he protests against the U.N. Security Council's insensate decision to let Jinshin-Mushi kill Godzilla, which will ultimately flood a Godzilla-free world with a MUTO horde. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Serizawa insists despite the U.S. Senate's derision that humans coexisting with Godzilla, in particular, is key to mankind's survival amidst the Titans, he protests when the U.S. military intervenes in Rodan and Ghidorah's battle instead of waiting for Godzilla to do his thing, and he finally gives his own life to save Godzilla's. The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization reveals that Godzilla has memorized Serizawa with honor for this last act after he had an up-close view of it.
- Composite Character: He shares his the surname and world-weariness with Daisuke Serizawa, who is also a paleontologist that wants to study the monsters versus killing them like Dr. Kyohei Yamane.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: In the first film, it's easy to be sceptical of his claims that Godzilla is a guardian who exists to restore balance to nature and is on humanity's side so long as they don't make themselves a major threat to the natural order. Serizawa's beliefs are ultimately vindicated in King of the Monsters, where Godzilla is at his most heroic in his, Mothra's and humanity's fight to take their planet back from King Ghidorah, and where Godzilla commands the Earth Titans to revitalize the Earth's ecology and stay away from human population centres following Ghidorah's death.
- Death by Irony: A heroic case. He's very mindful of nuclear weapon usage, partly because he (a baby at the time) and his father are survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, and he opposes Admiral Stenz's decision to try nuking Godzilla and the MUTOs in the first movie. In King of the Monsters, Serizawa sacrifices his life manually detonating a nuke in front of Godzilla to save the latter's life. There's another angle to this too: Serizawa tends to advocate in favor of leaving all the heavy work of neutralizing the truly-dangerous Titans up to Godzilla with minimal human interference, but after the military's blunder with the Oxygen Destroyer leaves the world completely under threat of King Ghidorah eradicating humanity and permanently destroying the natural order with Godzilla crippled, Serizawa is forced to go against his former advice by intervening to revive Godzilla so the latter can stop Ghidorah's apocalypse before it's too late for life on Earth. The irony is not lost on him."Sometimes, the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them."
- Decomposite Character: Unlike the original Dr. Serizawa, this one didn't invent the Oxygen Destroyer.
- Determinator: Serizawa ventures into Godzilla's highly irradiated and magmatic chamber to revive him. Such conditions would be both exhausting and fatal for a younger, fitter man, but Serizawa finds the strength to carry on.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Sort of. While he stills dies in a Heroic Sacrifice that involves Godzilla, here, he died helping Godzilla recover from the Oxygen Destroyer, whereas the original Serizawa died killing Godzilla with it.
- Elite School Means Elite Brain: He's the world's leading expert on Godzilla before his passing, and in 2019 he's the de facto leader of Monarch's top minds. His Monarch Sciences bio says that he attended the University of Tokyo, which is a Top Type university and is one of Japan's best if not its single best.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite his worshipful attitude towards Godzilla, and by extension the other Titans, and even though he disagrees with the government's plan to kill the Titans, he still feels that reintroducing them to the modern world should be done carefully under strictly controlled measures, to minimize the danger this would pose to humanity. He's well aware that the Titans are a largely unknown entity beyond humanity's ability to control. As such, he's horrified by Dr. Emma Russell's decision to deliberately awaken all of the Titans and let them wipe out most of humanity, especially as it was only after Monster Zero was released that anyone knew it was actually an invasive species.
- Expositing the Masquerade: In the 2014 movie, he and Dr. Graham provide Ford Brody with a succinct rundown on Godzilla, the MUTOs, and Monarch's existence after Ford witnesses the male MUTO's containment breach at Janjira.
- Facepalm: Look closely in King of the Monsters when Emma is explaining her extreme plan, and you can see Serizawa put his face in his hand in dismay as he realizes just how much Emma has taken the pro-Titan philosophy which they originally connected over to a truly amoral extreme which could create a recipe for global disaster.
- Foil:
- To Joe Brody, which is lampshaded when Serizawa gives him a sympathetic stare through the two-way mirror upon hearing of his wife's death. They both are (were in Joe's case) Reasonable Authority Figures in charge, set on their current path partly because of a nuclear tragedy of some kind in which their loved one was caught up (for Serizawa it's his father's firsthand experience of the Hiroshima bombing, for Joe it's the Janjira meltdown which caused his wife's death). They're also both brilliant men, who happen to be regarded by peers (his son Ford for Joe, Admiral Stenz for Serizawa) as Cloudcuckoolanders but in the end are both proven to be right; Serizawa's expertise is in what the Kaiju's emergence means and their role in nature, whereas Joe's is in the effects of their powers and how to detect them. However, whereas Serizawa actively tries to maintain the Masquerade, Brody seeks to Break the Masquerade (or at least the cover-up in Janjira specifically); Serizawa was responsible for defending and building up Monarch as a key figurehead, whereas Joe becomes a lonely recluse taking teaching jobs after the nuclear plant's destruction; Serizawa is The Stoic whereas Joe is driven by Mangst to uncover the truth. Interestingly, Joe is estranged from his son and it's hinted Serizawa likewise isn't necessarily close to his sonnote ; but Serizawa has a Number Two who's Like a Daughter to Me, and Ford and Joe briefly team-up during the film; Ford outlives his son, while Serizawa outlives Vivienne Graham by a short time.
- To Admiral William Stenz, whom he holds a mutual respect for. One is Japanese and the other American and they have a talk about the Hiroshima bombing at one point. One is a scientist and the other a military man. They're also both quite lean and elderly, and both are The Stoic. In both their film appearances, Stenz is reasonable but usually advocates killing the Titans, whereas Serizawa has Wide-Eyed Idealist shades and admires the Titans — guess who makes things worse and who proves to be right. Serizawa is focused on the balance of nature, while Stenz is more focused on human lives. Stenz advocates human intervention in Titan crises whereas Serizawa's iconic Wham Line summarizes his stance.
- To Dr. Emma Russell in the second film. They're both high-profile Monarch scientists who believe in the fundamental goodness and ecological importance of the Titans, and they consider them the true rulers of the Earth whilst human civilization just lives in a self-made bubble in the Titans' long absence. However, whereas Serizawa still cares about human life (in his own words, he admires all forms of life) and calls out Emma for risking billions of lives, Emma has grown misanthropic and is fine with sacrificing millions to allow the Titans to retake the world. Serizawa advocates humans standing by and allowing Godzilla to restore balance when hostile Titans disrupt it, and believes things will work out in the end according to this philosophy; whereas Emma actively fears humanity euthanizing the sleeping Titans and screwing their planet's chance at regaining harmony, and she responds to this by seeking to actively wake all the Titans up and she assumes nothing will go off-script — Emma and Serizawa actually both call each other out on their respective reasonings when Emma is explaining her motives. Interestingly, they were also both present at the destruction of a city (Hiroshima for Serizawa, San Francisco for Emma) which showed the full destructive capability of humans and Titans respectively, and which led to their family's estrangement, and it's fair to say that both of them don't hold it against the force which caused the destruction.
- He's also one to Dr. Mark Russell in King of the Monsters, particularly after Vivienne Graham's death, and this gets lampshaded in the novelization. Both of them are Monarch or ex-Monarch scientists with a keen fascination and empathy for the Titans, and both of them firmly recognize that humans shouldn't try to subjugate nature because they're most likely to get anything but the desired result (and both of them learned this due to some kind of tragedy — for Serizawa it was his father's experience in the Hiroshima bombing and/or the Janjira containment breach, for Mark it was a tragic incident where the prototype ORCA caused whales to beach themselves to death). The difference between them is that Mark let himself become consumed by his own grief and allowed it to fester after Andrew's death, whereas Serizawa deliberately avoids falling into the same trap as Mark when he's grief-stricken by the death of Graham, who had a surrogate father-daughter relationship with him. Adding irony to the contrast is that Andrew Russell's death by Godzilla was accidental collateral on Godzilla's part, whereas Ghidorah deliberately murdered Dr. Graham in an act of malice.
- And he has an Evil Counterpart in Alan Jonah, although they never meet. They're both de facto leaders of their respective organisations associated with finding the Titans, both of them are lean and elderly men, and both characters view the Titans as superior beings to humans and more than mere monsters. Interestingly, they also both see their surrogate son/daughter being killed in King of the Monsters, and both of them have a younger female accomplice by their side whom they ultimately outlive during the second film; but whereas Serizawa forces himself to shoulder on in the aftermath of his personal loss, Jonah crosses the Despair Event Horizon due to his lossnote . Serizawa champions non-interventionism, believes that humans and Titans can co-exist together, and still cares about human lives (he states in the movie that he admires all life); whereas Jonah is actively trying to forcibly awaken all the Titans, and is perfectly fine with letting Ghidorah wipe out humanity, even if the three-headed monster also destroys the rest of the world. While Serizawa champions Godzilla as the king/alpha, Alan champions King Ghidorah.
- He also turns out to be this to his estranged son Ren Serizawa. Ishiro and Ren are both major figures in their respective organizations that dealt with Titans and have a mutual interest in Godzilla in particular. The similarities end there, however, as while Ishiro has nothing but respect for the Titans and holds Godzilla in reverence and eventually gives up his life to save him, Ren has nothing but contempt for the monsters and would rather see them all eliminated, Godzilla especially. Also, unlike his father who dies a heroic death to save the last hope for humanity, Ren is killed off very unceremoniously while piloting MechaGodzilla after Ghidorah's subconsciousness takes over and electrocutes him to death, almost dooming humanity to destruction.
- The Ghost: He's been mentioned a total of once in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, but doesn't show up at any point.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- In the 2014 movie, after he learns that the MUTO cocoon is producing EMP pulses that threaten humanity on an infrastructural level and that the creature is about to hatch, Serizawa reluctantly and morosely gives the order to kill the creature in its cocoon (not that Monarch's kill switch makes any difference in the end). Dr. Graham's reaction when Serizawa gives the order and Serizawa's own hesitation makes it clear that this isn't a light decision on their part at all.
- Serizawa is normally against nuclear weaponry due to his criticism of mankind's arrogance and his family's firsthand experience of the Hiroshima bombing, and he generally believes that putting faith in Godzilla to restore natural balance is the best route mankind can take when hostile titans surface. However, in King of the Monsters, the threat posed by King Ghidorah to all of humanity and potentially all life on Earth' is so great, and the consequences of the Oxygen Destroyer's disastrous usage so severe, Serizawa goes against both his aforementioned former stances by intervening with a manually-detonated nuke in order to accelerate Godzilla's healing so that he can stop Ghidorah's rampage.
- Hair-Contrast Duo: He forms an inversion with the much lighter-haired Admiral Stenz in Godzilla (2014), while they're working together or tracking the Kaiju and are debating the military's use of nuclear weaponry. Serizawa is by far the more idealistic and philosophical of the duo with his borderline-esoteric conviction in Godzilla's more benign purpose, he reveres nature, and he believes that human intervention does more harm than good compared to letting nature sort itself out. Stenz, on the other hand, is committed to protecting the public from the Kaiju first to the point of short-sightedness, is down-to-earth to a fault if out of his depth, is sceptical of the idea that Godzilla is anything more than another destructive beast that threatens the lives Stenz is charged with defending, and disgust at the idea of doing nothing is one of the reasons why Stenz initially authorizes the Nuke 'em plan over Serizawa's objections. The two men have a moment where they talk and empathize over their respective countries' history with each other at the end of World War II and (in the novelization) their respective fathers' contrasting roles in the Little Boy atomic bomb's history.
- Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee: In King of the Monsters he's summoned to a Senate meeting on the issue of the Titans alongside Graham and Stenz. He speaks in defence of the sleeping Titans to an evidently less-than-sympathetic senator. Ultimately, Serizawa and Graham walk out before the hearing is adjourned when they get an important phone call about Jonah's raid and kidnapping of Emma and Madison, angering the lead senator in the process.
- Held Gaze: Serizawa has such a moment with Godzilla, right as one dies while the other is healed.
- Heroic BSoD: It's subtly implied he slips into one when Godzilla is seemingly killed by the Oxygen Destroyer: he slumps into a chair just after the news hits, and he doesn't contribute much to Mark and the Monarch brass's arguments about King Ghidorah's reign of terror except to grimly state nothing on Earth can stop Ghidorah with Godzilla out of action. From Serizawa's P.O.V., at this point he's lost both his beloved protégé and the creature which he and his father worshipped as the god of natural balance in short order. Serizawa comes out of his funk as soon as Mothra's arrival makes Monarch and the military aware that Godzilla is still alive and therefore not all hope is lost.
- Heroic Lineage: The tie-in prequel graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening (which is now non-canon to the wider MonsterVerse) states that his father did not die in Hiroshima: they both survived the bombing, and Serizawa's father joined Monarch as a founding member, developing a fixation on finding and tracking Godzilla. Ishirō followed in his father's footsteps when he died. Unfortunately, his son Ren had other ideas.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Type 2. When Godzilla is heavily wounded and in a healing sleep in his "throne room" in the Hollow Earth, an area filled with radioactive lava and thusly too hot and irradiated for any human or machine to survive entering, Dr. Serizawa volunteers himself to bring a nuclear warhead to Godzilla and manually detonate it, giving his life to accelerate Godzilla's healing so the latter can save the world from King Ghidorah. This decision is especially notable because Serizawa is a survivor of Little Boy's detonation over Hiroshima, and so is well aware of what he is getting into.
- Humble Hero: According to his Monarch Sciences bio, he's only the de facto spearhead of Monarch because, despite everyone's admiration of him and the world governments looking to him, he refuses to carry an official title; believing that "to maintain a balance between mankind and Titans, we must first maintain an equal balance of self".
- Hypocrite: Emma calls him out on how he has the nerve to make a big deal about her global eco-terrorist plan to manipulate the Titans and risk billions of lives for the greater good, when he's been irresponsibly treating The Government's contrasting and law-abiding but equally risky and dangerous plan (which he disagrees with just as much as he disagrees with Emma) like it's a harmless joke.
- The Idealist: He's critical of mankind's arrogance and hubris, he knows better than most humans in the setting just how helpless humanity is in the face of nature's raw power in the form of the Titans, and he and his father were survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. Yet despite all of this, he firmly believes that Godzilla is mankind's protector rather than our destroyer and that humanity and Titans can coexist with Godzilla's aid whilst restoring balance to nature. Godzilla's actions across the movies and the post-movie news snippets in the King of the Monsters Creative Closing Credits have served to vindicate Serizawa's beliefs.
- Ignored Expert: He's a leading expert on the Titans including Godzilla, but this doesn't stop the government and military from ignoring or brushing off his warnings, not least due to their contempt for the idea that Godzilla is anything other than a dangerous beast of mass destruction.
- In the 2014 movie; when Serizawa advises Stenz and the military that they should let Godzilla neutralize the MUTOs for them instead of trying to nuke all three creatures, his suggestion is dismissed – though to be fair to Stenz, Serizawa's suggestion was based more around naturalism than his scientific field, and the way Serizawa worded it didn't do him any favors. Regardless, it's the military following their own plan that causes things to go From Bad to Worse towards the end of the movie when the MUTOs steal the armed nuke for themselves in the middle of downtown San Francisco, and it's heavily implied that even if the nuke hadn't been stolen, the nuclear detonation against Godzilla and the MUTOs would have made a bad situation much worse.
- In Godzilla: Aftershock, he protests the U.N. Security Council's decision to stand by and allow Jinshin-Mushi to lure Godzilla into a fight he can't win, warning them that Godzilla's death means humanity will be practically defenceless against future Titan attacks (nevermind the other blatant problem with the Security Council's plan that the Council are obscenely ignoring), but the Council make it clear they couldn't care less for the idea that Godzilla is a protector while using Serizawa's own Wham Line against him.
- At the start of King of the Monsters, Serizawa is trying to convince the U.S. Senate that exterminating (or rather trying to exterminate) the Titans would be a grave mistake for humanity, but Senator Williams is hardly listening and is contemptuous of Serizawa's admiration of the creatures. Later in the movie, the government and military don't even bother to tell Serizawa in advance about what they're doing, let alone get his advice, before they fire the Oxygen Destroyer towards the loosed Ghidorah and Rodan, which has truly apocalyptic consequences.
- Irony: Daisuke Serizawa ventured to the bottom of the ocean to kill Godzilla with his weapon of mass destruction, the Oxygen Destroyer. Ishirō ventured to the bottom of the ocean to save Godzilla with a weapon of mass destruction, a nuclear bomb. What's more, a nuclear bomb destroyed his hometown of Hiroshima, yet Serizawa uses one to revive Godzilla.
- It's Personal: Defied by him in the King of the Monsters novelization. After Ghidorah kills someone he cared about in full view of him, Serizawa refuses to harbor hatred towards Ghidorah and is wary to cast potentially-biased judgments, because he's already seen what a sad, spiteful shell of a man Mark has turned into as a result of falling into the same trap (which is made all the more ironic by the fact Ghidorah intentionally murdered Serizawa's friend in malice whilst Godzilla was practically only guilty by association of Mark's son's death).
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- Last-Name Basis: He's just about exclusively referred to by his last name over his first, even by Monarch operatives who are implied to have been close to him such as Graham, Stanton and Chen.
- Last Request: His very last words to Mark Russell at the end of their last goodbye are telling him to take care of the rest of the team, before Serizawa departs via mini-sub to sacrifice himself.
- The Leader: By the time of King of the Monsters, Serizawa is the spearhead and leader of Monarch. It's Serizawa whom Mark Russell advises about how to deal with an imminent Titan, it's Serizawa who issues orders to the other top brass, and it's Serizawa who puts the other branches of Monarch on high alert.
- Like Father, Like Son: The non-canon Godzilla: Awakening states that his father Eiji's personality was practically a spitting image of the man Ishirō grew into after his father's death: intelligent, compassionate, haunted by the Hiroshima bomb and consequently concerned about and opposed to the usage of nuclear weaponry, highly fascinated by and reverent of Godzilla after spending years studying him, and recognizing Godzilla as a creature that can destroy the truly civilization-threatening monsters for humanity. Averted hard with Ishirō's own son Ren, who is the antagonistic Black Sheep of the Serizawa linage and is literally just about everything his father opposed.
- Like Father, Unlike Son: Whilst Ishirō followed in his father Eiji's footsteps, Ishirō's own son Ren, on the other hand, ends up being as different from his father as night and day. Ishirō was a dedicated naturalist who was very conscious of mankind's arrogance and the damage we've inflicted on nature, yet he still cared passionately for human life; he revered the Titans, he believed that mankind finding ways to coexist with the creatures was key to the survival of the world as we know it, and he all but worshipped Godzilla in particular as the guardian of nature. Ren, who was disillusioned with his father for neglecting him, was a hi tech-oriented Evil Genius who saw humanity as the supreme force on Earth and the true apex of evolution, he was blinded by hubris to the point of hooking Ghidorah's undead neural remains up to a Humongous Mecha and dabbling with Green Rocks; he had no compunctions against endangering and indirectly massacring millions of people for his own agenda, saw the Titans as nothing more than dangerous animals meant to be mastered by humanity in the name of ongoing progress, and he personally despised Godzilla with a burning passion whilst seeking to kill the latter above all else.
- Loved I Not Honor More: In the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization, it's confirmed that he rarely saw his wife (Ren's mother) due to his commitment to his Monarch work coming first. Apparently, he didn't know she'd died while he was away on field work until a week afterwards. He simply told Ren upon coming home from an expedition two days too late for the funeral, "She understood."
- Mangst: Despite his stoic demeanor, in the 2014 movie he looks visibly shell-shocked with a Thousand-Yard Stare when observing his dead colleagues' bodies after the male MUTO's escape, and he subtly hints through his father's pocket watch that he's still haunted by the Hiroshima bombing which he and Eiji survived when Ishirō was a baby. In King of the Monsters, he's shown solemnly and openly mourning the death of Dr. Graham for what is implied to be several hours before pulling himself together to focus on stopping the eco-terrorists, and later he's quietly all but crushed at Godzilla's seeming death by the Oxygen Destroyer.
- Married to the Job: The Godzilla: King of the Monsters novelization states that he understood and appreciated Vivienne Graham's prioritization of commitment to their Monarch work over romance in her personal life. The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization furthermore makes it clear that Serizawa prioritized his Monarch work over spending time with his family, and was often away for weeks at a time pursuing it, being held up for weeks when his actual wife died while he was away on an expedition. By the time Serizawa is able to get up close to Godzilla, his life is over.
- Missing Mom: Practically nothing is known about Serizawa's mother. In the prequel graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening, Serizawa (then a baby) was in a different part of town to his father when Little Boy fell on Hiroshima, all that's mentioned of his mother is that Eiji thought of her and Ishirō just after the blast, and Eiji turned to Ishirō's grandparents to take care of him later on; indicating that Serizawa's mother wasn't in his and his father's life at the time or died in the bombing.
- Mr. Exposition: Much of his dialogue is devoted to providing backstory and information about Godzilla and other Titans in both his movie appearances.
- Mythology Gag: In the original 1954 Godzilla film, Dr. Serizawa sets off the Oxygen Destroyer to kill Godzilla and allows himself to die alongside him. In King of the Monsters, Serizawa dies in the process of reviving Godzilla, who is weakened from the Oxygen Destroyer.
- Newspaper Backstory: A newspaper clipping on Joe Brody's wall in Godzilla (2014) reveals Serizawa's involvement in the Janjira cover-up, before he's shown in a later scene at the containment site.
- Not So Stoic: Despite his stoicism, there have been a couple of instances where something pushed him too far. In addition to showing mangst, he has a Thousand-Yard Stare response to the aftermath of Hokmuto's devastating escape in the first film, and in King of the Monsters, he's clearly distraught after Dr. Graham's death (falling to his knees and later being shown silently mourning her).
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: In the 2014 movie, he's firmly against the military's plan to try getting rid of the Kaiju by nuking them, partly because he recognizes that the nuke likely won't do anything to kill the Kaiju but will instead make the problem even worse, and partly because him and his father were survivors of Hiroshima.
- Oh, Crap!: Serizawa has two standout moments. The first is when he, Graham and Stenz realize the female MUTO has awakened in the first film. The second being when the ORCA awakens Ghidorah.
- Older Than He Looks: He doesn't look older than a man in his 40s or mid 50snote , even though his backstory of having been a baby when the bomb fell on Hiroshima places him in his early 70s (68 at the very least during the 2014 movie).
- Papa Wolf: Mentally discussed by him in the King of the Monsters novelization, when he suspects he would've done the same thing as Mark (charging in and grabbing a gun in a Leeroy Jenkins move) if he was in Mark's position with Ren held hostage amidst the Antarctica gunfight.
- Parental Neglect: The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization reveals Ishirō's parenting style with Ren was similar to the one his own father took with him – sacrificing a LOT of family time to commit himself to his work for Monarch – but it backfired in Ren's case. Ren's P.O.V. in the novel indicates Serizawa barely acknowledged Ren when they were in the same room, and it reveals the rift between father and son got particularly wide after Ren's mother died while Serizawa was away on fieldwork, only returning home to his grieving son two days after the funeral (which Ren had to organize on his own) and not telling his son anything other than "she understood". Ultimately, this became Ren's Freudian Excuse after Serizawa's death caused Ren to fully snap, leading Ren to become a full-blown Evil Genius and an antithesis to everything Dr. Serizawa and Eiji had stood for.
- Parental Substitute: He has a very close relationship with Dr. Graham, and the latter's Monarch Sciences bio states she regards Serizawa as a father figure in the absence of her biological father.
- Pre-Sacrifice Final Goodbye: He gives one out during King of the Monsters. After volunteering himself to revive Godzilla with a manually-detonated nuke in a Heroic Sacrifice, Serizawa spends his final moments with Mark Russell and his present colleagues (Chen and Stanton) saying a solemn goodbye to each of them, before departing in a mini-submarine. Serizawa also gets to say goodbye to Godzilla himself when he gets close to the Big G's face and the Titan which Serizawa has devoted his life to clearly observes him.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: His Monarch Sciences bio states he's seen as Monarch's "tip of the spear", though he refuses to carry any official rank or title due to his desire to "maintain an equal balance of self" akin to the balance between man and Titans. In the 2014 movie, when Serizawa first sees Joe Brody being interrogated, at first he thinks the guy's a loon until he looks at the papers Joe has on him and notices the bio-acoustic patterns perfectly match the ones Monarch are seeing from the male MUTO's cocoon now – when the U.S. Navy pick Serizawa and Graham up following the male MUTO's escape, Serizawa has them also bring Joe along due to this. In King of the Monsters, Serizawa looks to Mark Russell and the key Monarch brass around him for information and advice. That having been said, it should be noted that unlike a standard RAS, Serizawa is prone to leaning towards idealism and ethics when it comes to Godzilla instead of being objective, even if Serizawa does turn out to be right about Godzilla in the end.
- Secret Legacy: Godzilla Awakening (which is non-canon to the MonsterVerse after the release of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) states that Ishirō thought for a long time that his father Eiji worked for a cargo company, and it wasn't until he was a young man that Eiji told him the truth about Monarch and the Titans.
- Signature Line: Easily the most quotable of the human characters across the franchise:"We call him...Gojira."'"Let them fight.""Saraba, tomoyo."
- So Proud of You: The second form. In the 2014 novelization, he tells Ford Brody before the latter departs with the HALO team to try and disarm the nuke in San Francisco that Ford's recently-deceased father would be proud of him.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Although not quite the same character, his original incarnation in the original Godzilla (1954) (Daisuke Serizawa) died preventing Godzilla from wreaking more havoc at the movie's end, whereas Ishirō Serizawa comes out at the 2014 movie's end with very few scrapes and bruises. Downplayed/subverted as of King of the Monsters when he sacrifices himself for reasons that parallel the original Serizawa.
- Spell My Name With An S: His first name is spelled Ishirō in most sources, but it's misspelled as Ichiro in the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization.
- The Stoic: Slightly downplayed. He's mostly calm, soft-spoken and respectful, and he refuses to let grief or loss lastingly bog him down (as shown in King of the Monsters following Dr. Graham's death), but he still has quite a clear emotional range and shows clear sympathy towards others.
- Stoic Spectacles: He's a little older than most examples of this trope, but he has narrow, thin-rimmed spectacles and is quite a stoic and calm man. Subtly lampshaded in King of the Monsters, where Serizawa has his glasses off when he's mourning Dr. Graham's death and he promptly puts them back on once he recollects his resolve.
- Stopped Clock: In both his film appearances, he carries his father Eiji's pocket watch, which has remained stopped at 8:15 since it endured the Hiroshima bombing on that fateful morning in 1945. He reveals its history to Admiral Stenz in the 2014 film, and he looks at it one last time before he ironically detonates another nuclear bomb to save Godzilla, in King of the Monsters.
- Student–Master Team: His closest friend and confidante is Dr. Graham, who is three decades younger than him and whom supplementary materials reveal began as Serizawa's apprentice in Monarch before they gradually grew into scientific equals. The King of the Monsters novelization describes Graham as Serizawa's protégé.
- Summon Bigger Fish: Played straight in the second film, where his Heroic Sacrifice revives a near-dead Godzilla so the latter can fight and defeat the actively malevolent Ghidorah.
- Team Dad: His relationship with the other top brass in King of the Monsters has shades of this. He's the leader of Monarch to whom the rest of the (marginally younger) top brass unofficially defer, and he's distraught when Vivienne Graham is killed, with supplementary materials outright confirming Serizawa was a Parental Substitute to Graham. Stanton, Chen and Coleman are shaken by Serizawa's passing: for bonus points, it's hinted that part of the reason why Serizawa volunteered himself to make the Heroic Sacrifice was so that neither of his colleagues would have to lay down their own lives in his place.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: In the aftermath of the male MUTO's destructive escape and the deaths of most of his and Dr. Graham's colleagues at the Janjira site, Serizawa seems to have such a stare before Graham and Captain Hampton approach him.
- Tragic Keepsake:
- His pocket watch, which originally belonged to his father. It was broken in the Hiroshima bombing, and it's implied he never fixed it so it acts as a reminder of the event.
- In the King of the Monsters novelization, a pendant depicting Godzilla which he gave to Dr. Graham instead of Ren has returned to his hands for the short remainder of his life after Graham is killed by Ghidorah.
- Tuckerization: His first name is a tribute to Ishirō Honda, the director of the original Godzilla and the acknowledged creator of Godzilla. Though there was also a Dr. Serizawa in the original, his first name was "Daisuke".
- Unplanned Manual Detonation: In King of the Monsters, he's forced to manually arm a nuclear warhead himself in order to revive Godzilla in a Heroic Sacrifice, after the weapons systems of the submarine Serizawa and Monarch were on was damaged.
- Upbringing Makes the Hero: He grew up in the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, and he's consequently very cautious of humanity's hubris and destructive potential. According to Serizawa's Monarch Sciences bio, Eiji raised him to respect the relationship between man and nature from an early age.
- What the Hell, Hero?: When Godzilla is seemingly killed by the Oxygen Destroyer, which in turns leaves Ghidorah free to reign unopposed; Serizawa, who has been empathetic to Mark Russell's grief despite the latter's less-than-appreciative behavior for most of the movie; finally lets him have it in front of everyone for letting his fallacious rage towards Godzilla blind him:"Looks like you got your wish, Mark(!)"
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Played With. While he's the only one who seems to understand that allowing Godzilla to take down other Titans might be a viable option, at least at first, he does so because of naturalistic philosophy. Worse, he continues to push for leaving it all to Godzilla, even as the humans disadvantaged him by feeding the MUTOs nukes, and doesn't abandon this philosophy in the sequel, even because Ford Brody turned the tide in his favor.
- The Xenophile: Besides greatly admiring the Titans, he has a quasi-religious attitude towards Godzilla, believing the latter is essentially the personification of the balance of nature and the only hope humanity has of neutralizing the MUTOs and Ghidorah, even if he has to be a Destructive Saviour to that end. Admiral Stenz understandably thinks of him as naïve for this.
"Saraba, tomoyo." Translation
