Monster view: New Tokyo hotel will feature ‘Godzilla’ rooms

If “Godzilla” gives you nightmares, you might want to avoid booking a room at Tokyo’s Hotel Gracery when it opens in late April.

The new property in the Shinjuku district will feature special rooms dedicated to the Japanese movie monster, including several that will look out directly on a giant replica of the beast’s head.

It’s hard to believe Japan didn’t think of this before – after all, the country is famous for its quirky coffin-like capsule hotels that stuff guests into pods just big enough to lie down in, and “love hotels” for couples.

Debuting a year after Gareth Edwards’ Hollywood “Godzilla” reboot, the Gracery is developing the rooms in conjunction with Toho Studios, the original home of the scary beast, who first hit the silver screen in 1954.

The large Godzilla head is being constructed on a terrace eight stories above street level, which creates the illusion of the monster peeking over a building. Guests in “Godzilla View” rooms on the ninth floor of the hotel will be able to look the monster right in the eye. Rates for the single-occupancy rooms start at 15,000 yen per night, or $130, and as of Wednesday bookings were available for late April and May.

For superfans, the 30th-floor double-occupancy “Godzilla Rooms” will feature myriad Godzilla paraphernalia, including what appears in a promotional video to be a claw of the monster reaching over the bed area.

Reservations began in November and bookings are being accepted for April and May. The rate is about $345 for a normal weekday and $433 on holidays – and space seems to be filling up fast.

According to an explanatory video on the hotel’s website, one of the challenges of the project was deciding which era Godzilla to depict. Ultimately, designers went with the more modern-era monster, which one executive described as being more “handsome” than the more-scary Godzilla of yore.

The Godzilla rooms aren’t the first “theme rooms” from the Washington Hotel Group, which is constructing the Gracery and has dozens of properties across Japan. In its property in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, guests can stay in a train room. Visitors to its Hiroshima hotel can sleep in a room devoted to the Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team.

With Tokyo gearing up for the 2020 Olympics, many hotels are being constructed or remodeled.

The main wing of the Hotel Okura, which is famous for its 1960s modernist design and has hosted U.S. leaders including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and President Obama, is being scrapped for two new structures expected to open in 2019.

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