I was merely straying off topic to mention that yes, the TohoScope Showa films were cropped to 16:9 in the UK for video.

The Heisei films were physically shot hard matted to something like 1.66:1 I believe. I have an Italian copy of Biollante that reveals a bit more of the top and bottom though, so there's all sorts of special effects optical leakage.

There's at least one European tape of The Return of Godzilla's international dub that is over framed in a similar way. You can also see the telecine operator adjust the framing on the Carlton tape during the first reel of that film.