Godzilla Kaiju Popularity Overview And The New Monster General Election

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Recently on our YouTube page, I ranked the kaiju in Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot (Ranking The Kaiju, Robots And Seijin In Johnny Sokko And His Flying Robot)as I had done for the Gamera series a while ago. For a little while now, I have been planning on ranking the Godzilla series kaiju, but since Godzilla as an IP has an extraordinary amount of kaiju compared to Gamera, Kong, Giant Robo, or one season of Ultraman even put together, I knew I would have to approach it in a different way. I realized I would be better off grouping the kaiju in subdivisions for the rankings based on more objective metrics.

 

But I had other projects I wanted to work on first. Toho, in some ways, has forced my hand with the New Monster General Election that already has the fanbase in a state of frenzy. If you are unaware, for the past few years, every Godzilla Day (November 3rd) Toho has released a tokusatsu short featuring refurbished suits and puppets usually including a kaiju battle. I have loved watching these, and others in the fandom share this sentiment. The original wave of these reached their climax with the Godzilla from Final Wars teaming up with a Jet Jaguar with Gigan claws to defeat the King Ghidorah from GMK, and that series is no longer available on YouTube, but the relaunch started with a refurbished Godzilla 2000 suit rampaging and attaining a Burning form. That video is still up, and the ending teased that another monster would arrive through the smoke and fog to fight Godzilla next (now this) year. 

 

Monster X, a Ghidorah variant from Godzilla Final Wars (2004), has been confirmed to be the first opponent for Burning G2K, but Toho has more ambitious plans for next year’s short. The New Monster General Election features eight sketches of monsters that the general public can vote on, and the winner will fight Godzilla. It is still technically unclear if next year’s short will be live action tokusatsu in this new series or something akin to Gemstone’s animated specials Godzilla vs Gigan Rex and Godzilla vs Megalon, but I really want these new designs immortalized in suitmation.

 

 

With this new marketing campaign from Toho, the Godzilla fanbase is excited but puzzled. I have heard wild speculation that Toho’s larger plans for these new eight kaiju to appear in a new Ultraman style show no matter who wins the election, and furthermore the topic on everybody’s mind is that somehow the winner will get an immediate boost to the top of franchise importance, rising to place alongside the Big Five (Godzilla, Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, and Rodan) in Toho’s in-house productions. I find that part, at least, unlikely, but it serves as a fair segue into my approach for ranking the Godzilla series. This article will explore the concept of Toho’s Big Five and beyond as well as the limitations of such a schema to more effectively introduce these new eight upstarts.

 

Last year, I tried to use Toho’s Big Five to frame discussion of Gamera’s costars (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/09/who-are-big-five-kaiju-in-gamera.html). I was able to mostly map a one-to-one comparison, but the entire premise needed some disclaimers that I should reproduce here. Ostensibly, the objective measure for the Big Five is box office appeals in Toho’s filmography. This was purposeful and helped return on investment in the Heisei and Millennium films after the films with new kaiju underperformed. Consequently, it resulted in a larger market share in popular culture, which translated into numerous mainline appearances, merchandise, other ancillary media and outside references in pop culture. As I explained, that means that it is really a Big 7 that adds in Kong and a child for Godzilla (which meant that I could include Daimajin and nonspecific baby kaiju for Gamera’s Big 5 but actually 7), but the current anthology approach to kaiju storytelling in the East means that the Reiwa Era is not likely to have a Big 5 that actually interacts with each other. Furthermore, the box office disappointment of Godzilla King of The Monsters and extenuating Covid circumstances of Godzilla vs Kong means that, by box office, the Monsterverse box office positions Godzilla, Kong, Mothra and nebulous swappable villainous doppelganger (Mechagodzilla, Skar King, Shimo, Spacegodzilla) as its Big Four.

 

The Big Five as a concept only really made sense in the decade between Godzilla: Final Wars and Godzilla 2014. That is the only time in history that those 5 uniquely were set aside for their “prophesied importance.” When the original films were coming out in the 60s and 70s, there certainly was a drive to revisit Rodan, Mothra, Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla in Godzilla sequels, but Gigan also got an immediate follow-up, as was also initially planned for King Kong and Hedorah. The Heisei series only relied on Ghidorah, Mothra and eventually Mechagodzilla and Rodan when Toho lost money introducing new kaiju, and Anguirus almost made it into what eventually became Godzilla vs Destoroyah while a different son of Godzilla than Minya also existed. The Millennium series, as the third time for Mothra, Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla and Rodan, finally set the pattern that The Big Five were the only Godzilla kaiju to reappear in every era (even if Mechagodzilla and King Ghidorah were excised to elseworlds continuities from each other). With Godzilla Final Wars as the end of the franchise and Godzilla 2014 a surprising new beginning, that 10 years codified the Big Five as a group that we expected to see in any sequels to G14. The issue is that announcing Godzilla vs Kong kind of screwed with things on that front as Kong has always had more marquee value than the other four of the Big Five, and his remakes, though divorced from Godzilla, also mapped closely enough on to the Showa, Heisei and Millennium Series. 

 

 

Secondly, you may also notice that the order of that Big Five kept changing, pushing Rodan further and further down essentially. Though of the KOTM crew, Rodan was the only survivor, he only reappeared after Ghidorah’s corpse created Mechagodzilla, Mothra was reborn to help Godzilla and Kong and the new Titan X grounded a whole season of television. Rodan may very well be the central kaiju in season 3 of Monarch Legacy of the Monsters or the Cold War themed spinoff, as he was arguably the main kaiju in Godzilla Singular Point, but he is also the only one in the Big Five that has not appeared outside of an offscreen fridging with Anguirus in a recap section (Planet of the Monsters) in a Japanese feature film since 2004. Ranking the kaiju by importance honestly is difficult because Rodan has this spot no matter what, unless Toho does restructure to include the election winner.

 

Mothra has not appeared in the flesh since then outside of the Monsterverse, but the same trilogy that reduced Rodan to a generic Pteranodon corpse kept her spirit as a central Deus ex machina. Still, there is a valid argument that Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla may be surpassing Mothra overall, and even so, the recent confirmation of Ghidorah’s role in Godzilla Minus Zero, produces an interesting dialectic in regards to his overuse. 

 

Ghidorah is the most overused antagonist, appearing directly in Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs Monster Zero, Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, Rebirth of Mothra, Rebirth of Mothra 3, GMK, Godzilla Final Wars, Godzilla: The Planet Eater, Godzilla King Of The Monsters, and Godzilla Minus Zero with ample stock footage cameos and multimedia presence (Godzilla vs Evangelion, Godzilla The Ride, etc.). These appearances all fall into a variety of contextual subsets based on if Ghidorah is in control of his own mental faculties, if he is from outer space or not, if he is King Ghidorah or a different type, etc. to the point it is simultaneously true that both the Monsterverse and Reiwa had a Ghidorah within a year of each other and that the last time Godzilla fought a villainous King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1991 (last time Godzilla fought a villainous extraterrestrial King Ghidorah in a Japanese live action film was 1972). There is equal parts hunger for and fatigue of Ghidorah’s role as Godzilla’s eternal archenemy.

 

 

Mechagodzilla has the most unambiguous universal appeal/significance. “X vs Mecha-X” is a trope bordering on cliche at this point, and Mechagodzilla himself somehow made it into Ready Player One’s film without Godzilla (or Ultraman who Mechagodzilla fought in the book). Mechagodzilla has also made similar strides to what I pointed out for Viras in my Gamera Big Five video. Mechagodzilla was the last straight up villain and second to last antagonist to Godzilla introduced in the Showa series, and still came after Ghidorah in sequence in the Heisei, Millennium and Monsterverse series. Godzilla’s Reiwa series adapted Mechagodzilla before Ghidorah, and after Ghidorah and Rodan had to share Yamazaki’s first Godzilla the Ride, before Mothra has gotten any treatment from Yamazaki, Mechagodzilla gets the second Godzilla the Ride to himself to explore his fight against Godzilla. (This is especially significant because it took until 2002 for Mechagodzilla to be the only other kaiju/mech Godzilla interacted with in a film, and that has still only happened once since then.) Similarly, the first kaiju/mech to interact onscreen with both Godzilla and Kong was Gorosaurus, but the second one and first in an American film was Mechagodzilla, with Mothra next and Ghidorah and Rodan still not having achieved this. Despite making the least sense in the real world, a mechanical version of Godzilla has the smallest buy-in of any concept.

 

My own personal ranking based on enjoyment would be 1. Rodan, 2. Ghidorah, 3. Godzilla, 4. Mechagodzilla, 5. Mothra, but as I hope I have justified sufficiently, this is almost meaningless to say. If I do videos or later blog points following up on my Godzilla kaiju ranking, the most productive next step would be to rank the incarnations of each of the Big Five against each other, ranking the top 20 Ghidorahs for instance. And that should wait until after Minus Zero comes out for the sake of being thorough.

 

 

Expanding the Big Five into a Big 10 or Big 15 is something numerous people have tried to do, and I am still not sure that I have succeeded, but hear me out. Box office appeal is the primary metric for the Big Five, and so, logically movie attendance in Japan should be a consideration for expanding the Big Five, in which case the top 10 films are King Kong vs Godzilla (12.55 million), Godzilla 1954 (9.61 million), Godzilla Raids Again (8.34 million), Mothra vs Godzilla (7.20 million), Shin Godzilla (5.69 million), Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster (5.41 million), Invasion of Astro Monster (5.13 million), Godzilla Minus One (5.04 million), Ebirah: Horror of The Deep (4.21 million) and Godzilla vs Mothra 1992 (4.20 million) (https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/comments/1o75xmh/godzilla_series_japanese_box_office_charts/). 

 

In addition to the Monsterverse’s US and international appeal, KKvsG’s top placement means we can certainly keep Kong in the 6th slot, and while this list keeps Ghidorah, Mothra and Rodan pretty central, Anguirus’ debut film is in the top 3. I am hesitant to give Anguirus a slot here because he is not that popular in Japan (especially compared to Baragon, who, in turn, is less popular in the US), but he has been in as many films as Rodan and serves a similar role as “dinosaur inspired friend to Godzilla,” and he is the only one we can promote from this data. (For the American side of things, Anguirus has an almost cameo in the Monsterverse where a skeleton with his head appeared in Godzilla’s temple when it exploded, and Anguirus won the 2024 Toho Kingdom Hall of Fame vote, beating out Hedorah and Gigan.)

 

If we adjust and take out the films that only featured members of the Big Five, the top 10 films are KKvsG, Godzilla Raids Again, Ebirah Horror Of The Deep, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Son of Godzilla, GMK, Godzilla 2014, and Godzilla vs Biollante, but GvB is about the point where we are getting into box office disappointments. This list confirms my other suspicion that the Son of Godzilla character, be it named Minilla or Godzilla Junior, is important glue in the franchise, so the 7th place spot I have earmarked for him stays (Anguirus being number 8). Put a pin in Spacegodzilla, Destoroyah, and Biollante for a moment; it makes more sense to get back to them after another Toho Kingdom indulgence. In a poll from 2020 with over 100 votes as to which kaiju should be considered the next five in a Big 10, Anguirus earned first place with 22 votes, Gigan second place with 20, Minya 12 (but Godzilla Jr 3 so our combined Son of Godzilla archetype gets 15), then Baragon with 11, Destoroyah 8, Biollante 7, and that is enough for the sake of this discussion. 

 

 

Gigan is another strong contender for a Big 10. He first appeared prominently in a film featuring King Ghidorah (though low attendance overall, it is the highest attendance of the Champion Fest era of the Showa series) and then got a direct sequel (kind of) and multiple appearances on Zone Fighter. The addition of Godzilla and Gigan together into Jet Jaguar vs Megalon and Zone Fighter indicates that, at least of the available suits, Toho considered them the quintessential hero and villain…for at least one year in the 70s. Gigan was prominent in Godzilla Final Wars, but there was no Heisei appearance, and the other continuities of Gigan have been in expanded multimedia material similar to Viras in the Gamera series. Still, multiple creatives working on the Monsterverse have voiced desire to bring Gigan into the universe, and the various repaints of Gigan are carrying the Godziburst toyline on their back, so the number 9 spot going to Gigan seems fair to me.

 

On April 10th, 2021, there was a Japanese popularity ranking, surveying modern favorites in the franchise. With 5730 votes and a two-week survey period, this is the most objective of the sources I have brought into this investigation today. The top ten films according to a modern audience (which should thus influence a modern Big 10) were Shin Godzilla (914 votes), Godzilla 1954 (662 votes), Godzilla vs Destoroyah (655), Godzilla vs Biollante (645), GMK (288), Godzilla Final Wars (274), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II (212), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (208), Mothra vs Godzilla (202) and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (183). 

 

The Heisei series has been integral to Toho’s internal marketing of the character ever since they came out, and its new creatures Biollante, Spacegodzilla and Destoroyah deserve consideration for the last spot because even with no reappearances (yet), they have greater staying power than the Millennium kaiju (Orga and Megaguirus). GMK’s position vindicates Mothra and Ghidorah’s popularity, but also implicates Baragon as a profitable asset, and it is probably fairest to have Anguirus and Baragon share the number 8 spot, because where one is popular, the other is an afterthought basically. It is very difficult to narrow down who of the three Heisei kaiju should get that lost slot. The Monsterverse would otherwise be a kingmaker, but I do not really know if the confirmed impending revival of Spacegodzilla in Godzilla x Kong Supernova matters as much to the overall state of the franchise. Toho is introducing the eight new monsters this month before the new Spacegodzilla has the chance for so much as a trailer, and IF Toho truly does intend for the winner of the contest to be a new franchise mainstay, they would supplant Spacegodzilla here. 

 

Biollante and Destoroyah each have interesting rhetorical situations, Biollante being the result of a similar contest that actually also inspired the Ultra series kaiju Leogon, while Destoroyah was the (retconned) logical extension of the Oxygen Destroyer and also went through several drafts that would have seen him interact with Anguirus. Godzilla vs Biollante is consistently a critical darling in Japan and America, and I would give Biollante the edge just for having half the theatrical attendance of Godzilla vs Destoroyah but as much, if not more, staying power.

 

So, with these next five, I would rank them a little differently. Kong should really have his own ranking inclusive of his opponents, but Son of Godzilla includes Minya, the three different suits for Godzilla Junior, Zilla Jr, Godzilla Filius, etc, so that would be its own post or video, as would the different incarnations of Anguirus. I will just rank the rest now. I like Biollante more than Destoroyah, but then Gigan, Spacegodzilla, and Baragon.

 

There are, of course, a few more secondary kaiju in the franchise: Ebirah, Kumonga, Kamacuras, Hedorah, Jet Jaguar and Megalon had multiple appearances across films, series or official shorts. And Titanosaurus, Orga, Megaguirus, the MUTOs, Skar King and Shimo are still prominent in their own films. The tertiary kaiju and Toho expanded catalog would add Varan, Moguera, Oodako, the giant lizard, the Giant Condor, Shukra, Momagon, The Griffon, Sanda, Gaira, Frankenstein, and so, so many more. That would be its own video to parse. Let us know which of those you would like to see first (a video ranking the incarnations of Ghidorah, the same video but with a kaiju the caliber of Anguirus or a wild obscure ranking like what half of my Gamera kaiju picks were).

 

 

In the meantime, we have a new bottom eight with the potential of rising stars, so let us go through the new contenders, knowing that they will either rise to the top of our lips or die in obscurity like Firelion and Lightning Bug.

 

Though this post is technically more about grouping the different Godzilla kaiju than ranking them, I still did include my best guess of the order of importance of the Big Five as well as my own ranking of the major stars. As we know little about these new kaiju, the order of importance seems to be their billing on the website and the order their silhouettes were first revealed. This is like how, in my Gamera ranking, I had to rank Vaora, Sohra and Bodera fairly low, as I only had access to their designs in a still image. So, the objective ranking is Gigasecto, Candyroy, Gilx, Sagius, Xenolhu, Madomuh, Minacias and Rigedoh, but, for fun, I will introduce them to you in the opposite order.

 

 

Rigedoh is ostensibly a triceratops but resembles a roided up fusion of Godzilla Evolved, Shimo and the Ultra series kaiju Gomora. Rigedoh thawed out of ice, due to global warming, and went through an evolution into its final form, per the information provided on the election website. A whole movie’s worth of context already exists just leading up to Rigedoh using his Dino Trident energy move against Godzilla, so I voted for Rigedoh rather early on in this election process (the first block of voting allows one vote per day between September 16th and October 4th, at which point the top 4 advance to midterms). I like Rigedoh, and I could see him as a suit very easily, but I kind of hope he does not win. 

 

Still, we must recall that the most likely Godzilla for these kaiju to face is Burning Godzilla 2000, and I must admit that a jagged, spiky Burning Godzilla in black and orange would contrast nicely with a muscular, spiky white and pink triceratops. I also appreciate the recent trend of bringing herbivore kaiju into the fray with Therizirus in Ultraman Omega being a Therizinosaurus. I have not voted for Rigedoh a second time, but my second vote was for him.

 

 

My fourth vote overall was for the 48 meter ancient mecha Minacias, which resembles a thorny unicorn. Evidently, it was the peacekeeping guardian of an ancient prehistoric society that they used as a weapon, which wiped them out (bringing to mind Heisei Gamera and Gyaos). Upon its awakening, it passed judgement on modern day weapons testing, misconstrued Godzilla for a weapon of destruction and sought him out to make an example of him. In this case, it feels like the “movie pitch” here necessitates Godzilla, especially as its ‘Electric Damned’ unicorn electricity could beam clash with Godzilla and would effectively target the infrastructure Godzilla would not attack (siphoning energy from communication networks and causing total electrical gridlock). The spindly appendages make this difficult for me to visualize as a suit, but the silhouette is strong; of all the creatures here, I recommend flipping through the front, back and side profiles provided most of all.

 

 

I have joined consensus in declaring that Madomuh is the least unique, clearly just a copyright-able version of Cthulhu (Xenohlu, who we will get to, takes the concept of an eldritch horror interacting with Godzilla to a more fresh place), but Cthulhu vs Godzilla has always been a popular match-up that I would not mind seeing, and Toho inevitably was always going to make their own Cthulhu for this match-up to make money. Madomuh has arisen from the sea, following a period of dormancy, to re-establish itself as a ruler of earth. It can brainwash other lifeforms, is 50 meters tall (these new opponents range from 40 to 60 meters for the most part), and has a self-destructing mutagenic Grand Spore that can enter a creature to bring it under Madomuh’s control.

 

 

So far, Xenohlu is especially popular in the West, and even though I voted for it only third, this is probably my favorite to win and favorite overall. It has telekinesis, causes hallucinations and arrives, seeking out Godzilla out of a “sinister curiosity” about Godzilla’s atomic breath. This is easily the most bizarre and alien concept, as its Abyss Gaze uses a giant eye to override a person’s willpower and disintegrate them. Also, Xenolhu can fly by warping reality with his tentacles. This is almost too inventive to waste on a short film, but the odds of a feature film from a visionary director featuring this kaiju is next to nothing if he loses the poll I would think, so I still hope he wins. Starfish squid is how I would describe this design, and I think they could realize it in suitmation pretty similarly to Pestar from the Ultra series. The 58-meter height also makes Xenolhu more imposing than Madomuh, and the marquee value of “Godzilla vs Cthulhu" is present no matter which of the eldritch abominations wins this election.

 

Sagius is the other mecha, with the general shape being a cross between the Gamera monsters Iris and Legion, as is the centaur to Minacias’ horse. It was seemingly made to fight Godzilla and has drones that can come off its back as well as a variable maser attack from its chest or from its drones in an array. I would wish to actively campaign against Sagius making top 4, because it is a less cool version of the scrapped Asuka Fortress Mecha Mobile Facility with tentacles and smaller ancillary robots. I still voted for Sagius out of the interest of fairness, but I would not do so again.

 

 

Gilx feels like a Spacegodzilla offshoot concept, an extraterrestrial world destroyer that goes to earth to seek Godzilla’s energy (that already has Godzilla’s general build just with Ghidorah inspired features, in this case twin tails, and if he gets his hands on Godzilla’s energy, I suspect he would assimilate him further). Gilx’s goal with Godzilla’s energy is to destroy Earth with a beefed-up version of its Planet-Destroying ray. This is a cool enough monster and seems perfect for a short film (as opposed to a feature), but I find it weird to make Godzilla’s big 70-meter opponent that weighs over 40,000 tons only capable of destroying Earth by using Godzilla’s power. Godzilla’s victory would be ensured in the premise if his power exceeds Gilx’s already.

 

 

Though I cannot verify this, I have heard that Candyroy is especially popular in Japan, and I can see why. A Hedorah type creature composed of candy wrappers in this huggable exterior is the most “late Showa Ultraman” coded thing imaginable, and it satisfies the itch for Hedorah to return in a suitmation format while not making a CGI reimagination irrelevant. Candyroy is exceptionally weird. He looks like Alien Zamu but with a Hedorah skin texture and ranges from 0 to 55 meters. Like Hedorah, he came from space but assimilated an earthly pollution problem upon arriving. Still, like Hedorah, he seems to be a powerhouse, able to turn him body partially into particles to make a Particle Cannon shockwave or turn his arms into swords. Candyroy is neat, and I would like to see him in something. Now may be his best chance, but I figure if he makes it top four, he still has a chance to appear later on down the road.

 

 

Gigasecto was my first vote in this race, because I think he was one of the better concepts, and leading with him in the marketing tied my hands. If, after reading this whole article, Gigasecto still grabs you, then he has a unique appeal that could lead to him landing top 4. I certainly hope so, though he may be too close to Megalon (Megalon appeared in Gemstone’s Godzilla Day short in 2023, so we could do without Megalon lite this soon after). This is a detailed beetle design with six limbs and a tail, and he spent 65 million years feasting on nutrients in the Amazon rainforest before sensing Godzilla and becoming territorial. Like Megalon, his backstory could make him the lesser or greater of two evils, and if we are drawing from Megalon to make Gigasecto, I think it would be neat if Gigasecto and Gilx develop an inexplicable friendship. The Sonic Blade attack seems a little bit out there if it truly is a “vacuum blade that slices through spacetime,” but Megalon’s firepower was on par with that of King Ghidorah, so I should not complain too much. The four arms would make for interesting grappling choreography as well.

 

Well, that is the overview of the Godzilla kaiju as best as I can group them. Let us know if you agree with my drafts for the Big 10 and which of those Big 10 you would like to see ranked individually first. Also, let us know which, if any, of the new eight kaiju appealed to you in the comments below. Stay tuned for more kaiju coverage from a variety of angles in a variety of styles.

Joe’s Pitch for Gamera vs Godzilla Transcript Version

 

By Joe Gibson

 

To celebrate Gamera’s 60th anniversary, I wanted to crosspollenate Gamera’s series with the other Japanese tokusatsu icons. You can read an article of “Gamera As An Ultraman Season” here, (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2025/11/reimagining-gamera-as-ultraman-season.html). And what this is, well on our YouTube page, you can watch my pitch for Gamera vs Godzilla as a video (https://youtu.be/wsBjkE8akPE?si=h569KiP2yfZ2bvUD). But I wanted to also upload it as a blog post here to the effect of the delusion of consumer choice (whatever format you choose to consume this in, the essay itself will not change). This also represents a fun opportunity for a peek behind the curtain for how well I can follow a script as the only changes between this and the video will be whatever intentional or unintentional flourishes added during the recording. With that out of the way, let us begin.

 

Today, to roughly correspond with Gamera Day 2025, I would like to share my very rough pitch for what a Gamera vs Godzilla movie could look like if Kadokawa and Toho both decide to go against their better judgement and give me the keys to the kingdom. Godzilla and Gamera have always been rivals in pop culture, battling at the box office, but there has never been an official movie fight between them, really only a stage show bout, which would actually be debatably canon if this were the Ultra series, but I digress. The thing is Gamera has, somewhat fittingly, always struggled more at the box office, and, where things stand, a dozen movies compared to around 40 and one cartoon that might get a season 2 compared to 3 cartoons and a live action show with more on the way…at this rate, the real life Gamera IP will never be able to stand up to Godzilla. And that is precisely why they should fight in the movies.

 

The Monsterverse as well as the Shin Japan Heroes Universe marketing stint both prove that sticking Godzilla alongside another notable tokusatu icon attracts audience attention, and with both of the latest Godzilla movies setting records for domestic and international Godzilla films, it is clear that there is worldwide demand for giant monsters (or maybe just demand for a Godzilla and Guess Who kind of thing). Gamera vs Godzilla (or probably Godzilla vs Gamera for marquee value) would not only follow up on momentum by virtue of being a Godzilla film released in the 21st century but could also revive the Gamera series into a new Golden Era. I believe that the kaiju genre will be better off for Gamera and Godzilla facing off in the box office once more.

 

Obviously, I am not the first to have this idea. Each series has referenced the other through plot points and aesthetics but also subtle digs at the other creature (the unceremonious executions of turtles Kamoebas and Squirtle in the 2000s Godzilla films and the existence of Zedus as a villainous Not Godzilla in Gamera’s only 2000s film). In fact, in the 90s and again in 2002 there almost was a Godzilla vs Gamera film, but the difficulty came about in the logistics. Again, there was the aforementioned stage show that also involved Gorosaurus, Jiger and Space Gyaos, and I have no idea why Gorosaurus was there (Jiger’s film was contemporaneous, and Gyaos was in the process of becoming Gamera’s archenemy, but Gorosaurus, as a King Kong opponent, is such a weird pull). Anyways, Godzilla and Gamera have also crossed over in the mobile game Godzilla Battle Line for a season promoting Gamera Rebirth and now Godzilla and Gamera are fighting each other and Ultraman in Gigabash, so again there is already a market for this matchup, a guaranteed audience niche as it is. It would be very important to do both kaiju justice though because, as we have seen, turtles in Godzilla films meet mean-spirited ends, and drawing too little from either series will tip the scales or poison the well as to the outcome. 

 

 

This balancing act is important to me because of 2021’s Godzilla vs Kong, a movie that should have a lot more clout in these conversations than it does, because not only did it save movie theaters (at least temporarily) but it also seems to have heavily inspired a lot of the imagery of Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One. GvK balanced its respective series by involving Godzilla and Kong in separate classic subplots that uphold their franchise tropes and  reflect their history. Kong’s story involves humans kidnapping him for opportunistic reasons while he leads us through a new world of special effects, and he eventually winds up perched on a very tall tower, where he jumps down (in this case onto Godzilla) and dies (having his heart stopped by Godzilla), but the now dynamic and repentant Denham-style character risks his own life to revive Kong as foreshadowed by their evolving relationship throughout the movie. Conversely, Godzilla’s plotline is pretty much one of his 70s films: a shady new faction brings a sadistic monster to life that agitates Godzilla, and a ragtag crew of weirdos has to storm the proverbial castle, figure out what is going on, and foil the villains’ plan. However, the version of Mechagodzilla also blends some aspects of his later incarnations. The resulting movie is admittedly a little uneven and not a perfect template but still a notable influence to my approach here.

 

The core of the Gamera series, as I see it, is in how Gamera will fight to his last to protect the children of the Earth and only barely win, having sustained incredible damage every time. Every slash, geyser of blood, represents a fierce devotion and tenacity that sticks with you in that classic show don’t tell sense. The core of the Godzilla series, well that is substantially harder to diagnose since there have been dozens upon dozens of creatives each with their own different understandings of Godzilla, but every good incarnation is persistent to the point of unstoppability in his drive. This matchup would be that of the unstoppable force and immovable object.

 

 

I like the idea of playing up the vulnerability of Gamera to new heights, because truly the turtle suffers immensely in every film and show to a degree that warrants as much of an update as the effects do. Gamera has gotten frozen, been sliced repeatedly, been forcibly impregnated, been crucified, lost an arm multiple times and sacrificed himself even more times than that. Gamera is in an arms race with himself with how many arms he’ll lose.

 

It is a tricky balance to land for this all to not come off as mean spirited, but I think a modern Gamera film should kind of push that limit, and that is where I think it is perfect to have him fight Godzilla, because the only core truth present in every incarnation of Godzilla is that he will keep moving forward and fight until he physically cannot anymore. In Gamera, we have the ultimate underdog to undergo vicious unrelenting attacks, and in Godzilla, we have the ultimate bastard to never cease inflicting that damage. The average Gamera villain is ferocious, but general audiences have never heard about them. Everyone knows Godzilla, and this being an event film, it has to be special and thus more brutal I think than the average Gamera film. It has to be something that celebrates both roles in a way that makes sense.

 

I have long had a really odd idea about how to make Gamera’s suffering integral to a movie that I do not think could work in this premise but want to share anyway to give a sort of indication for the kind of thing I am going for. I am far from an expert on ocean acidification, but I have heard that one of the things it can do is weaken turtle shells. Gamera becomes even more vulnerable to piercing attacks in that scenario, and, as the increasing ocean acidification that Gamera cannot cope with would be something the humans would either be causing or be able to try to prevent, the movie can incorporate themes of man’s relationship with nature as a throughline through every appearance of Gamera’s gummy malformed shell and every fight scene where it utterly fails to protect him. In that sense, the exposition, the action, the creature design, and any liberal characters in the story unite under a common theme. I do not want to get too political in the expression of this idea; it is more about the stakes for Gamera through a shorthand of common environmentalist themes. I am not signing off on vague projections that the Gameras will go extinct by 2053 unless we lower our carbon emissions by 3 percent, nor am I celebrating the increased cruise ship traffic and revenue that will occur once Gamera’s sea habitat melts, and if I did err on either of those sides, I wouldn’t say so on Plan9Crunch. What I want is a movie that explores the relationship between Gamera and humanity, specifically in a fresh new way because we’ve gotten that movie several times, and it has gotten better each time so we gotta keep that upward projection going with creativity and wild swings like they used to do in this series.

 

 

Hopefully, now you understand what I am going for, and I can begin laying out this concept. When Noriaki Yuasa directed 7 out of 8 of the Showa Gamera movies, he injected his own thoughts on the value of children and childlike ideals in contrast to adults and their ideals into those movies. It has become common to criticize his Gamera films for being child friendly and all that that entailed in this specific series. The darker and more serious Heisei series is where many Kaiju fans think any Gamera revival should begin, but I disagree. The most recent projects Gamera the Brave 2006 and Gamera Rebirth 2023 feature Showa (Yuasan) Kaiju and child focused sensibilities with the better effects and literary maturity of the Heisei trilogy. I detest the notion that fans of a series should either avoid resembling or fully ignore a large majority of the series for any reason.  And, in this case, for the “traditionalists” like Hiroyuki Seshita (Gamera Rebirth) or myself, it is impossible to fully divorce new from old.

 

The defining portrayal of Gyaos is what the Heisei series decided, that the ancient Atlanteans created Gyaos as a species that ultimately destroyed them. While I have the utmost respect for Shusuke Kaneko and his team, that concept originated with the Space Gyaos and Terans in Yuasa’s Gamera vs Guiron. Again, with Kaneko’s trilogy, each film is better than any of Yuasa's, but granting respect to the franchise as a whole is attributing and integrating what has worked before. (The tension between the self defense force and Gamera in Gamera: Revenge of Iris is subsequent to that subplot in Gamera vs Jiger, and Gamera Rebirth understood that, drawing from both Gamera vs Jiger and Revenge of Iris in the episode covering that conflict.) Even the goofy kids work in context because, done right, it magnifies the stakes and terror of a disaster to have children as the point of view. Godzilla vs Hedorah does that extraordinarily well, juxtaposing horrific pollution imagery with a goofy child, and with this in mind, there is no single excuse to exclude children from a Gamera movie at this point outside of every artist’s own discretion.

 

All that said, for my own part, not every child protagonist is going to be as good as Toru in Gamera the Brave, and I do not really want to stake such an important crossover movie solely on a goofy kid that might not be able to act and a goofy tone that might not resonate. I will have a traditional heroic adult leading man in the vein of Kojiro Hongo from Gamera vs Gyaos, but a prevalent motif in the Showa Gamera films as well as GtB and Rebirth is that adult humans are to be morally understood through their proximity to and acceptance of the ideas of the children. The childish scientists in Gamera vs Zigra are useful because they have become like the children, and Tazaki from Gamera Rebirth grows to care about the children as his arc in the show. 

 

The way to reach the Kaiju audience with an earnest and focused Gamera story would be to rehabilitate these concepts and put simply, have an adult fighting to save a group of children for the entire movie but crucially every major plot point where he saves them has to be because he learned from them, their distinct outlook especially in how the kids in these movies always know Gamera is looking out for them. We will juxtapose this human protagonist with Gamera because their goal is the same, both will be vulnerable, and the only way to achieve this goal of furthering the future generation will be to work together. That is a very simple story, but I have some ideas to make it resonate (keep in mind, fully untested ones, since I have not written fiction for any publication, nor been anything more than a paid extra in film).

 

People always criticize the human characters in kaiju movies, and Godzilla is the archetypal kaiju for most people, so the discourse always amounts to “Godzilla Minus One is the first movie to have good human characters, etc.” I think the human characters of the Godzilla series the vast majority of the time have had good writing with competent establishing scenes and little in the way of contradiction to the logic and thematic value of their progression through the story. Having watched the same movies as many commentators and yet feeling as differently as I do, I will hazard a guess that the solution to this problem isn’t that dozens of writers and directors in one of the longest running franchises ever have all made the same mistakes creating characters; instead the issue is more likely to be that the conventions of the genre including sympathetic expressive monsters splits the focus and that ultimately the reason for that knee jerk response is that the humans are seldom the best part of the movie and thus liable to be someone’s least favorite part. 

 

In the recent Monsterverse films, Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Ford Brody has a complicated background shown in the film that informs his choice to join the military as well as the distance he keeps from his family, Kyle Chandler’s Mark Russell has an arc of forgiving Godzilla for collateral damage that serves the themes of coexistence in the movie while contrasting other key characters that fail to learn his lesson, and Alexander Skarsgard’s Nathan Lind has a textbook but very effective arc where he slowly and visibly takes responsibility for Kong. To toss all of that aside without even addressing it and say “the humans were bad, but I really liked when Godzilla started wrestling” is reductive but ultimately very human. Godzilla Minus One grounds Godzilla within Shikishima’s perspective to the point that the finer aspects of Godzilla’s characterization go unstated in the film’s exposition, only existing in the background of the scene (such as how Godzilla only kills the people on Odo Island who shot at him and seems to understand that Tachibana and Shikishima did not).

 

 

So here is where I want to take a swing in this hypothetical movie no one will ever give me free reign on. Many have stated that Minus One is the only film where they did not root for Godzilla, instead just wanting to see the humans succeed. I understand it would be very difficult to recapture that, but there are more options here than have been considered. I want the ultimate underdog Gamera, the ultimate vicious force in Godzilla, and I want people to not only care about the characters but prefer watching them to watching Godzilla. I think, pending proper experimentation, the way to solve this is to have the kaiju fight be so brutal, it is actually hard to watch. Then, by default, not only do you want to watch the humans, but you are fully on their side. 

 

Specifically, I think that the structure of this movie should be that Godzilla is attacking a city that the lead and the kids cannot escape from almost the entire time, and, when Gamera comes in to defend them, Godzilla just beats him up and resumes meticulously dismantling the city intermittently. Rather than give Godzilla an absurd amount of screentime, I think we let him do something very brutal, make it look like we will cut away but linger just a little bit longer every time to build up that sense of dread. In that sense, Godzilla here will be essentially a slasher villain, scoring gory finishers on the turtle and whatever human characters are expendable for this pitch. Godzilla has his fans of course, and this characterization will still be a logical offshoot of his previous behaviors, but I do not want the audience to root for him here.

 

And that is for an additional reason. I can’t write this pitch to where Godzilla wins, but having him dominate every round in the hardest fight Gamera has ever had, should satiate Toho. There is such a thing as too much, and I would be very curious to find out where that limit is because Gamera usually suffers a lot more than Godzilla does in his movies. But, if done correctly, the sense of catharsis in a Gamera win would be palpable.

 

The Godzilla rampages wherein he relies on his atomic breath to slice the buildings are a good show of force for his best weapon, but they are less personal than when he relies on his teeth and claws with some blasts of the atomic breath for emphasis. At the same time, this Godzilla is fighting Gamera who also has limbs and a ranged attack in the form of fire breath. I think, in order to make these beasts complimentary, that not only would we reduce Godzilla’s atomic breath usage considerably, but we make it like the puffs of atomic mist that it was in the first film. It would resemble Gamera’s fire breath, and so, in their first showdown, you would expect their attacks to work equally well and cancel each other out, but a wisp of nuclear energy is going to negatively affect Gamera more than a blast of fire would Godzilla, so it still means Gamera has to rely on his intellect to counteract Godzilla’s atomic breath. We get to include and then subvert a beam lock scenario almost immediately.

 

 

I would want a ferocious look for Godzilla (the Minus One design would frankly be perfect, but the proximity to Minus One could be deceptive, so otherwise, a sharper melee oriented design inspired from the 1955 Godzilla Raids Again suit would work). Gamera can be as cute or as fierce looking as necessary; the only notes I have for that would be that he should have the shell but also tusks and either notable use of his tail or else very sharp turtle claws and actually probably both. And, because this is the motif I want to reinforce, yes Godzilla will tear off those claws and perforate the shell, because it is Gamera’s heart, not his vital and defensive organs that will earn him a victory. That said, it would be nice to see Gamera use his tusks for something this time, so maybe we can have him slash one of Godzilla’s eyes at one point late in the battle. 

 

I have kind of been all over the place building up my vision for this film, and I apologize for that, but I think I have made clear what I am aiming for and can now go more into specifics. Within the destruction of a Godzilla attack, a sympathetic and open-minded adult man tries to bring himself and a few children to safety, having to rely on his wits and ultimately the insights of children to survive. The next step is naturally to put this into a structure to best emphasize the characters, motifs and themes. 

 

Some permutation of the three act hero’s journey is usually ideal for the type of story this is, except that in a strict survival scenario with a small cast of mostly children and only two major monster combatants, finding threshold guardians and mentor characters will be difficult. If there are any other major human characters, I would prefer them to be part of the group from the beginning and die for either acting against the children or failing to integrate their outlook (rather than the “adding allies and enemies in the middle of act 2” that usually happens). The simplest way to play this would be to have Gamera as the mentor make psychic contact with the leads in act one. 

 

We could use the franchise shorthand of a magatama bead or, playing into a horror movie aesthetic, Gamera could appear to the children in a dream as a warm presence that Godzilla then invades to foreshadow the fear his rampage will bring. (Such a scene would also be similar to one from Yuasa’s Gothic Shojo horror movie The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch.) Casting Godzilla in Michael Myers esque shadow until a full reveal at the start of act two could also allow us to include a scene of the children drawing Godzilla, fearful of his arrival, such as the Heisei series notably had.

 

We would also have to set up some Chekov’s artifacts and locations to enable later payoffs as early as possible. The boys in Gamera vs Guiron have a cap gun that they later use, and it was important to see them use it on Earth before they pull it out on Tera. That was a cheesy relic of its time there, so I would be very curious to find out how far we could push a plot point like this in a more serious film; is there a chance that the right amount of desperation and film trickery could make an audience take a toy gun shooting at a real monster seriously? I need to emphasize that the point of it would be the adult assimilating and growing from the way children see the world, grasping to that childlike innocence in the depths of despair.

 

For the primary environment in this film, I am picturing an apartment high rise or at least some building with multiple levels. As such, it will be important later on in the movie to understand the primary and secondary methods of travel throughout the setting and also how the kids (and thus the audience) should feel about them before and after they are relevant. Again, I am completely untested when it comes to this type of artistic expression, but I think it is important to give the audience a chance to be scared before they have to be for how much more effective the suspense can make the actual scare. If for instance, I want a big kill set piece to occur on a staircase, to properly prime the audience for that scene, I should cast the staircase in a negative tone beforehand and have nothing happen the first time.

 

By this point, it is probably sounding like a horror movie, specifically I will draw a bit from slasher movies, and, yes I am aware that the human characters in those films are often also criticized very strongly in the film discourse. But, within the genre, the characters that are written to matter, mean something and say something like Sidney Prescott or Laurie Strode, those characters are celebrated. So this is a worthy pulpy swing to try on a project like this.

 

Because a pitch really cannot get across themes in the same subtlety as a film, this might come across stilted. Please, leave your impressions and constructive notes of criticisms as comments below. In any case, the film would begin with the kids in some paracosm playtime through a vent or crawlspace that exists within their apartment or high rise or multi level building or whatever the setting is that fits these specifications. Notably, they consider using the staircase in their game but regard it with a sick dread that the film’s cinematography will reciprocate, motivating them to go to that aforementioned crawlspace. Specifically, this scene needs to get across a shortcut between locations, and, if it would work, we can work some esoteric spiritual foreshadowing of the danger into their game, whether Gamera’s warm presence reaches in or they are imagining they are running from a Beast that will soon show up. If not for that, it would be difficult to organically introduce much foreshadowing in the way of Godzilla appearing to this location, but I really like the idea of a scene where the adults are arguing and only a child has the clarity of mind to look at the television screen reporting on Godzilla’s approaching rampage.

 

When Godzilla does arrive, he will destroy a building, as we are accustomed to seeing, but we will immediately juxtapose that image with Gamera as a benevolent figure, possibly reaching out to the children in a dream. Gamera’s full arrival would come after Godzilla’s and be a turning of the tide…until Godzilla almost immediately gets the upper hand over Gamera, spraying blood with deep claw gashes and knocking the turtle out to resume destroying everything. We can figure out the details later.

 

The main character of this film should have something to learn from these kids, and so, for the sake of time, we will just say that at a base level we will show this by him being unhappy and unimaginative but the kids being happy and imaginative. The kids’ innocence will fuel Gamera and also redeem this man, but for redemption to be necessary, so is culpability as we mentioned, and the simplest way to get this across is to have his job somehow be of the same kind of nuclear testing that created Godzilla. That way, he brings knowledge, understanding and also a tense karmic suffering.

 

One important aspect of slashers that often goes overlooked is that the rampage has to be related to events in the backstory of the characters. This is intrinsic to every sequel, but also original films: Michael Myers starts his story 15 years before the main plot of  Halloween, much of the first Nightmare On Elm Street is about uncovering what happened to Fred Krueger that motivates his spree, and Pamela Voorhees would have no reason to kill if her son Jason had not drowned before Friday the 13th’s present day. Godzilla lends himself to this trope exceptionally well because there almost always is that unspoken tension of how we as humans hurt or displaced him with nuclear tests long before the story begins and his revenge is inevitable. Godzilla Final Wars shows us how easily we can include that as a subplot just from expository innuendo, so we do not have to waste much precious screentime to introduce this plot point except to have an adult character mention it.

 

This also plays into the practical concern in most slashers of “how can a bloodthirsty serial killer be the arbiter of morality” that plagues Friday the 13th, Halloween and even Universal’s Kharis tetralogy in a way that marries Yuasan Gamera to this slasher format. The new generation of children has no culpability for crimes against nature and humanity, and it is the corruption of children into adults that extends this cycle, with the inverse, adults humbling themselves to be more like children the only possible way out of it. Yuasa grew up witnessing the change of adults around him responding to World War 2, a younger generation than figures like Ishiro Honda who themselves had to grapple with their own role in the propaganda of the time. Yuasa’s contribution to the genre was a wholesome hero who will always save and uplift the children, but in this new film, the adults that refuse to save the children or learn from them and Gamera will be destroyed by Godzilla. And as I already said, Gamera will eventually prevail over Godzilla, but he needs the help of our adult main character to do so, however esoterically that will actually play out.

 

 

The adult male lead will have to choose to step up for these kids, and the other adults around them have to be examples of not taking responsibility for the kids and their own collective culpability for Godzilla. It would be tricky to adjust the blame and sympathy the film can fairly cast on the lead whether or not he has any responsibility for Godzilla’s appearance in this continuity and who the kids are to him. The audience is not going to like a guy who considers leaving behind his own children in a tragedy but should become endeared to a man who cannot bring himself to leave behind children who have nothing to do with him. The children could be related to the expendable side characters or just random kids the man comes across.

 

He should initially look down on the children’s use of the crawlspace/vents to get around, but, once Godzilla destroys the staircase and an unlucky adult victim there, he has to crawl around with the kids and takes to it surprisingly well by adapting to their movements to the point that he successfully gets them out of Godzilla danger. As we know, their shortcut leads to some other point in the building where they will feel safe enough to advance the story with some dialogue where the adult hero is unable to explain Godzilla to the children but they are able to begin to explain Gamera to him.

 

It should be worth mentioning that while horror wants to shock and surprise an audience, morality tales will be simple and predictable, so the direction should delineate scenes for user accessibility. Gamera especially is a children's fantasy, and I do not want to scare them too much, so I will not try to hide the scary moments. The suspenseful scenes that do not end in kills will be shot from low angles to emphasize children’s perspective and how small humans are compared to Godzilla, but the kill or incapacitation scenes will take a higher more full screen camera view that should get predictable enough in the flow of this structure. I feel like this would be a fun challenge for a director, especially in scenes where Gamera is in the role of the underdog and then turns the tide on Godzilla.

 

In any case, the rampage reaches their building, and Godzilla swipes through the window and incidentally looks at the leads. Gamera wakes up, we have the subverted beam lock where Gamera looks to be boiled alive by the end of it, and Godzilla can use his tail to lasso Gamera’s head into another knockout. I think a cool kill to inflict on one of the human characters would be to have one get sucked out of the building into the beam while Godzilla is charging it up. By that same token, the next major “kill” scene would be on that rickety staircase the kids are scared of, with Godzilla’s hands reaching out to crush someone. Finally, when they reach the lowest level of the building, Godzilla’s toe can menace the lead characters; I think Godzilla’s toes can be well utilized in action scenes to destroy people, places or things. Throughout all of this, there will be moments where we can see Godzilla attacking, Gamera defending and their fight throughout all of this. During the staircase setpiece, Gamera will look at the human lead and the children, and he can think about that moment for the rest of the film until the end, where they witness Gamera losing the arm and falling over. The adult lead, while holding the children close to him in the rubble, will reach out to Gamera, hoping and praying on his name, believing that the encroaching glow through the dusty fog is Gamera and not Godzilla.

 

At this point you may be wondering how literal we rational adults can really afford to take this story of the kids who already know of Gamera before he arrives trying to survive a natural disaster especially because it all leads up to that image of the protagonist facing the formerly Godzilla filled cloud and reaching out to Gamera. The ambiguity is not essential to this pitch, but it was an inevitable unintended deconstruction of those original films that the kids’ omniscient perception of Gamera could be warped or otherwise unreliable. It was also an intentional aspect of the Heisei Gamera films’ ending; do you believe in Gamera’s victory?

 

I like the idea of letting the film end on that image and relying on the audience to have faith Gamera won; that way the audience can experience some part of the protagonist’s journey. This could also be a loophole to allow Toho to make a film where Godzilla loses (if the film does not confirm it). However, it would be pretty jarring for a Gamera film to end with the possible implication that Gamera failed and Godzilla will kill the children, so after the credits featuring a new recording of “Song of Gamera,” we will have the actual last scene of the movie, confirming Gamera won through a conversation of the remaining characters that confirms the main character did learn the lesson his arc revolves around. In practice, this is actually a reference to 2002’s Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla where the actual movie did not complete the story, and the denouement, given through a post credits scene, actually finishes the movie and the lead character’s arc resolution. It has always been neat to me to have a movie that is not really over until the entire runtime (counting credits) has come and gone.

 

I will make no claims that this is the best story to tell with or about these two characters or even that this is a good story. The interesting facet about this exercise are the constraints I put on myself for being a fan of both franchises and how that manifested as an esoteric examination of childlike faith in a savior. I can cite where those themes come from in the original run of Gamera films and even some Godzilla films where Godzilla fills that role or the antagonistic role in that kind of story, but it still does feel weird to go there. Godzilla vs Reptilicus or Godzilla vs Yongary would be much easier to write; yet at the same time, there is still also a lot less to make those match-ups special. Every devoted fan such as myself would have a different idea how to make this work, and I wonder if perhaps the best way to get the best movie even at the expense of the franchise references and themes would be to contract someone for this who is not a dogmatic fan and has less restraints to do whatever they want. Still, this is my pitch, and I would like to hear your thoughts on it and your own opinions on how to write this fight.