, or sometimes known as is a giant monster, or kaiju, and the main protagonist of the Heisei era of the Godzilla franchise.
One of the last living members of a prehistoric species of dinosaurs called Godzillasaurus that used to inhabit Lagos Island, Godzilla was exposed to a massive dose of radiation through being teleported to Bering Sea by humans from the year 2204 and subsequent crash of Soviet nuclear submarine in 1970s, mutating him into an enormous atomic beast single-mindedly set on completely destroying Japan and locating other living members of his kind.
Over the course of his series, Godzilla evolved from being purely the main antagonistic force to being anti-hero merely happening to save humanity by defeating other monsters. He ultimately met his demise in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah after absorbing the uranium deposits from Baas Island, dying over the course of days as his body began melting down, being succeeded by Godzilla Junior.
Overview Name When Godzilla vs. Biollante had been released, Godzilla at the time was commonly called the . This name would be used to dub Godzilla Junior's adult form in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). For Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, the Baby Godzilla's species is named "Godzillasaurus", a combination of "Godzilla" and the suffix -saurus, derived from the Greek term "saûros", meaning "lizard" in English.
In Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, after absorbing massive amounts of radiation, Godzilla reaches a burning state that causes his body to slowly melt down. Although it is usually known as , some concept art refers to this form of Godzilla as .
Character's biography In the continuity of the Heisei series, Godzilla is the second member of his kind to appear, succeeding the original Godzilla that attacked Tokyo in 1954 and was subsequently killed by the Oxygen Destroyer. Both individuals were originally of a species of theropod dinosaur called Godzillasaurus that survived the K-T Extinction, and were living in the Marshall Islands. While one Godzillasaurus would go on to be mutated by the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test and become the Godzilla that would attack in 1954, the other would be living on the island of Lagos in 1944 when Japanese and American forces fought there during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign in World War II. Stumbling into the middle of a naval exchange between the two military forces, the Godzillasaurus drove the Americans away, inadvertently saving the Japanese soldiers, only to be grievously injured by naval gunfire.
Soon after, a group of time travelers called the Futurians from the 23rd century arrived on Lagos Island. As part of a scheme to prevent Japan from becoming a global economic superpower in the future, the Futurians sought to erase Godzilla from history, seeing him as the main obstacle in their plan. They teleported the Godzillasaurus to the Bering Sea, believing it would prevent it from being mutated by Castle Bravo. However, the Futurians misinterpreted this Godzillasaurus as being the same individual that would become the 1954 Godzilla; this new Godzillasaurus would remain in a comatose state beneath the sea until a Soviet nuclear submarine crashed into its vicinity in the 1970s. The radiation from the submarine ended up mutating the dinosaur into a new Godzilla anyway. In 1984, Godzilla would be roused to the surface by a volcanic eruption, setting in motion the events of The Return of Godzilla (1984).
The Return of Godzilla (1984) Godzilla makes his first appearance when the eruption draws him to the surface near Daikoku Island. His emergence is witnessed by the crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Yahata Maru, and though Godzilla ignores the ship, sea lice mutated and enlarged from feeding on his irradiated blood invade it and slaughter the crew. Godzilla later attacks a Soviet nuclear submarine, which causes an international crisis across Japan. Godzilla finally arrives in Japan, coming ashore to feed on a nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. His attack is stalled, however, when he is distracted by a homing signal from a passing flock of birds. Godzilla attacks again later that night, this time rampaging through the heart of Tokyo.
He obliterates a Japan Self-Defense Forces attack force that attempts to stop him, and then battles the Super X, an advanced aerial vehicle. The Super X nearly kills Godzilla using radiation-numbing cadmium armaments, but a radioactive lightning storm caused by an accidental orbital nuclear strike by the Soviets revitalizes him. Godzilla destroys the Super X, but is then lured out of Tokyo and to Mount Mihara on Ōshima Island by an artificial homing signal. A subsequent controlled volcanic eruption buries Godzilla alive in the mountain.
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) Samples of Godzilla's DNA are recovered from the ruins of his rampage, falling into the hands of multiple organizations and leading to the creation of an Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria (ANEB) and a plant-hybrid entity known as Biollante. Five years later, Godzilla is released from Mt. Mihara by terrorists from the genetics corporation BioMajor, and immediately begins attacking Japan. He confronts Biollante in her rose form at the Lake Ikeda laboratory of Dr. Genishiro Shiragami, defeating her easily.
Godzilla then begins making his way to Tsuruga to feed on a nuclear power plant, only to be redirected to Osaka by the psychic Miki Saegusa. During his rampage through Osaka, Godzilla is successfully injected with a dose of the ANEB by Colonel Goro Gondo. The ANEB does not immediately take effect, but a second battle with a regenerated Biollante at Wakasa Bay heats up Godzilla's body temperature, allowing the ANEB to weaken him. While Biollante disintegrates, Godzilla weakly trudges his way back into the ocean.
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) The ANEB leaves Godzilla in a semi-comatose state for two years, with the JSDF constantly monitoring him. The Futurians finally arrive in 1992 Japan to enact their plot to eliminate Godzilla; though they don't prevent his existence, their actions do lead to the creation of King Ghidorah, a genetically engineered three-headed dragon created from the DNA of an extraterrestrial found on Venus in the distant future. Ghidorah is unleashed upon Japan to destroy it, but Godzilla is purged of the ANEB when he destroys and feeds off of a nuclear submarine deployed by the Teiyo Group.
The sub's radiation energizes Godzilla and further increases his size, and he makes landfall in Hokkaido where he fights and defeats Ghidorah in a valley. Godzilla then rampages from Sapporo to Tokyo, where he is confronted by Mecha-King Ghidorah, a cyborg version of Ghidorah piloted by the benevolent Futurian Emmy Kano. Ghidorah carries Godzilla out to sea, with Emmy escaping and Ghidorah being destroyed in the process.
Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992) Only a few short months later, a meteoroid crashes in the Izu–Ogasawara Trench near where Godzilla is resting, rousing him to the surface. He comes upon the egg of the primordial divine moth Mothra as it is being transferred to Japan from Infant Island of Indonesia by the Marutomo Company's ship, and witnessses it hatch into Mothra's larval form.
Godzilla attacks Mothra unprovoked, and nearly kills her until Battra, Mothra's dark and ferocious male counterpart, intervenes. While Mothra escapes in the confusion, Battra pulls Godzilla into an underwater brawl, where stray blasts from Godzilla's atomic breath and Battra's prism eye beams create a giant crack on the Philippine Sea Plate. The two monsters are swallowed up by the fissure, but still alive, and instead push their way through Earth's mantle before emerging from the crust.
Godzilla emerges from Mount Fuji and decimates a JSDF force that attempts to slow his advance. He makes his way to Yokohama to confront Mothra and Battra, who have metamorphoses into their imago forms, at Yokohama Cosmo World. Godzilla disrupts an airborne duel between the two and overpowers them both, prompting the moths to forge an alliance against him. Mothra and Battra immobilize Godzilla with a plethora of energy-based attacks, and then carry him away from the city. Godzilla kills Battra mid-flight, forcing Mothra to drop them both into the ocean.
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) Godzilla remains in the ocean for a year before finally reappearing in 1994, after intercepting a bio-acoustic signal from Adonoa Island, a landmass in the Bering Strait once used by Soviet as a dumping ground for radioactive waste. He finds the source of the signal, a living Godzillasaurus egg, being smuggled away by scientists from the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center (UNGCC), a special branch of the United Nations designed to study and combat Godzilla and other monsters.
After battling and incapacitating Rodan, a Pteranodon irradiated by the island's radioactive contamination, Godzilla pursues the egg to the UNGCC's headquarters in Kyoto. En route, Godzilla is confronted by Mechagodzilla, a massive combat mecha modeled after the former created by the UNGCC from the remains of Mecha-King Ghidorah and controlled by its military branch, G-Force.
Mechagodzilla's large assortment of weaponry grievously injures Godzilla, but he manages to overcome the mecha by using his nuclear pulse to disable it. He then arrives in Kyoto where the egg has hatched into the juvenile Godzillasaurus, which Azusa Gojo named him Baby Godzilla. Sensing Baby is afraid of his presence, Godzilla leaves the city and returns to the ocean. G-Force later lures Godzilla into a second confrontation with Mechagodzilla in Makuhari using Baby as bait, but backfires after Rodan transformed into Fire Rodan to intercepts the UNGCC transport containing Baby and Gojo after responded to Baby's call.
Later, Godzilla is soon overpowered by Mechagodzilla, now merges with Garuda to becomes Super Mechagodzilla, which paralyzing him by electrically rupturing a second brain in his hips and then mortally wounds him with a merciless barrage of energy weapons. Rodan, who was injured by Mechagodzilla, responds to Baby's call again, but Mechagodzilla shoots him down onto Godzilla. The dying Rodan sacrifices himself by transfers his power into Godzilla, which promptly regenerates and further energizes the latter's second brain, granting Godzilla a empowered variant of his atomic breath, which he uses to destroys Mechagodzilla.
Now unopposed, Godzilla locates Baby and expresses relief at finally encountering another of his kind. Despite Baby initially being afraid of Godzilla's gigantic size, Miki telepathically urges him from afar to follow Godzilla. Adopting Baby as his own, Godzilla departs with his son into the sea.
Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) In 1995, Godzilla and now grown-up Baby Godzilla, known as Little Godzilla, having settles on Baas Island, a lush island in the South Pacific that Godzilla often visited due to its close proximity and similarities to his former home on Lagos Island. He raises Little there in relative peace for a year. A group of UNGCC researchers, including Miki, who warned by the Cosmos about the arrival of an extraterrestrial clone of Godzilla created from samples of his cells, which being sent off into outer space and then fusing with an crystalline entity of unknown origin called SpaceGodzilla, come to the island to try enact Project T, the placement of a telepathic amplifier on the back of Godzilla's head that can be used to control the beast and keep him away from Japan.
The operation is interrupted by the arrival of SpaceGodzilla. Intent on killing his progenitor and conquering the Earth, SpaceGodzilla initially attacks Little to lure Godzilla into a confrontation, then quickly overwhelms Godzilla with a myriad of psychic attacks. SpaceGodzilla then imprisons Little in a cage of crystals, and the enraged Godzilla, after failing to free his son, pursues SpaceGodzilla to Kyushu.