Gatanothor

Ultraman Pictorial Report 2003 pg 86-99, called by Yuzare, is a powerful Kaiju and the final antagonist of Ultraman Tiga.
Subtitles:
*Gatanothor: 
*Magatanothor: 
==Conception==
Gatanothor is based on the Cthulhu Mythos deity, Ghatanothoa, the Lord of the Volcano, whose name is spelled (in Japanese) the same way as Gatanothor, and whose main ability is to petrify those that view him in a manner akin to the gorgons of Greek mythology. Its role, however, as well as fact that Gatanothor's resting place is the submarine ancient city R'lyeh, is derived from Ghatanothoa's father, Cthulhu.
===Design===
Gatanothor's main design is a nautilus and ammonite. Its head in an upside down position is a reference to Gatanothor's habit of looking down towards humanity.
The porous texture that covers Gatanothor's shell are shared features with Golza, Melba, Galra, and the Zoiger, as all of them are related as Ultra-Ancient Kaiju by nature. Unlike Gatanothor, their main reason is to act as a disguise for peepholes for the suit actors to use.
==History==
===Ancient Times===
The Ruler of Shadows, Gatanothor is responsible for the annihilation of the ancient humans that roamed the planet millions of years ago, having surfaced from the mythical city of R'lyeh. After covering the world with perpetual darkness, Gatanothor's reign of terror affected all life on the planet. But when the age of darkness neared its end, Gatanothor, along with its followers (called Zoigers) went into the ancient city of R'lyeh island and hibernated.
===Ultraman Tiga===
During modern times Gatanothor and its brood awoke once more. The Ruler of Shadows sought to have Earth revisit its dark past. But unlike the last time, a titan stood in Gatanothor's way: Ultraman Tiga. The Warrior of Light defied Gatanothor's rule and pledged to fight for humanity. After dismembering one of the Zoiger, Daigo summoned his courage, and the love he had for the entire human race. Ultraman Tiga arrived to face Gatanothor, but the Warrior of Light only had Daigo's light to power him, and he was easily defeated, despite the usage of the Deracium Beam Torrent and a modified Zeperion Beam in his Power Type form. Gatanothor then used a beam which turned Tiga back into a stone statue. Bellowing in triumph, Gatanothor struck the statue with one of his tendrils, knocking it down and leaving it to sink deep into the ocean. 
Gatanothor now stood unopposed and allowed its darkness to sweep across the globe. There was nothing that could stop it or the Zoiger from ruling supreme. But the Ruler of Shadows didn't expect GUTS to band together to help stop the horrific beast. GUTS had enlisted Keigo Masaki, ex-host of Evil Tiga to help with Tiga's revival. His plan failed, but caused the people to unite. With humanity taking up arms and uniting, their hopes manifested into the forms of pure light, and poured into Ultraman Tiga's Color Timer. Ultraman Tiga was revived and later confronted Gatanothor in the ancient city. With great power never before seen, Tiga succeeded in easily sending the Ruler of Shadows to oblivion with a combination of Tiga's Glitter Bomber, two Glitter Banishes, Glitter Zeperion Beam, and finally the Timer Flash Special. The Earth and humanity was saved and the Sparklence disintegrated into dust soon after. 
====Trivia====
*Suit actors: Ryuki Kitaoka (ep. 51), Toru Kadowaki (ep. 52)
*Designer: Hiroshi Maruyama
*Outside of its episodes' title cards, Gatanothor's name is never mentioned in the narration of the episodes. It is instead referred to as the "Ruler of Darkness" to play on his omnipotent nature and sinister powers.
*Gatanothor's roar is a reused and slightly modified Desghidorah roar, which in turn was made of modified elephant trumpets.
*Gatanothor is one of the monsters that makes up Belyudra's body in Mega Monster Battle Ultra Galaxy: The Movie.
**In this appearance, Gatanothor is shrunk down from 150m to match most of the other monsters.
*Gatanothor shares some similarities with Mururoa from Ultraman Taro.
**Both of them defeated an Ultra on their first try. However, while Gatanothor managed to end an Ultra's life, Mururoa did not.
**Both hate light.
**Both are accompanied by their servants to aid them in attacks.
**Both of them are able to cover the Earth's sky with their darkness/black smoke.
*In Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3, Gatanothor is able to shroud the entire screen with its mist. Players need to use the Cheat Machine to change the value to 37 in Custom Mode and will see that there are two selections, Black Gas and Power Up in the R1/L1 section.
===Ultraman Tiga: The Final Odyssey===
Although Gatanothor did not physically appear in the movie, its hatred and anger toward Ultraman Tiga were transferred to Camearra. After knowing Tiga/Daigo had fallen in love with another woman, the unification of the dark energy from R'lyeh allowed her to transform into her monstrous form, Demonthor. 
===Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Adventure NEO===
In the world where Ai Asama resided, the event of Ultraman Tiga was played the same as his own. In it, Gatanothor fought against and was defeated by that world's Tiga in the same way as the original series, but Tiga did not vanished and continue to fight against monster attacks.
Somehow, Gatanothor was resurrected and made its way to the unnamed planet where Ai Asama and Kanegon were stranded on, with Vittorio as an additional party. Gatanothor made its presence known to the three Reionics after Kyrieloid left, fighting Ai's monsters at disposal. Gatanothor easily petrify Agira, lifted Red King in the air and was about to turn the Tiga from Ai's world into stone upon arrival, but Ai and Kanegon's hope, combined with Vittorio's went into Tiga, turning him into Glitter Tiga. As Tiga grow giant, he and Red King Reionic Burst turn the tide of the battle to their favor. Tiga fired his Glitter Zeperion Beam, followed by Red King pounding Earth Crusher to the ground, destroying Gatanothor and freeing this planet from the darkness. Additionally, Gatanothor's destruction also undid Agira's petrification as well.
When Kate revealed that Alien Reiblood had been using Kanegon and Ai as pawns to empower EX Zetton, Vittorio theorized that Reiblood might be the reason behind Gatanothor's reappearance, amongst other alien forces that try to get their hands on Kanegon's Battlenizer.
The same incident is also retreaded in Mega Monster Battle: ULTRA MONSTERS NEO, where Gatanothor first fought against the player's chosen monster before Tiga dashed in and absorbed the lights of the three Reionics to become Glitter Tiga. However, instead of Tiga and the Reionics fought together, he appeared last due to the mystery nature of the player's chosen monster. Nevertheless, Tiga defeated Gatanothor alone in Glitter Zeperion Beam.
===Ultraman Ginga===
Gatanothor's Spark Doll was seen in Dark Lugiel's collection room inside Furuhoshi Elementary School, meaning a version of him fought in the Dark Spark War. It is assumed that he returned to space in his original form after Ultraman Ginga defeated Dark Lugiel.
====Trivia====
*An actual Spark Doll of Gatanothor was sold as part of Premium Bandai in 2016, packaged alongside Spark Dolls of petrified Tiga Power Type and Glitter Tiga.http://p-bandai.jp/item/item-1000101405/
===Ultraman X===
Gatanothor appeared as a Cyber Card in the final episode of Ultraman X. After Ultraman X spoke out to Gomora and striked Greeza right in the center of his chest, Gatanothor, along with all of the other Cyber Cards, traveled to X and united with him. Cyber Gatanothor's power was used to help form the Hybrid Armor and power up the Ultimate Xanadium to defeat Greeza once and for all. Gatanothor, along with the numerous other Cyber Cards and Spark Dolls, then appeared and thanked Daichi as he thanked them. 
===Ultraman Orb Chronicle===
====Chapter 4: 'Fierce Battle! Ishtal Civilization' Arc====
 was one of the Lord Monsters created by Maga-Orochi, representing the element of Darkness. It was sealed away by Ultraman Tiga in the ancient past near the Ishtal Civilization.
Gai arrived on Earth in 1800 BC after receiving his mission from the Voice of Light to stop the revival of the Lord Monsters, and the first was Magatanothor. Jugglus Juggler, who dressed up as a mummy under the alias Nuru Ra Hotep, acted as the leader of the religion , a cult that praises Magatanothor. He spread his teachings of the end days to come to the people of Ishtal, saying Magatanothor will arise and bring destruction. Magatanothor was freed through Dodongo's Kaiju Card which Juggler obtained after Ultraman Orb had defeated it earlier, wreaking havoc and destruction to the buildings of Ishtal. Gai transformed into Orb and fought it in an intense battle that released so much heat the nearby sand turned to glass. Orb defeated it after a tough fight but the battle caused Ishtal to turn into a place known as , as well as spawning the theory of an ancient superscience war that scientists thought of 4,000 years later. Juggler took off his disguise and collected Magatanothor's Kaiju Card while Gai receives Ultraman Tiga's Ultra Fusion Card from the defeated Lord Monster.
====Chapter 6: The Wandering Sun====
=====Ultraman Orb=====
Magatanothor's card is shown to be in possession by Jugglus Juggler, which he obtained 4,000 years prior to the series. The card of Magatanothor was used alongside other Lord Monsters to unveil Maga-Orochi's egg. In the finale, Magatanothor's power is used alongside other Lord Monsters by Magatano-Orochi in its rampaging spree.
====Trivia====
*Magatano-Orochi's tentacles (which was from its blood vein-like features) is confirmed to be from Magatanothor by Kiyotaka Taguchi in his Twitter account.https://twitter.com/TaguchiKiyotaka/status/813275192612954112
*Many believe that Magatanothor's name is a spelling error, thus preferring to call it as . The change of original name is due to the repetition of the Katakana letter "Ga" (ガ), thus making the Gatanothor part being redundant.
*In the original toy catalog release, Magatano-Orochi was mistaken by many fans to be a combination of Maga-Orochi and Magatanothor, due to their names.
*Alongside Maga-Pandon, Magatanothor is largely identical to its original variant, with the Maga-Crystal being the only differences as well as the addition of purple colorings on its shell.
*In the commercial for Juggler's Dark Ring, Magatanothor's Kaiju Card bears Tiga's crest, however the official website for Ultraman Fusion Fight depicted the card with Orb Origin's crest.https://twitter.com/fusionfighterT/status/834637796165898241 This error was fixed later on.
*Despite appearing as a card in the original series, an early depiction of Magatanothor was made by digitally altering an existing photograph of the original breed.
*Alongside Maga-Zetton, Magatanothor was never mentioned in the Pacific Records. This may be due to the fact that they never set foot in Japan.
*In a similar fashion to its predecessor, Magatanothor had also destroyed a civilization, Ishtal.
*Unlike its predecessor, Magatanothor does not come from or fights an Ultra on the sea, instead it comes from and fights an Ultra at a desert as evidence from the melting of sand to glass.
*Although being the largest of Lord Monsters, Magatanothor is 20 meters shorter than its original incarnation.
==Data==
==Other Media==
===Taiketsu! Ultra Hero===
Gatanothor appeared in this game as a playable character. 
Gatanothor.png
===Ultraman Fighting Evolution 3===
Gatanothor appears as a boss character for both the Ultra Mode and Tag-Team Mode. However, he is not playable himself. Mainly, it is because he can't move on land and he has a special attack that can't be blocked. Gatanothor can be defeated by either normal or Glitter Tiga depending on the player's gameplay. 
Default_2.jpg
===NEW GENERATION THE LIVE: Ultraman Trigger STAGE 3===
 pg 118 (2022) was summoned by Carmeara as her last resort to defeat the Ultras. Two parallel world counterparts of Ultraman Trigger, Ultraman Zero, and Ultraman Ribut, as well as Trigger Dark, struggled against it until an Ultra Charge from the audience brought Ultraman, Ultraman Regulos, Ultraman Agul Supreme Version, and Ultraman Tiga to the fight. Regulos used a special move to stun Gatanothor, allowing the others to charge their beams and finish it off together. 
====Trivia====
*Suit actor: Hiroto Miyanaga
*Gatanothor is depicted using a large inflatable suit with additional tentacles on the stage screen behind it. The suit was was based on an illustration by Hiroshi Maruyama to be displayed at TSUBURAYA EXHIBITION 2021 and incorporates an elongated neck to move up and down and a tentacle coming out of its backside, which are elements that Maruyama had wanted to include in the original design, but was unable to due to time and budget constraints. He also previously created similar illustrations using these elements for Cthulu Mythos Exhibition in 2014, which he titled .
===NEW GENERATION THE LIVE: Ultraman Trigger STAGE 4===
Gatanothor (Second Form) was summoned by Absolute Diavolo alongside other monsters. It was defeated by Tiga, Trigger, Camearra and Carmeara. 
==References==
id:Gatanothor
Category:Ultraman F
Category:Ultraman F Kaiju
Category:Belyudra's Body
Category:Antagonists
Category:Kaiju
Category:Villains
Category:Daikaiju
Category:Mollusk Kaiju
Category:Final Kaiju
Category:Ancient Kaiju
Category:Kaiju That Defeated Ultras
Category:Cyber Kaiju
Category:Lord Monsters
Category:Ultra-Ancient Kaiju
Category:Aquatic Kaiju