Minilla

Minilla (ミニラ Minira) is a kaiju that first appeared in Son of Godzilla.

### *Son of Godzilla*

Minilla was an infant member of Godzilla's species inside an egg buried on Sollgel Island. He began emitting a brain wave to call out for Godzilla, which interfered with the scientific equipment of a team of United Nations scientists on the island and caused their weather-controlling experiment to malfunction and trigger a radiation storm. The storm mutated the island's native giant mantises into huge kaiju dubbed Kamacuras, which dug up Minilla's egg and broke it open, intending to eat the hatchling. Fortunately, Godzilla arrived on the island and confronted the Kamacuras, killing two and forcing the third one to retreat. The recently-hatched Minilla came to befriend a human woman living on the island, Saeko Matsumiya, who fed him fruit and gained the ability to summon him with her call. Godzilla decided to raise Minilla as his son and train him to take up his mantle. Godzilla and Minilla took up residence next to a boiling red lake on the island, where Godzilla attempted to teach Minilla how to use his atomic breath. Minilla could only breathe pitiful smoke rings, but Godzilla found that when he stepped on his tail, Minilla fired a full atomic beam. When Saeko was threatened by the surviving Kamacuras, Minilla rushed to her rescue, but could not fight off the Kamacuras. Godzilla soon arrived, and Kamacuras promptly retreated. However, during the struggle Minilla accidentally knocked a boulder into the valley of Kumonga, a giant spider, awakening it.

While his father was asleep, Minilla began to wander the island, only to be ensnared in Kumonga's webbing, along with Kamacuras. Kumonga instantly killed Kamacuras by injecting it with venom, then prepared to do the same to Minilla. Minilla cried out for help, rousing Godzilla from his sleep. Godzilla arrived and attacked Kumonga, but found himself fighting a losing battle against the huge arachnid. Just as Kumonga prepared to move in for the kill, Minilla unleashed his atomic breath at the beast. Godzilla and Minilla then combined their atomic breath and set Kumonga ablaze, seemingly killing it. In the meantime, the U.N. scientists successfully executed their weather experiment, causing a snowstorm to form over the island. Godzilla and Minilla attempted to reach the ocean before Sollgel Island froze over, but Minilla fell in the snow and began to fall asleep. Rather than abandon his son, Godzilla went back and embraced Minilla, falling into hibernation with him.

### *Destroy All Monsters*

By the end of the 20th century, Minilla was living with his father and several other kaiju on the human-monitored Monsterland in the Ogasawara Islands. When the Kilaaks assaulted the island and took control of its monster inhabitants, Minilla vanished and was not seen attacking any of Earth's cities. After the crew of the Moonlight SY-3 destroyed the Kilaaks' mind control device on the Moon, Minilla was the first monster to arrive at Mount Fuji to assault the invaders' Earth base. Minilla was joined by his father and the rest of the Earth monsters as they closed in on the aliens' base. However, the Kilaaks unleashed King Ghidorah as their final defensive measure to attack the monsters. Minilla took part in the battle against King Ghidorah alongside Godzilla, Anguirus and Gorosaurus, and managed to deliver the killing blow to the space monster by strangling his last living neck with a smoke ring. With King Ghidorah dead, Minilla stood triumphantly on the fallen kaiju's body and joined in celebrating the victory of Earth's monsters. After Godzilla obliterated the Kilaaks' base, Minilla was returned to Monsterland with the rest of the monsters to live out his days in peace. Minilla was seen standing next to his father as a group of humans observed the island from a helicopter.

### *All Monsters Attack*

When Ichiro Miki dreamed of visiting Monster Island, he found himself chased by a Kamacuras, eventually tripping and falling into a pit. Minilla, having shrunk to human size, lowered a vine into the pit and rescued Ichiro. Minilla told Ichiro how he was often lonely living on the island, with his father spending most of his time fending off the other kaiju. Minilla was also constantly harassed by a monster called Gabara, who liked to bully him. Godzilla would not fight Gabara for Minilla, as he believed Minilla should learn to defend himself. Ichiro helped build Minilla's confidence and the two worked together to spring a trap for Gabara. The trap worked and Minilla successfully beat Gabara. Godzilla arrived to congratulate his son, but the enraged Gabara bit Godzilla, sending him into a furious rage. Godzilla held Minilla back and personally beat Gabara into submission, sending him fleeing into the jungle. Ichiro then awoke from his dream, and using the lessons he had learned from Minilla, was able to escape from two bank robbers who had kidnapped him.

### *Godzilla vs. Gigan*

Minilla was living peacefully with his father on Monster Island, which the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens planned to destroy as part of their invasion of Earth.

### *Go! Greenman*

A darker, evil Minilla appeared in episode 46 of the series *Go! Greenman*. Minilla was deployed to obtain the blood of young children for Maoh in a scheme to reverse his banishment. Eventually, the kids called Greenman with their Calls and the two fought. After a short battle, the monster grew and began menacing a city with a pacifier in its mouth. During their battle, Greenman attempted to grab Minilla's pacifier, but resulted in the monster angrily throwing him into a building. After a few more attempts at grabbing the pacifier, Greenman managed to pull it out of the infant's mouth, causing it to fall to the ground and begin crying. Greenman readied his Breaster attack to finish the monster off, but decided to spare it instead. Minilla did not last for much longer, though, as he was then destroyed at the hands of his creator for failing his mission.

### *Godzilla: Final Wars*

In the year 20XX, Minilla was encountered by the young boy Kenta while he and his grandfather were hunting in the forest near Mount Fuji. Minilla joined the two in their truck, which they used to drive to Mt. Fuji to witness Godzilla's battle with Anguirus, Rodan, and King Caesar. Upon witnessing this battle, Minilla's height sprung up to 20 meters. Minilla then traveled to Tokyo in the aftermath of Godzilla's battle with Keizer Ghidorah. When he arrived, he convinced Godzilla to let go of his hatred of the human race and spare the crew of the Gotengo. Godzilla then returned to the sea with Minilla, who fired a full blast of atomic breath into the sky before departing.

## Abilities

### Smoke Rings

Minilla's main weapon is atomic smoke rings. These smoke rings, while significantly weaker than his father's atomic breath, can interact with physical objects and tighten around opponents to injure or even strangle them. In *Destroy All Monsters*, Minilla delivers the finishing blow to the severely injured King Ghidorah, with one of his smoke rings strangling the space monster's middle head.

### Atomic Breath

Minilla learned to use a true atomic breath in *Son of Godzilla*. Initially, despite his best attempts, he couldn't fire the atomic breath as Godzilla demonstrated to him. After Godzilla stepped on his tail, he managed to fire it, and later fired it on his own as his father slept. Minilla later used his atomic breath to assist his father during the battle against Kumonga. Minilla was shown firing an atomic ray at the very end of *Godzilla: Final Wars*.

Unused composite shots from *Son of Godzilla* show Minilla using a curved atomic breath against Kamacuras rather than smoke rings.

### Communication

Minilla can communicate with Godzilla over great distances by broadcasting a brainwave pattern over radio frequencies. This ability interferes with other radio transmissions in its vicinity. This signal has the ability to disrupt other forms of electrical transmission such as radar and radio.

In *All Monsters Attack*, Minilla is depicted as being able to talk. This is indicative of the fantasy element of this film, in which Minilla only appears in the dreams of a young boy.

### Size Changing

In *All Monsters Attack*, Minilla is depicted as having the ability to shrink down to human size. While this ability was only shown within the dreams of Ichiro Miki in the Showa series, Minilla demonstrated he could grow rapidly in *Godzilla: Final Wars*, going from 1.6 to 20 meters in a matter of seconds.

In *Go! Greenman*, Minilla could also increase in size, but was only able to do so when commanded by his master Tonchiki.

## Films & TV

* *Son of Godzilla* (1967)
* *Destroy All Monsters* (1968)
* *All Monsters Attack* (1969)
* *Godzilla vs. Gigan* (1972) [stock footage]
* *Go! Greenman* (TV 1973-1974) [episode 46]
* *Godzilla: Final Wars* (2004)
* *Godziban* (TV 2019-2020)