Godzilla (Monster)

**Godzilla** (ゴジラ *Gojira*) is a daikaiju who first appeared in the 1954 Toho film, *Godzilla*.

The primary focus of his franchise, Godzilla is typically depicted as a giant prehistoric creature awakened or mutated by the advent of the nuclear age. For the early part of the Showa series of films, Godzilla was depicted as a villainous and destructive force of nature, punishing humankind for its use of nuclear weapons, which disturbed and burned him. Over the remainder of the series, Godzilla gradually developed into a heroic character, defending Japan by fending off other more malevolent creatures such as King Ghidorah, many of them extraterrestrial or controlled by extraterrestrials. When Toho revived the franchise in 1984 with *The Return of Godzilla*, ignoring every film in the series except the original, Godzilla became a menace to Japan and the world once more. The Heisei series saw Godzilla battle some of his foes from the Showa era, such as Mothra and Mechagodzilla, as well as new monsters like Biollante and Destoroyah. Despite his destructive tendencies, this Godzilla incidentally saved humanity from greater evils on occasion. The Heisei series was followed by the Millennium series, an anthology in which nearly every film took place in its own continuity, often connected in some way only to the original 1954 film. Godzilla was often the villain in these films, though in some he was instead an anti-hero similar to the Heisei series. 12 years after the end of the Millennium series, Toho rebooted the franchise again with *Shin Godzilla*, a completely standalone film in which Godzilla appeared for the first time in modern-day Japan. This Godzilla was a bizarre new species spawned by the dumping of nuclear waste in Tokyo Bay in the 1950's, with the capacity to adapt to any situation by spontaneously mutating his own DNA. Toho introduced a new continuity the following year with the *GODZILLA* anime trilogy, in which Godzilla successfully drove humanity from the Earth in 2048 and reshaped the planet in his own image over the next 20,000 years. When refugees from the *Aratrum* returned to reclaim the planet, they were faced with a Godzilla that had continuously grown and evolved and reached a height of over 300 meters.

Outside of the 34 films produced by Toho, Godzilla has starred in three Hollywood adaptations, with at least one more to come. The first, *GODZILLA*, was produced by TriStar Pictures in 1998 and became controversial for its radical reinterpretation of the character, which was now an iguana mutated by nuclear testing rather than a prehistoric reptile. The TriStar Godzilla also lacked some of the character's signature traits, such as his atomic breath and invulnerability to military weapons, and gained the ability to asexually reproduce. The second Hollywood adaptation of the franchise, *Godzilla*, was produced in 2014 by Legendary Pictures, and featured a more traditional interpretation of the titular monster. This film marked the beginning of the MonsterVerse, a shared universe of giant monster films produced by Legendary and distributed by Warner Bros., focusing on Godzilla and King Kong. Godzilla has also appeared in *Godzilla: King of the Monsters* in 2019, and is slated to appear in *Godzilla vs. Kong* in 2020.