Bagan

**Bagan** (バガン *Bagan*) is an ancient super kaiju created by Toho that first appeared in the 1993 *Godzilla* game, *Super Godzilla*.

## Name

"Bagan" is Indonesian for *blueprint* or *draft*. This is interesting considering that Bagan was planned for several movies but scrapped. However, this might just be a coincidence.

## History

### *The Resurrection of Godzilla*

The first version of Bagan, known at the time under the name "Bakan", from the first draft of *The Resurrection of Godzilla*, was a shape-shifter. It started out as an ape-like creature but after being wounded it became a dragon-like creature.

In the second draft of *The Resurrection of Godzilla*, it had a sea monster-like creature with a dragon-like creature attached to its top. Each time it changed it healed itself. It dives into the sea and becomes fish-like. Bakan runs into Godzilla, but finding that it can't defeat him in any single form, it makes a towering, combined form. But after this, it can no longer change shape, meaning it can no longer heal itself, allowing Godzilla to defeat it.

As more and more revisions to the script were being made, Bakan and various other elements would be removed, and the film would be reworked into what ultimately became *The Return of Godzilla*.

### *Mothra vs. Bagan*

In *Mothra vs. Bagan*, Bagan (Renamed from his original version) is an ancient dragon that once protected the country of China around 2,000 years ago. When he started threatening the forests that he called home, the Chinese retaliated and defeated him. He was frozen in the Himalayas shortly after. But now, due to global warming 2,000 years later, the monster breaks free. He sees the damage humans have done to the land and begins to attack them, trying to erase them off the Earth. Instantaneously, the ancient goddess of peace Mothra intervenes. The fight between the two monsters takes them to Singapore, where the goddess is unable to stop him. Meanwhile, Mothra's egg in Borneo hatches and the larva arrives to help its parent. The two Mothras fight the creature in downtown Bangkok. Despite her attempt to halt the living god's wave of destruction, the adult Mothra is killed by Bagan, who moves on. The larva cocoons itself on a remote island and becomes a fully transformed Imago Mothra. The newly transformed Mothra arrives in Dhaka, Bangladesh where she battles and finally defeats Bagan. Unfortunately, after *Godzilla vs. Biollante* did not perform as well at the box office as Toho had hoped, they decided not to risk making another movie with another new monster, and so Mothra vs. Bagan was canceled.

## Abilities

The only known powers for the version of Bagan in *The Return of Godzilla*, are shape-shifting and the ability to heal himself.

In the storyboards for *Mothra vs. Bagan*, Bagan is shown to be blowing a hole in one of Mothra's wings with an energy beam from his mouth. He is also shown to be firing some sort of lightning bolt from his main nasal horn, and growing what seems to be some type of energy wings out of his back.

The version of Bagan that appeared in *Super Godzilla* possessed very high physical strength and durability. He could slash with his powerful Slasher Claw attack, perform a Diamond Storm in which he would shoot white, star-like objects from his horns, fire a white Plasma Beam from his mouth and generate a Force Field to block incoming attacks. Bagan's attacks were the strongest used by any enemy in the game. Additionally, he had the most health out of any enemy in the game and normal Godzilla's attacks would only cause a very small amount of damage, making it necessary to transform into Super Godzilla to defeat Bagan and complete the game.

## Trivia

* Bagan is one of only two known monsters to be more physically massive and greater in weight than the final form of Biollante, who weighs in at a lesser 220,000 tons.
* Kilazee bears a remarkable resemblance to Bagan's initial design. It is unknown if this is more than just a coincidence.
* Bagan was mentioned by Simon Strange in an interview for *Godzilla: Unleashed*. He was one of several monsters considered for the game, but was dropped in favor of more obscure monsters, with Varan being explicitly stated.

## List of appearances

### Films

* *The Return of Godzilla* (Scrapped)
* *Mothra vs. Bagan* (Scrapped)

### Video games

* *Super Godzilla* (First appearance)
* *Godzilla Movie Studio Tour*