Godzilla

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

## History

### Reiwa era

Shin Godzilla*,* Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters*,* Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle*, and* Godzilla: The Planet Eater

### Monsterverse

3 films 2014-2020 and kong skull island that makes 4.

## Abilities

Over the years Godzilla has possessed many powers and abilities to use against his foes. Godzilla is generally considered to be the most powerful kaiju within the context of the films, as is expressed by his title, "the King of the Monsters." As Godzilla's abilities have varied to some extent over his film appearances, refer to the Godzilla incarnation subpages to view the abilities of specific incarnations of Godzilla.

### Atomic Breath*s*

Godzilla's signature weapon is the distinctive atomic heat ray he fires from his mouth. Godzilla's dorsal fins glow ominously, and then he lets loose with a concentrated blast of radiation from his mouth. Godzilla Filius and Godzilla Earth, who project the ray from the electromagnetic field in front of their faces, are the exceptions. This power is commonly mistaken for breathing literal fire, which Godzilla only does in the Marvel comics, Hanna-Barbera *Godzilla* cartoon, and other non-film media such as the *Get Going! Godzilland* OVAs.

The nature and intensity of Godzilla's breath attack has changed over the course of his film appearances. In his debut film and *Godzilla Raids Again*, the attack is known as the **Incandescent Light** (白熱光 *Hakunetsu Hikari*), and takes the form of a stream of misty, superheated radioactive vapor. The Incandescent Light possesses less force than subsequent iterations of Godzilla's breath attack, but is hot enough to melt tanks, fighter jets, and metal structures. It also creates raging fires that can quickly consume entire city blocks. In *Godzilla Raids Again*, Godzilla uses his Incandescent Light to incinerate Anguirus after fatally wounding him with his bite. Starting in *King Kong vs. Godzilla*, Godzilla's breath attack became known as his **Atomic Breath** (放射熱線 *Hōsha Nessen*, lit. *Radioactive Heat Ray*). The atomic breath is a focused beam of atomic energy which is typically neon blue in color. In the Showa series, Godzilla uses his atomic breath to destroy buildings and military weaponry, and to burn enemy monsters. In the Heisei series, Godzilla's atomic breath is portrayed as a powerful focused blue laser capable of causing large explosions and severely wounding some monsters such as Rodan and Battra when fired at point-blank range. According to the book *Godzilla 1954-1999 Super Complete Works*, the temperature of Godzilla's standard atomic breath in the Heisei series is 500,000 degrees Celsius.

In *Godzilla 2000: Millennium* and *Godzilla vs. Megaguirus*, Godzilla's atomic breath is orange instead of the typical neon blue, and is shown as having incendiary properties. In *Godzilla vs. Megaguirus*, it was strong enough to destroy a miniature black hole. In *Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack*, Godzilla's atomic breath returns to its standard blue color, but demonstrates impressive range and can generate a mushroom cloud upon impact. In *Godzilla: Final Wars*, it possesses incredible range, amazing power and pin-point accuracy, able to hit and destroy a target in outer space and kill or disable most kaiju with a single shot. Godzilla has also demonstrated his ability to actually change the intensity of his atomic breath at will. This is first seen in *Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla*, when Godzilla's atomic breath changes to his red spiral heat ray to finish off SpaceGodzilla, and later in *Godzilla: Final Wars* during Godzilla's battle against Keizer Ghidorah. With a quick turn, Godzilla's breath goes from the iconic blue beam to the red Burning G Spark Heat Ray, which literally causes the monster Keizer Ghidorah to explode in the upper atmosphere.

In Legendary Pictures' *Godzilla*, Godzilla's atomic breath is more of a focused, fiery-shaped energy beam that Godzilla spews from his mouth. Godzilla only uses it against the MUTOs after he had taken a severe beating and was already growing weaker, showing that Godzilla may opt to use it as a last resort against opponents he can't physically overpower on his own. Though it doesn't appear to have the same destructive properties as the versions prior, the blasts were strong enough to push, severely weaken, and eventually kill, the female MUTO. The film's novelization and an earlier screenplay suggest that the female MUTO's EMP field interferes with his atomic breath, though this is never referenced or alluded to in the film itself. The neon-blue glow on Godzilla's dorsal fins begins at the tail and goes all the way to the top of his neck in this film. In the sequel, *Godzilla: King of the Monsters*, the bluish glow is also visible in his eyes and between his gills.In the *GODZILLA* anime trilogy, Godzilla's **Atomic Breath** (熱線 *Nessen*, lit. *Heat Ray*) is still a neon-blue beam, but is more electromagnetic in nature rather than incendiary. Godzilla generates the electromagnetic energy required for the attack in his dorsal plates, then forms an electromagnetic field around his entire body. The atomic breath is fired from the front of this field, directly in front of Godzilla's face. This version of the atomic breath behaves more or less the same as past incarnations and is demonstrated to be extremely powerful and accurate.

In the 2004 video game *Godzilla: Save the Earth*, Godzilla can also use a variation of his atomic breath called the "Final Beam," a beam of energy that resembles his regular atomic breath except for the fact it is far more powerful and is purple in color. In *Godzilla: Save the Earth,* he can also launch huge fireballs from his mouth as well.

While Godzilla's atomic breath has typically been shown to set entire city blocks ablaze and easily obliterate skyscrapers and most military weaponry, many of Godzilla's opponents have shown the ability to withstand it, at least in its standard intensity. For example, in the Showa series, both Rodan and King Ghidorah were able to withstand direct hits from Godzilla's atomic breath with little visible harm. In the Heisei series, Rodan was vulnerable to the beam at close range, though King Ghidorah remained immune until Godzilla utilized his more powerful spiral heat ray. The Heisei version of Mechagodzilla possessed a special diamond-plated armor that allowed it to absorb Godzilla's atomic breath and reflect it through the plasma grenade port on its abdomen. Mechagodzilla City from the *GODZILLA* anime trilogy can deploy a field of Nanometal particles that deflects Godzilla's atomic breath and scatters it in several directions. Many of Godzilla's more powerful opponents, including King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, SpaceGodzilla, Destoroyah and Monster X, have proven to be resistant to Godzilla's atomic breath until he was forced to utilize a more powerful variation of it. Mothra is typically able to use the scales dropped from her wings to reflect Godzilla's atomic breath back at him.

#### Spiral Heat Ray

Godzilla fires his spiral heat ray in *Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah*
A stronger variation of Godzilla's standard atomic breath introduced in the Heisei series was the spiral heat ray. This version of Godzilla's atomic breath is typically portrayed as much more powerful than his normal atomic breath and is wrapped in an electrical spiral. The first variant of this attack, simply called the **Spiral Heat Ray** (スパイラル熱線 *Supairaru Nessen*), is used by Godzilla in *Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah* to decapitate King Ghidorah's middle head after his normal atomic breath was shown having little to no effect on his enemy. In this film, the spiral heat ray is still blue in color, but is surrounded by a purplish spiral of energy. Before Godzilla fires the spiral breath, his dorsal fins are surrounded in blue electricity.

In *Shin Godzilla*, Godzilla's atomic breath starts out as a thick black smoke that comes from his mouth and spreads around the surrounding area. The smoke coming from Godzilla's mouth eventually ignites into a stream of flame, producing a huge destructive fireball that sweeps through the area. The fire condenses further into a thin highly-destructive purple beam capable of slicing through buildings. When Godzilla first uses his radioactive ray flow in the film, he completely destroys three districts of Tokyo. In addition to firing his ray from his mouth, this version of Godzilla can redirect the beams and fire them from in between his dorsal plates. Godzilla also possesses a small vestigial head on the tip of his tail, out of which he can fire another ray. When Godzilla fires his radioactive ray flow, his body becomes covered in a bright purple glow and his upper jaw unhinges while his lower jaw splits open. Godzilla has nictitating membranes that form over his eyes when he fires his radioactive ray flow.

## Roar

Godzilla's roar is a famous sound effect. Over the years, it has changed considerably, sounding different almost every time and having many variations for the different emotions.

The sound effects team originally tried to create Godzilla's roar by using animal roars that had been edited. They sampled all kinds of birds and mammals, but nothing seemed to be the right match for the reptile-like noises a monster like Godzilla would make. Akira Ifukube, who was the film's composer, proposed stepping away from using animal samples. He took a string off of his contrabass and rubbed it with gloves soaked in pine tar. The sound that came from it was used as Godzilla's roar. This roar would later be altered for use as the roar of other monsters in the Showa era, including Varan, Baragon and Gorosaurus. Godzilla's roar was increased in pitch starting in *King Kong vs. Godzilla*, and would remain mostly unchanged for the rest of the Showa series.

Starting in *The Return of Godzilla*, Godzilla's roar was made to sound closer to what it did in the original film, and was given a deep guttural sound at the end. In *Godzilla vs. Mothra*, Godzilla's roar was changed again to sound higher in pitch, similar to how it sounded throughout the Showa era, with the guttural sounds at the end removed.

In the 1998 American film produced by TriStar Pictures, Frank Welker and Gary A. Hecker created new roars for Godzilla that sounded similar to his classic roars but with added reverberation and a high-pitched shrieking quality. These roars were used throughout the film's animated spinoff *Godzilla: The Series*, and were mixed in with Godzilla's other roars in the American version of *Godzilla 2000: Millennium*. Since then, the TriStar Godzilla's roars have been used for Godzilla in commercials and other media, and were also used by the monster Zilla in *Godzilla: Final Wars*.

Throughout the Millennium series, Godzilla uttered lower-pitched and slowed-down versions of his roars from the Showa series. These roars were reused with added growling effects for Godzilla Filius and Godzilla Earth in the *GODZILLA* anime trilogy.

For Legendary Pictures' *Godzilla*, Erik Aadahl developed a completely new roar for Godzilla that emulated his classic roar. This roar was used again in the film's sequel *Godzilla: King of the Monsters*, but mixed in with many of Godzilla's roars from the Showa series.

In *Shin Godzilla*, all of Godzilla's roars are recycled from previous films. His third form utters the 1954 Godzilla's roar, while his fourth form primarily uses the character's roars from the Showa series. When Godzilla is frozen at the film's climax, he emits a roar from *The Return of Godzilla*.

The effect has been used elsewhere, including the Le-matya in *Star Trek: The Animated Series*.

Godzilla's roar can be written in readable characters and has been done so in comics, and not only by a simple "roar." In the Marvel Comics, Godzilla's roar was spelled "Mrawww." In the Dark Horse Comics and Godzilla: Rulers of Earth, Godzilla's roar was spelled "Skreeongk." In most of the IDW Comics, Godzilla's roar is spelled "Skreeonk." Legendary Pictures' Godzilla has a roar that can be heard for 3 miles. In *Shin Godzilla*, Godzilla utilizes several versions of his roar, including the 1954 roar and the 1962-1975 roar. In Japanese, the official onomatopoeia for Godzilla's roar is "Gyaoon" (ギャオーン *Gyaōn*)—additional "o"s can be added to extend the roar. Another onomatopoeia used for Godzilla is "Gaooo" (ガオオオ).