He is an ever-evolving lifeform that was mutated by radioactive waste dumped by the United States in the Tokyo Bay in the late-1950s. Now capable of spontaneously adapting to different situations, this Giant Unidentified Lifeform came ashore in Tokyo, in 2016 and immediately caused havoc, with all of the weapons set off by the Japanese Self Defense Force (JSDF) and the United States Air Force (USAF), having no effect on him. He was finally defeated by a complex plan orchestrated by government official Rando Yaguchi, but still could not be killed and remained a potential threat as he stood frozen in the ruins of Tokyo.
Overview
Design
Behind the scenes
Shin Godzilla's various forms were done through CGI, while the fourth form was also portrayed via motion capture by actor Mansai Nomura. An animatronic puppet of Shin Godzilla's upper body was created for close-up shots of Shin's fourth form, but this puppet went unused, its existence was only revealed when several photos and footage were leaked online.[4]
Evolution in Shin Godzilla (2016)
Shin Godzilla's design was a completely different take on the Godzilla character, as Anno and Higuchi chose have Shin Godzilla come in many forms. Only the tail and back of the first form were seen in the film.[3]
ShinGoji's second form stood horizontally, with its body held parallel to the ground, this form had small stubs in place of arms, and huge eyes with small black pupils. Unlike Shin Godzilla's later forms, the second form possesses a sickly-yellow complexion, with red exposed muscle on its back and shark-like gills that frequently bleed, indicating that it struggles to breathe outside the water, the form has the same long tail from the first form with a fluke at the end it similar to the first form.[3]
The third form is much like traditional Godzilla incarnations in regards to appearance, the form is bipedal with more stronger and more developed hindlimbs and the ability to assume a stance much like a modern Godzilla possesses, smaller forelimbs and a long neck compared to its body. In this form, a red glow can be visibly seen from its fins, indicating that its mutation consumes much energy and produced a lot of heat. The creature's gills also have shrunk and closed up suggesting that this form has now adapted to breathe on land.[3]
The fourth form of Shin Godzilla is very much akin to traditional designs, being fully bipedal, with a fully developed row of dorsal spines, and a much taller height compared to Shin's prior forms. The shade of skin for this form is a much darker black color with red glowing highlights around and those exposed parts of the body such as his neck, back and legs. His face has no cheeks, no lips, but has multiple rows of jagged and gnarled teeth that are irregularly shaped and jut out from everywhere. Shin's eyes didn't possess any eyelids, but a protective nictating membrane would cover the eyes in case if any explosions happen close to the eyes. He used the membrane again when releasing the thermal flame and the atomic breath. The most well-known alteration to Shin Godzilla was the tail, which was double the height of the entire body.[3][5][6]
After being forcefully fed with a blood coagulant, Shin Godzilla went into a stage where his entire body freezes and shuts down, but to fight humans, he had to evolve to be like them, and his response was to spawn his own creatures on his tail, Shin Godzilla's fifth form takes on a humanoid appearance with Godzilla-like dorsal plates running up their spines, the models for the evolution show that the humanoids lack eyes, despite the concept art of the design originally having the humanoids possess them, with a large divide running down their cranium, these humanoid creatures were seen sprouting from the tail of the larger fourth form at the end of the film.[3]
A deleted scene within the film showed the monster's ability could replicate through any matter separated from himself, in the scene where the JSDF investigate areas contaminated with radiation find a biomass, a mass of flesh, that was blown off from Shin Godzilla by the bunker-buster bombs, and this biomass had sprouted eyes and teeth.[7]
Reuse in Shin Ultraman (2022)
Behind the scenes visual effects work for Shin Ultraman (2022), showing Shin Godzilla being reused to depict the kaiju Gomess.[8][9]
In 2022, during the production of Shin Ultraman, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi decided to reuse the design of Shin Godzilla's fourth form, for the design of Gomess. They modified the design with a different spine design, different tail design, extra horns on his head, changed the skin tone to a complete gray, removing the red glowing highlights on the creature, and changed the arm design on Gomess.[8][9] Anno and Higuchi reused ShinGoji's design as a reference to how the original Gomess design was originally recycled using a modified Godzilla suit from Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) for episode 1 of Ultra Q.
Roar
Throughout the film, Shin Godzilla, all of Shin's roars are reused from past Godzilla incarnations. His first two forms (1st and 2nd forms) don't roar at all and are muted. His third form reuses roars from the 1954 film but re-edited. His fourth form reuses all of the showa roars from King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) through Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975). His final roar before freezing reuses the roar from the Heisei Godzilla from The Return of Godzilla (1984) through Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991).[10]
Atomic breath
In Shinnosuke vs Shin Godzilla, Shin Godzilla's atomic breath is shown to have a traditional blue hue instead of a purple hue prior to Shin Godzilla's release in theatures.
Shin Godzilla's atomic breath in Shin Godzilla (2016)
In Shin Godzilla, his atomic breath was completely different as it started off as a black smoke that was fired from his vocal orifice. This was then ignited into an orange stream of fire nicknamed as the Super Thermal Radiation Particle Belt Flame (short name: Thermal Flame), the flames were then condensed into a purple plasma beam dubbed as the Radiation Heat Beam. Shin Godzilla also releases several beams from his dorsal plates, and can redirect the beam through his tail.[11]
Reception
Following the release of the 2016 film Shin Godzilla, three of Shin's five forms seen in the Toho film were given nicknames after the places they made landfall on. The second form was nicknamed "Kamata-Kun"[12] after the Kamata district, the third form nicknamed "Shinagawa-Kun" after Shinagawa ward, and the fourth form was nicknamed "Kamakura-San" after Kamakura city in Kantō.[3]
Toho officially classified and named this incarnation of Godzilla as "Shin Godzilla", after the film it made its appearance.
The Godzilla Fandom has sometimes referred to Shin Godzilla's 5th form as “manzillas”, due to their humanoid appearance, but from Toho, there has been no official term. Some theories by individuals hint that Goro Maki, the scientist who created Shin, had merged with the creature resulting in the creation of the humanoid forms.[13]
Character's biography
Shinnosuke vs Shin Godzilla (2016)
Shin Godzilla is awakened from Tokyo Bay where he roars and starts attacking Japan by passing the Tokyo Sky Tree, Shuto Expressway, Saitama's prefecture border at Yashio's Ukizuka district, destroys the Ukihana bridge with his thick legs, advancing towards Kasukabe. When Shinnosuke arrived at school late, he learns about the creature's appearance and names it "Shin Godzilla",[b] but he and his friends later name the monster "Godzilla".
Shin Godzilla in Shinnosuke vs Shin Godzilla.
Shinnosuke and his friends alert the Prime Minister about Shin Godzilla's appearance and after some time, a montage of ShinGoji destroying parts of Japan with his massive body and finally arriving at Kasukabe, Shinnosuke is scaled up in size and confronts Shin Godzilla, but Shin retaliates with his own abilities, using his long tail against Shinnosuke, sending Shinnosuke flying.
Shin Godzilla unleashes his atomic breath and destroys parts of Tokyo and attempts to kill Shinnosuke, twice throughout Shinnosuke’s confrontation with ShinGoji. Shin Godzilla is defeated when Shinnosuke fires a chemical down Shin's throat, blocking his third attempt of using his atomic breath. This chemical and blockage causes both Shinnosuke and Shin Godzilla to shrink in size with Shinnosuke being reduced back to his original size as a child, and Shin Godzilla being reduced to the size of a normal lizard. He was placed soon placed back into the ocean and swam away across the river.
Shin Godzilla (2016)
Shin Godzilla's 2nd form (Kamata-kun) in Tokyo's Kamata district
In 2016, Shin Godzilla was created when the water erupted with steam and the tunnels began flooding with blood due to Shin as a sea creature feeding off of radioactive waste dumped in the Tokyo Bay in the 1950s. The tail of his first form had burst from the surface of the bay. The Prime Minister thought that the creature couldn't go on land but as soon as the PM tried to calm the public, Shin made landfall in Tokyo's Kamata district stumbling around on his hindlegs, dropping blood from his gills.[14]
Shin Godzilla's 3rd form (Shinagawa-kun) in Shinagawa ward
He went at a crawling speed of 13 kilometres per hour (8.1 miles per hour) towards Shinagawa before stopping, falling down and evolving to his third form by rearing up on his hindlegs and sprouting arms. The Japanese Self Defense Forces (JSDF) tried to kill the creature but retreated when they realized civilians were still evacuating, in turn, Shin Godzilla ran back into the Tokyo Bay as his back started glowing red.[14]
Shin Godzilla's 4th form (Kamakura-san) in Tokyo preparing for his atomic breath to destroy one of the B-2 Spirit bombers.
Shin Godzilla resurfaced again in his fourth form where he made landfall at Kamakura city, and left a trail of destruction and radiation in his wake. The JSDF then use all of their weapons, their Type 10 tanks, various choppers, and two Mitsubishi F-2 fighter jets, and not a single scratch was left on Shin's skin. The JSDF's weapons were weak to defeat the creature. As Shin Godzilla continued to advance towards Tokyo, the JSDF planned the United States to intervene with a massively destructive airstrike plan, and the Prime Minister is informed from an American ambassador that the USAF already deployed three Northrop B-2 Spiritstealth bombers armed with Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs going to Japan. After Shin had arrived at Tokyo, proceeding to the Minato ward, he was hit with the bunker buster bombs from one of the B-2s. After he was hit, he became enraged and retaliated with his atomic breath. The 1st B-2 was destroyed by the atomic breath from Shin's mouth.[14]
As Kayoco Anne Patterson evacuates the city with an American ambassador in a car, she overhears that the 1st bomber was destroyed. The ambassador exclaims that it is impossible, while Patterson simply remarks that Shin Godzilla is "truly a god incarnate". B-2 bombers 2 and 3 circle back and prepare to drop more bombs towards Shin's back. As one of the pilots of the bombers said "payback time", the creature closed his mouth and unleashes several purple beams from his dorsal fins. He shot them up into the sky, destroying the bombs and the bombers at the same time. Shin fires his atomic breath, cutting several skyscrapers in half and destroying up the Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma helicopter carrying the Prime Minister. He lit several of Tokyo's districts ablaze before shutting down his system and going into hibernation at Tokyo station.[14][15]
The next day, Shin Godzilla wakes up from the hibernation by Operation Yashiori when in the first phase, he was hit by driverless N700 Series Shinkansen bullet trains armed with C4 explosives. In the second phase, a smorgasbord of Predators and Reapers from the USAF go up the sky and launched missiles and warheads towards the monster. He used his atomic powers from his dorsals, mouth and tail against the weapons, but he got depleted of energy. In the third phase, the operation uses a remote to knock down a set skyscrapers onto Shin Godzilla and knock him to the ground.[15]
In the fourth phase, one of the skyscrapers was blasted by a warhead from a USS Dewey, knocking Shin on conscious. In the fifth phase, he regained his consciousness and destroyed the first crane platoon with his atomic breath from his mouth, but more driverless-trains were sent to crash into Shin. After all of the coagulant from the second and third crane platoons were administered into Shin Godzilla's bloodstream, he woke up again and crunched on the cranes, and made one last roar before freezing, dropping his chest temperature to −196 °C (−320.8 °F). At the last shot of the film, it is shown that Shin Godzilla was evolving to his 5th form, however it was halted upon his body getting frozen.[15]
Godzilla vs. Evangelion: The Real 4-D (2019)
Following the events of Second Impact in Neon Genesis Evangelion, Shin Godzilla appeared and knocked the GLAUX out of the air. The vehicle is nearly crushed to death by Shin's foot, but it is saved just in time and picked up by Evangelion Unit-01 and its pilot, Shinji Ikari. Asuka Shikanami Langley and Rei Ayanami, piloting Evangelion Unit-02 and 00, respectively, arrive shortly after and the three pilots begin fighting the monster. However, Shin Godzilla seems to be unaffected by their attacks, and swats them away with relative ease by shaking his body and swinging his tail at them.
ShinGoji then retaliates with his atomic breath; but instead of firing at the Eva Units, he instead fires it to the sky, where it hits an unseen force and combusts into flame. The explosion suddenly condenses into a new shape, creating Shin King Ghidorah/Shin Ghidorah, the source of the cosmic waves. As it descends on the city and confronts Shin Godzilla, Shin fires his atomic breath once again, but Ghidorah uses its gravity powers to deflect the beam in separate directions. Ghidorah then uses its gravity beams to lift several surrounding buildings into the air and throw them at ShinGoji, incapacitating him. The Evangelion Units attempt to fight King Ghidorah themselves, but are unable to stop its rampage. As they counter the dragon, Shin Godzilla rises to his feet again, where he and Ghidorah continue their battle. King Ghidorah attacks Shin Godzilla, but Shin uses his dorsal plate beams to counter Ghidorah's assault and knocking it back, before blasting Ghidorah with his atomic breath until he depletes himself of energy and becomes immobilized.
As Ghidorah rises again, the three Eva Units continue their effort to fight the monster; Unit-00 and 02 jump on King Ghidorah's body but are blasted off by its gravity beams. Unit-01 pulls a sword off of a nearby building and thrusts it into Ghidorah's chest, causing it to crash into the city below. For a brief moment, the creature seems defeated, only for Ghidorah to rise completely unharmed from the rubble and turns his attention to the frozen Shin Godzilla. Firing its gravity beams at him, Shin's body begins to glow again, seemingly using Ghidorah's attack to regain his energy. He awakens and shoots his atomic breath at Ghidorah, causing to two kaiju's beams to lock. Shin's beam gradually began to overpower Ghidorah's, moving closer until it strikes at Ghidorah, creating a blinding explosion, killing Ghidorah for good. Once the smoke settles, the Evangelion Units are left completely intact. Having defeated the rival, Shin Godzilla walked slowly back into the ocean, leaving Osaka-III and the EVA Units peacefully.
Godzilla Interception Operation Awaji attraction video (2020) - As Godzilla.
Operation Shin 765 (2022) - As Godzilla.
Untitled Shin Japan Heroes Amusement World VR attraction (2022) - As Godzilla.
Books
Definitive Edition: The Perfect Godzilla Giant Monster Super Encyclopedia (2016; only on the front cover of the book with other Godzilla specimens)[18]
Godzilla Giant Monster Battle Picture Book (2016; only on the front cover of the book with other Godzilla kaijus)[19]
Shin Godzilla Walker: The New Legend of the King of the Monsters (2016)[20]
Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters- (2022)
Card games
Battle Spirits (2016; BSC26 booster pack)
Godzilla Card Game (2019)
Comics
Godziman #1 and 16 (2019)
Games
Shin Godzilla Special Demo Content (2016) - on PlayStation VR
Shin Arima (2016) - on Browser
Pocoron Dungeons (2014. Mod in 2016) - on Android and iOS.
Eternal Linkage (2017. Mod in 2018) - on Android and iOS.
Godzilla Defense Force (2019) - on Android and iOS.
Vivid Army (2019. Mod in 2020) - on Browser.
Boku & Dragons (2015. Mod in 2022) - on Android and iOS.
Godzilla Battle Line (2021. Mod in 2022) - on Android, iOS and PC.
Pachinko True King of the Monsters Godzilla 2 (2022) - on Pachinko.
P Godzilla vs. Evangelion: G Cell Awakening (2022) - on Pachinko.
SD Shin Kamen Rider Rumble (2023) - on Nintendo Switch and PC.[22]
Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival (2022; Mod in 2023) - on Nintendo Switch.
Minecraft: Bedrock Edition (2011. Mod in 2024) - on Android, Fire OS/TV, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Samsung Gear VR, PlayStation 4 and 5, Windows 10 and 11, Windows Mobile, Xbox Series S and Series X and Xbox One.
Legacy
On December 1, 2021, XM announced their new 60-centimetre (600-millimetre; 0.60-metre; 24-inch) Shin Godzilla bust in collaboration with sculptor Tanaka Kenichi.[23]
Public displays
In November 2016, the Fukuoka town built a 7 m (23 ft; 700 cm) tall statue of Shin Godzilla using straws. The statue was built for the Fukuoka town's Kagashi Matsuri festival.[24]
On March 23, 2018, a 3 m (9.8 ft; 300 cm) tall statue of Shin Godzilla was built in Tokyo's Hibiya Godzilla Square, this statue after being built replaced the Heisei Godzilla statue, where the Heisei Godzilla statue was moved inside of the Toho Cinemas Hibiya building.[25][26]
In October 2020, a zipline of Shin Godzilla's head and neck was built at Nijigen no Mori Park on Awaji Island, where people would go to visit the attraction and zipline through Godzilla's mouth.[27][28][29]
Skipper, Graham (2022). Godzilla: The Official Guide to the King of the Monsters (in English and Japanese). Welbeck Publishing. p. 219. ISBN978-1-80279-000-9.
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