Hachiro Jinguji
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Hachiro Jinguji (神宮司八郎 Jingūji Hachirō) is a character created by Toho that first appeared in the 1963 Template:FilmC, Atragon.
History
Showa Series
Atragon
A captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II, Hachiro Jinguji was a brilliant captain and shipbuilder. On the eve of Japan's surrender to the United States, Jinguji revolted and disappeared with his crew on an I-403 submarine. Before leaving, Jinguji entrusted his superior, Admiral Kusumi, to care for his three-year-old daughter Makoto. Jinguji's submarine was later attacked by a Mu Submarine, whose advanced weaponry had Jinguji and his crew outmatched. Jinguji and his crew abandoned the sub, which was later recovered by the Muans, along with a blueprint for an undersea battleship called the Gotengo. Jinguji, now pronounced dead, and his men took up residence on a remote island, where they began construction of the Gotengo, believing it could one day aid Japan once it resumed military activity. In 1963, Jinguji sent one of his men to Japan to check on his daughter, only for the man to be caught by authorities and forced to bring a group of people to Jinguji's base. Jinguji greeted his visitors: Makoto, Kusumi, magazine reporters Susumu Hatanaka and Yoshito Nishibe, and a man claiming to be a newspaper reporter. Jinguji was surprised that his visitors did not approve of his continued attempts to win a war that had ended almost two decades ago, as Makoto stormed off and Susumu called him a "war crazy." The next morning, Jinguji and his crew performed test maneuvers with the Gotengo and demonstrated it to their guests. Afterwards, Kusumi told Jinguji that he needed to use the Gotengo to fend off the Muans, but Jinguji stubbornly refused, and accused Kusumi of going soft and abandoning his country. Jinguji eventually found Makoto alone on a beach, and asked if she hated him for what he did. Makoto was enraged that her father abandoned her and spent the last 18 years stubbornly attempting to continue fighting World War II, and told him she preferred imagining what he was like when she believed he was dead. Makoto told her father she hated him, and then stormed off. Deeply affected by his daughter's words, Jinguji approached Susumu and gave him a photograph of him and Makoto that he was taken when she was a small child, and told Susumu to take care of her.
When Jinguji learned that Makoto and Susumu had been kidnapped by the Muans, he decided to use the Gotengo to rescue them and stop the Muan invasion. Jinguji piloted the Gotengo to the entrance to Mu, where he brought Makoto, Susume, two other prisoners, and the now-captive Mu Empress aboard. The Empress told Jinguji that he should surrender, but Jinguji replied that he would never surrender as long as the Muans demanded he did, though he would be willing to listen to peace talks. When he realized that the Muans would never surrender, Jinguji prepared to assault Mu with the Gotengo. The Gotengo froze the Muans' guardian Manda with its Absolute Zero Cannon, then bored into the heart of Mu. When the ship reached the Muans' artificial sun, several crewmembers planted explosives at the generators. The Gotengo then froze the machinery and returned to the surface, as the explosives went off and completely destroyed Mu in a fiery explosion. The Gotengo subdued the remaining Mu Submarines, ending the Muans' threat to civilization. As Jinguji and the others watched the destruction of Mu from afar, the Mu Empress tried to jump overboard. Jinguji told the others to let her go, as she simply wanted to die with her people. In stopping the Mu invasion, Jinguji had finally let go of his hatred and given up the war, and earned back the love of his daughter.
Millennium Series
Godzilla: Final Wars
A paleontologist employed by the Earth Defense Force, Hachiro Jinguji was assigned to study the mummified remains of a Template:Kaiju that had been recovered. Jinguji explained to EDF mutant soldier Shinichi Ozaki and United Nations scientist Miyuki Otonashi that the monster's DNA contained traces of M-Base, a genetic base possessed by mutants, suggesting that the creature could be the ancestor of all mutants. Suddenly, Jinguji and the others were teleported to Infant Island, where the Shobijin explained that the monster was an evil space creature called Gigan, who had attempted to conquer the Earth thousands of years ago only to be defeated by Mothra. The Shobijin warned them that something was wrong, before teleporting them back to the EDF facility.
Super Fleet Sazer-X the Movie: Fight! Star Soldiers
Jinguji was the pilot of the in-development warship known as the Gotengo. He piloted the ship into battle alongside the GranSazers, and landed the killing blow on Mammoth Bosquito using the Gotengo's Absolute Zero Cannon.
Trivia
- The version of the character in Super Fleet Sazer-X the Movie: Fight! Star Soldiers is only given the name "Jinguji," and is portrayed by actor Toru Minegishi, who played Goro Gondo in Godzilla vs. Biollante.
- Ironically, the Hachiro Jinguji in Godzilla: Final Wars is played by Kenji Sahara, who played a Mu agent who opposed the Hachiro Jiguji from Atragon.
- Tomoyuki Tanaka helped write the screenplay for the 1977 film The War in Space under the name Hachiro Jinguji.
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