Ganimes

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Ganimes® trademark icon
Ganimes®
Ganimes in Space Amoeba
Alternate names Ganime,[1] giant crab[2]
Subtitle(s) Giant Crab Monster
( (おお) (がに)怪獣,   Ōgani Kaijū)[3][4]
Huge Crab (巨大蟹,   Kyodai Kani)G:TB
Species Mutated Daldorfia horrida[3]
Height 20 meters[5]
Weight 12,000 metric tons[5]
Place(s) of emergence Sergio Island[6]
Controlled by Space AmoebaSA
Relations Space Amoeba (creator), J-MO7 (possible subspecies)G:PM
Enemies Kamoebas
Written by Ei Ogawa
Modeled by Nobuyuki Yasumaru[7][8]
Played by Haruo Nakajima[9]
First appearance Space Amoeba
Roar(s)
More roars

Ganimes (ガニメ,   Ganime) is a giant rubble crab kaiju who first appeared in the 1970 Toho film, Space Amoeba.

Following the destruction of its host Gezora, the Space Amoeba possessed a rubble crab native to Sergio Island, creating Ganimes. The creature resumed terrorizing the island's inhabitants, but was defeated by Taro Kudo using armaments left behind on the island from World War II. The Space Amoeba left its host and possessed a second Ganimes as well as a mata mata turtle, creating Kamoebas. Both monsters tried to eliminate the humans resisting the Space Amoeba, but the humans unleashed a swarm of bats that interrupted the Space Amoeba's control over the kaiju. Ganimes and Kamoebas then went berserk and engaged in a fight to the death, which ended as Kamoebas dragged Ganimes with him into the mouth of the island's erupting volcano, destroying the Space Amoeba along with both monsters.

Ganimes is the only one of his Space Amoeba-spawned brethren not to appear in a Godzilla film, through stock footage or otherwise, though he has made appearances in non-film media such as video games and books.

Name

Ganimes' name comes from the Japanese word kani (蟹), meaning "crab," and me, which was inspired by the manga character Nyarome.[citation needed] In-universe, Ganimes' name comes from a deity worshiped by the natives of Sergio Island, as is the case with his brethren Gezora and Kamoebas. Like Kamoebas, the letter "S" at the end of Ganimes' English name is not present in Japanese; a plaque during an on-set photoshoot wrote his name in English as Ganime,[10] and he is also identified by this name in Toho International's export trailer and the subtitles on Tokyo Shock's DVD release of Space Amoeba.

Development

Ganimes' suit was modeled by Nobuyuki Yasumaru, the protégé of Toho's chief modeler Teizo Toshimitsu,[7] while its internal mechanisms were realized by technician Akinori Takagi.[11][8] The monster was not designed beforehand, with Yasumaru not recalling any concept art ever being prepared for him.[8]

Ganimes' shell was sculpted in clay and cast, while his arms and claws were fabricated from polyurethane,[7][note 1] the spikes on the sides of his body were made of plywood, and his eyes of resin.[8] Yasumaru took inspiration from another crustacean created by his mentor four years earlier; in his own words, "I made [Ganimes] with reference to Mr. Toshimitsu's Ebirah, and I thought that I could make it even better." Yasumaru decorated the Ganimes suit with palm fronds to simulate hair,[note 2] a deviation from Toshimitsu's typical method of using goat hair. The drawback was that the fronds were highly flammable, with Yasumaru staying on-set during filming to monitor them.[7] Takagi installed between 6[8] and 8 servo motors into Ganimes' head so that its mouthparts could be radio controlled, while a mechanism in its shell blew foam from the mouth with a compressed air cylinder.[11] The monster's eyes could also be radio controlled.[12] Ganimes was portrayed by Haruo Nakajima, who also donned the Gezora suit in the film. According to him, "Ganimes was so stiff that I don't think I could act very well, and could mostly only click the claws together. That's why I don't remember much about it."[9]

A giant full-scale claw was additionally used to interact with the human characters, and a small wire-operated model was blown up for the first individual's death.[11]

Origins

Ganimes began life on Sergio Island as a rubble crab of the species Daldorfia horrida, otherwise known as the horrid elbow crab.[3] In both the Titan Productions and Hong Kong-recorded English dubs of Space Amoeba, Dr. Kyoichi Miya instead identifies Ganimes as a "pumice stone crab."

History

Showa era

Space Amoeba

Ganimes, originally an ordinary rubble crab, was controlled and mutated by the Space Amoeba after Gezora was destroyed. Ganimes attacked the inhabitants of Sergio Island, in particular menacing the Japanese nationals Taro Kudo and Ayako Hoshino who were there on business. The giant crustacean chased the two to a cliff, but was rendered blind after Kudo shot out his eyes. Ganimes leapt over the cliff onto a field of explosives left over from World War II. Kudo wasted no time in shooting the explosives, blowing Ganimes to smithereens.

However, the Space Amoeba survived and divided into thirds: possessing another rubble crab to create a second Ganimes, a mata mata turtle to create the kaiju Kamoebas, and the human Makoto Obata. Both the second Ganimes and Kamoebas tracked down the surviving humans and attempted to finish them once and for all, but Obata resisted the amoeba's control and freed a swarm of bats from a cave, their supersonic sonar severing the Space Amoeba's control over the monsters. Ganimes and Kamoebas began to fight, their battle eventually reaching the summit of the island's erupting volcano. Ganimes threw Kamoebas into the volcano's crater, but the giant turtle bit down on Ganimes' claw and pulled him into the magma with him, destroying both monsters along with the Space Amoeba possessing them.

Abilities

Claws

Ganimes primarily fought with his two massive claws, which could snap shut on foes or be used as clobbering weapons. Ganimes used his claws to throw boulders at Kamoebas and clamp down on the turtle's neck.

Foam

During his fight with Kamoebas, Ganimes spat foam onto him.

Weaknesses

Like the other Space Amoeba-created monsters, Ganimes was not very resilient. Taru Kudo shot out the eyes of the first Ganimes with a rifle, then blew him up with conventional explosives. Like Kamoebas, Ganimes was pained by the ultrasonic waves emitted by a swarm of bats, which also caused the Space Amoeba to lose control of the monsters. Ganimes perished after both he and Kamoebas fell into molten magma.

Video games

Books

GODZILLA: Monster Apocalypse

Ganimes appeared in the Bering Sea and attacked American crab fishing vessels.[13]

GODZILLA: Project Mechagodzilla

In December of 2047, a colony of red crustacean-like kaiju designated J-MO7 assaulted the North American Hedorah Research Laboratory. It was theorized due to their crustacean-like appearance that they may have been a subspecies of Ganimes that traveled down to North America from the Bering Sea. However, contact with the institute was lost after the attack and no further investigation could be carried out due to North America being lost to humanity.[14]

Comics

Godzilla: Rulers of Earth

When Lucy Casprell visited Infant Island, one of the cave paintings she saw categorized all of the Earth's monsters (besides Godzilla) as associated with water, earth, fire, or air. Ganimes was one of the water monsters, along with Zilla, Varan, Titanosaurus, Gezora, Manda, Ebirah, and Kamoebas.

In other languages

  • Serbian: Ганимеc
  • Russian: Ганимез
  • Yiddish: גאַנימעס

Gallery

Main article: Ganimes/Gallery.

Roar

Ganimes uses slightly edited screeches of Ebirah.

Ganimes' roars

Trivia

  • Ganimes' presence in Godzilla: Rulers of Earth was limited to a cave painting because IDW Publishing accidentally forgot to acquire the rights to the character.[15] In addition to the cave painting, a crab closely resembling Ganimes makes an appearance in one panel.

Video

Wikizilla: YouTube Kaiju Profile: Kamoebas & Ganimes

Notes

  1. In the 2014 publication All Toho Monsters Pictorial Book (p. 159), Yasumaru recalled that Ganimes' shell was made directly out of polyurethane, and his claws and spikes out of plywood. However, in Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection (p. 109) published the same year, he testified that Ganimes' arms and claws were fabricated out of polyurethane, and his shell was instead sculpted in clay then casted. As these two explanations are conflicting, it is unclear which is true. Nevertheless, this section incorporates the latter.
  2. While Yasumaru personally testified that Ganimes' hair was palm in both All Toho Monsters Pictorial Book (p. 159) and Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection (p. 109), other sources such as the 52nd volume of Toho SFX Movies Authentic Visual Book (p. 17) claim that hemp was used, instead.

References

This is a list of references for Ganimes. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. SpaceHunterM⚧ (17 June 2022). "Space Amoeba - English Export Trailer (1080p)". YouTube.
  2. SpaceHunterM⚧ (7 February 2016). "stegosaur bat". YouTube.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Eguchi 1992, p. 60
  4. Nakamura & Shimazaki 2005, p. 110
  5. 5.0 5.1 Aita & Nakamura 2014, p. 175
  6. Kaneda et al. 2014, p. 61
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 109
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Ozawa, Tomoi & Nakamura 2016, p. 159
  9. 9.0 9.1 Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 111
  10. Ganime, Gezora, Quameba.jpg
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 83
  12. Toho Visual 2020, p. 14.
  13. Oki 2017, pp. 112-150.
  14. Oki 2018, pp. 112-139.
  15. Frank, Matt (29 March 2016). "The Yog couldn't find all of the monsters. Some were too deep even for them! Ganimes actually might not be under IDW's umbrella of monsters at the moment. When the list of monsters was submitted, Ganimes was unfortunately left off by accident, and re-acquiring him would be a pain in the ass that nobody wants to deal with ;)". Tumblr.

Bibliography

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