Giant Seahorse
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The Giant Seahorses is a group of enlarged seahorse kaiju created by Hanna-Barbera that first appeared in the 1979 The Godzilla Power Hour episode, The Macro-Beasts.
Appearance
As their name suggests, these are seahorses mutated to gigantic proportions and are mostly accurate to their real-life counterparts, with segmented bony armor covered with an outer skin, an upright posture, equine features, and a curled prehensile tail. The only slight exception would be that of elongated crown-like spines or horns protruding from the back of their heads and necks, which seems uncommon for most species of Seahorse. The Giant Seahorses are lightly green colored with yellowish underbellies and wide yellowish eyes. Upon first seeing The Giant Seahorses, Pete (the Calico's youngest crew member) comments on the Seahorses being 'the size of real horses', however by the climax of the episode, the Giant Seahorses have grown three-or-more-times that size, when compared to the Calico's Mini-Subs.
History
The Godzilla Power Hour
The Macro-Beasts
The Giant Seahorses were among several marine animals enlarged to giant size, thanks to recent volcanic eruptions and a mysterious underground substance emerging from Capaldi Island; a relatively young formation which itself was created by the aforementioned geological activity. The Giant Seahorses were the very first of the enlarged animals, dubbed Macro-Beasts, to be spotted by the crew of the Calico, as the creatures swam quite gracefully on-top of the ocean's surface.
Seemingly harmless creatures, compared to the more antagonistic Giant Manta Ray, the Giant Seahorses were still herded along with their fellow Macro-Beasts and collared into an isolated pool near Calpadi's shore, thanks to the Calico Mini-Subs piloted by Captain Majors and first-mate Brock, though one Giant Seahorse did try to attempt an escape before being rounded back up with the others. Once entrapped within said pool, a gigantic iceberg brought by Godzilla was used to change the water's temperature, as cold icy water reversed the combined growing effects of the mysterious substance and volcanically heated water on the Macro-Beasts, transforming the Giant Seahorses and the rest of their enlarged brethren back to their original sizes.
Abilities
The Giant Seahorses posses no extraordinary abilities beyond their continuously increasing body size and their surprisingly superb swimming skills; the latter of which is a far cry from seahorses in real-life, though wither this was a side-effect of their unnatural enlargement or simple artistic licenses is anyone's guess.
Trivia
- The mysterious purple substance that enlarges the Macro-Beasts is likely a direct reference to the titular subterranean chemical from H.G. Wells' novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, which also enlarged any life-form which consumed it.
- The Giant Seahorses are probably one of the least threatening creatures to appear in the whole of the Godzilla franchise, coming off more cute and simple-minded animals over anything else. However, their continuously increasing growth would have made them an ecological menace later down the line, as with all the other Macro-Beasts.
- Not counting purely fanciful and comedic plays on the pun within the species' namesake, giant monsters based off on the otherwise benign and beloved seahorses are rather rare in fiction, with the only other scant example being Mega-Jappa from TV series Ultraman Orb.
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