Ganimes
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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 view of the back of Ganimes' shell
Nobuyuki Yasumaru (bottom right) inspects the Ganimes' suit's claw
The compressed air cylinder assembly in the suit's shell
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]
Akira Kubo is filmed with the 1:1-scale Ganimes claw
Shoji Ogawa rigs up the Ganimes puppet
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
- Space Amoeba (1970)
- Godzilla Final Wars (2004) [toy]
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
- Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1993) - Nintendo Game Boy
- Godzilla: Trading Battle (1998) - Sony PlayStation
- Godzilla Generations (1998) - Sega Dreamcast
- Collect Godzilla: Giant Monster Assembly (1998) - Sega Dreamcast VMU
- Godzilla Defense Force (2019) - Android and iOS
Books
- Asahi Sonorama Space Amoeba sonosheet (1970)
- Toho Monster Picture Book #9: Jumbo Monster Island (1972)
- GODZILLA: Monster Apocalypse (2017)
- GODZILLA: Project Mechagodzilla (2018) [mentioned]
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
- Space Amoeba (1970)
- Godzilla: Rulers of Earth #9 (2014) [cave painting]
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.
Ganimes cave painting in Godzilla: Rulers of Earth #9
A crab resembling Ganimes in Godzilla: Rulers of Earth #19
In other languages
- Serbian: Ганимеc
- Russian: Ганимез
- Yiddish: גאַנימעס
Gallery
- Main article: Ganimes/Gallery.
Roar
Ganimes uses slightly edited screeches of Ebirah.
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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
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Notes
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ 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]
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Bibliography
- Eguchi, Mizuki (30 December 1992). Godzilla Fierce Fighting Super Encyclopedia. Asahi Sonorama. ASIN B0083R72QM.
- Nakamura, Tetsu; Shimazaki, Jun (1 April 2005). Godzilla Toho Giant Monster Pictorial Book. Shogakukan. ISBN 4-09-280052-5.
- Aita, Hideo; Nakamura, Tetsu (6 July 2014). Common Knowledge of Godzilla. Futabasha. ISBN 978-4-575-30696-5.
- Kaneda, Masumi; Oishi, Shinji; Konuta, Kenji; Eguchi, Mizuki; Maruyama, Takeshi (28 July 2014). Toho Special Effects All Monster Encyclopedia (1st ed.). Shogakukan. ISBN 978-4-09-682090-2.
- Nakamura, Tetsu; Shiraishi, Masahiko; Aita, Tetsuo; Tomoi, Taketo; Shimazaki, Jun; Maruyama, Takeshi; Shimizu, Toshifumi; Hayakawa, Masaru (29 November 2014). Godzilla Toho Champion Festival Perfection. ASCII MEDIA WORKS. ISBN 978-4-04-866999-3.
- Ozawa, Ryoko; Tomoi, Taketo; Nakamura, Tetsu, eds. (4 September 2016). All Toho Monsters Pictorial Book (4th ed.). Yosensha. ISBN 978-4-8003-0362-2.
- Toho Co., Ltd. Visual Department, ed. (15 June 2020). Toho SFX Movies Authentic Visual Book. Vol. 52: Gezora, Ganimes, Kamoebas. Dai Nippon Publishing.
|volume=has extra text (help) - Oki, Renji (25 October 2017). GODZILLA: Monster Apocalypse. Kadokawa. ISBN 9784041061817.
- Oki, Renji (25 April 2018). GODZILLA: Project Mechagodzilla. Kadokawa. ISBN 9784041063453.
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