King Ghidorah (Fest Godzilla)
| King Ghidorah incarnations | |||||||
|
|
| |||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
“
|
It's very similar to the Ghidorah from our country, but its ecology and aggressiveness are very different. Totally different space monster.
|
„
|
— Government official (Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown) |
King Ghidorah (キングギドラ Kingu Gidora) is a three-headed dragon kaiju who first appeared in the 2023 short film Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar and reappeared in the following entry of the Fest Godzilla series, Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown.
King Ghidorah was a malevolent space dragon who appeared on Earth to wreak havoc, interrupting a battle between Godzilla and Jet Jaguar in the process before fighting them both.
Name
- Main article: King Ghidorah#Name.
The "Ghidorah" (ギドラ Gidora) part of King Ghidorah's name comes from the Japanese word for "hydra" (ヒドラ hidora), which shares two of its three katakana characters with "Ghidorah." He is also erroneously referred to as "Gidorah" in the trailer for Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown.
Development
In the Fest Godzilla short films, King Ghidorah was portrayed by the same suit originally modeled by Fuyuki Shinada to represent the kaiju's Millennium incarnation in 2001's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack . The suit had been previously restored for its use in the 2023 Marubeni commercial "Share the Challenge" where it was given slightly longer necks and touches of black on the horns.[2][3] King Ghidorah was portrayed by an uncredited Naoya Matsumoto for its brief appearance in Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar[1] and by Naoya Iguchi in Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown.
Design
By virtue of being portrayed by the same suit, this incarnation of King Ghidorah is nearly identical to the monster's Millennium incarnation with a few noticeable differences, including extended necks and touches of black on the horns. For its appearance in Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown, the King Ghidorah suit would be given milky white eyes like the GMKGoji suit to give him a more menacing appearance, though it noticeably lacks these pure white eyes in Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar.
Personality
King Ghidorah is a malevolent monster who attacks Godzilla unprovoked at the end of Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar and then indiscriminately destroys everything he sees once he lands in Shibuya. While it is Godzilla who makes the first move in their subsequent battle, King Ghidorah still ruthlessly attacks Godzilla and his enemy-turned-ally Jet Jaguar without hesitation or mercy.
Origins
King Ghidorah is an extraterrestrial monster with otherwise unknown origins. It is mentioned that a Ghidorah from Japan exists, though this King Ghidorah's ecology and aggressiveness was described as "very different" by a government official. The relationship between the two Ghidorahs, if any, is unknown.
History
Reiwa era
Fest Godzilla 4: Operation Jet Jaguar
As Godzilla prepared to destroy Jet Jaguar, a Gravity Beam suddenly struck him and knocked him over. The source was revealed to be King Ghidorah, who emerged from a fireball in the sky and besieged the hapless city with his Gravity Beams, causing massive destruction. Observing King Ghidorah's warpath, which easily surpassed any damage previously inflicted by Godzilla, Jet Jaguar turned around and helped Godzilla to his feet. Godzilla released a small roar in acknowledgement while Jet Jaguar returned a thumbs-up as the two decided to team up. The two then turned to face King Ghidorah, who soon noticed them and challenged both monster and robot to a battle.
Fest Godzilla 5: All Monsters Showdown
King Ghidorah stared down Godzilla and Jet Jaguar until Godzilla fired a blast of atomic breath, only for the dragon to block the beam and scatter its energy away from himself. King Ghidorah retaliated with his Gravity Beams, though Godzilla fought back with his own atomic breath, resulting in a beam-lock between the two that King Ghidorah quickly won to send Godzilla flying backwards into a building. King Ghidorah then focused on Jet Jaguar and fired Gravity Beams at him, and though the robot was initially able to dodge them, he was soon struck and damaged. As both monster and robot struggled against the dragon, Jet Jaguar's creators intervened by providing the similarly outmatched Jet Jaguar with G-Claws - weapons created from the remains of Gigan. After Godzilla recovered, the two then charged towards the space dragon, with both blocking the monster's Gravity Beams utilizing different techniques until Jet Jaguar reached him to fight him in close quarters. Taking advantage of King Ghidorah's focus on the robot, Godzilla blasted King Ghidorah with his atomic breath and seemingly killed him, only for the beast to revive moments later. King Ghidorah shot Jet Jaguar down with a Gravity Beam and engaged Godzilla in close quarters, eventually overpowering him and knocking him down.
Godzilla was then lifted into the air by a different set of lasers fired from King Ghidorah's mouths, holding him in place and leaving him unable to fight back. However, King Ghidorah suddenly ceased this attack and dropped Godzilla after Jet Jaguar fired one of his G-Claws at King Ghidorah and stabbed the dragon in the chest. Godzilla fired his atomic breath at Jet Jaguar's remaining G-Claw as the robot raced towards Ghidorah, successfully energizing it and allowing Jet Jaguar to slice off the monster's middle head with ease. Prepared to sacrifice himself, Jet Jaguar then held King Ghidorah in place as the dragon desperately fired Gravity Beams to no avail. Godzilla and Jet Jaguar then silently acknowledged one another one final time before Godzilla fired a powerful blast of atomic breath at both, causing King Ghidorah to explode while critically damaging Jet Jaguar.
Abilities
Flight
Naturally, King Ghidorah is capable of flight and travels down to Earth to attack Shibuya and fight both Godzilla and Jet Jaguar.
Gravity Beams
King Ghidorah possesses the character's trademark gravity beams and uses these to both fight other monsters and destroy cities. He knocked Godzilla down with a single gravity beam, leaving Godzilla unable to easily get back up, and overpowered Godzilla in a beam-fight using all of three of them. However, they were blocked by Jet Jaguar's G-Claws and Godzilla's atomic breath was equal to just one of them.
Physical capabilities
King Ghidorah clashed with Jet Jaguar when the latter was equipped with G-Claws and used one of his heads to block a swipe from the claws. Godzilla also engaged King Ghidorah in close quarters and the two were comparable in strength until King Ghidorah knocked Godzilla down.
Durability
A slash from Jet Jaguar's G-Claws in their regular state did little to no damage to King Ghidorah and Godzilla's physical attacks similarly had no effect.
Barrier
King Ghidorah is capable of defending himself using a barrier, which he used against Godzilla's atomic breath to scatter the blast into several smaller beams which all missed the space dragon.
Ghidorah Gravity
King Ghidorah is capable of firing a different set of lasers from his mouths each differently colored depending on the head (yellow for the middle head, red for the left head and blue for the right head) to lift Godzilla. While this did not appear to actually hurt the King of the Monsters, he was incapable of fighting back while the attack was being used.
Weaknesses
A blast of Godzilla's atomic breath knocked down King Ghidorah and seemingly killed him though the dragon quickly revived. King Ghidorah was also seriously wounded by one of Jet Jaguar's G-Claws being fired at him, and his center head was sliced off by a G-Claw upon being empowered by Godzilla's atomic breath. The wounded King Ghidorah was finally killed by a powerful blast of atomic breath which caused him to erupt in a massive explosion.
Gallery
- Main article: King Ghidorah/Gallery.
Roar
This incarnation of King Ghidorah uses a combination of Showa King Ghidorah and Millennium King Ghidorah roars.
|
Trivia
- This incarnation of King Ghidorah references the incarnation who appeared in the Showa era in a few ways: his emergence in a massive fireball references his emergence in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) and the shot of King Ghidorah firing his gravity beams with a torii in the foreground references a similar shot from the same film.
- This incarnation of King Ghidorah also references the incarnation who appeared in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) as he has his middle head cut off and sprays golden powder instead of blood.
- Additionally, King Ghidorah's Ghidorah Gravity beams are colored yellow, red and blue, a scrapped concept from the film which was referenced in Noriyoshi Ohrai's poster for the film.
- King Ghidorah's use of beams that lift objects and opponents is similar to both Keizer Ghidorah and the version of King Ghidorah in Godzilla vs. Evangelion: The Real 4-D.
- The use of the GMK King Ghidorah's suit to portray this incarnation marks the first time a suit originating from a Millennium era film other than Godzilla Final Wars (2004) has been used in the Fest Godzilla series of shorts, though replicas of suits from other films in the franchise have been used.
References
This is a list of references for King Ghidorah (Fest Godzilla). 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]
|
Comments
Showing 15 comments. When commenting, please remain respectful of other users, stay on topic, and avoid role-playing and excessive punctuation. Comments which violate these guidelines may be removed by administrators.
