Are the famous kaiju male or female?

Few figures in cinema history can claim to have been relevant for 70 years, but starting with The classic 1954 kaiju film that started it all, gave birth to “Godzilla” such a character. Affectionately known as the King of the Monsters, no giant monster ever to grace the silver screen has had a greater or more lasting impact on the pop culture landscape. But is this a title? king suitable? This means, is Godzilla really a king? Or would Queen of the Monsters be a more appropriate title?

The question of whether Godzilla is male or female is actually one worth pondering. For English-speaking audiences, we have come to know the monster largely as “he.” But it’s not as easy as all that. For example, Godzilla has children, which raises questions about gender. Minilla, for example, is presented as the son of the Beast In the not-so-great 1967 film Son of Godzilla, But how the child was created was not clearly explained.

Did Godzilla lay an egg? Was there a mother? On a similar theme, Baby Godzilla from “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II” is based on the Heisei era of the franchise. It was technically a dinosaur that the monster, transformed by humans, had taken as its own and was not Godzilla’s actual child. These moments in the franchise raise questions rather than provide answers.

As such, we will delve into the ownership history of “Godzilla” and do our best to provide an actual answer to this question. Spoiler alert: It’s not at all clear. So buckle up, because we’re about to get into the weeds.

“Godzilla”, also known as “Gojira”, directed by Ishirō Honda, was a Japanese production. It was made largely in response to the devastating use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. It’s also a Japanese film that spawned a slew of sequels, with the rest of the world, especially North America, later embracing those films. But the fact that Godzilla was made in Japan is important because it’s easier to avoid using gender in the country’s language.

Since this is the case, in the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all other monsters, enemies and allies alikeis referred to without gender labels such as “he” or “she”. However, Japan used gender-neutral pronouns, which are basically the equivalent of “he”. This is the first wrinkle. So, where did the word “he” come from that led us to call the kaiju the king of the monsters? You can thank the United States in large part for that.

In the English-dubbed versions of the “Godzilla” films, the character is explicitly described as male. Why exactly? Geoffrey Engels, who translated both “Godzilla” and “Godzilla Raids Again”, the first two eras of the Showa seriesby the University of Minnesota Press, has the answer. The corners of the two films’ novels were translated into English for the first time in 2023. In an interview with MovieWebHe explained why gender occurs in English translations:

“This particular kaiju has no gender, at least in the book, neither in the Godzilla movies nor Godzilla Raids Again.” In Japanese it’s very easy to completely avoid gender, and this entire book didn’t mention Godzilla’s gender, but in English, it was hard to avoid sometimes avoiding gender, but using those words over and over again would be weird and repetitive, so we need pronouns somewhere in there and so “I thought long and hard about it, and ultimately decided to use ‘he,’ which I think might be a potentially controversial decision.”

Angels speaks largely from his own experience, but that definitely translates to writing a screenplay for the English dub. At the very least, this helps explain why the Godzilla films of the early Showa era were known as him. However, Angles also revealed that Toho, the Japanese company that controls the Godzilla film franchise, is not necessarily in favor of giving the monster a gender:

“Some people feel very deeply, like the people at Toho Studios who feel strongly that Godzilla is a ‘he’ and not ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘them.’ I kind of give my justification for that choice in the post – (author of ‘Godzilla’) and “Godzilla Raids Again” Shigeru) Kayama thought of Godzilla as an alternative to the nuclear bomb, and it was the guys in America who were developing the hydrogen bombs that scared Japan so much in 1954. So maybe not It is inappropriate to call Godzilla “he.”

Warner Bros. agreed. And Legendary followed this logic when they created the game The MonsterVerse, which began in 2014 with Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla. This franchise now includes a total of five films, the latest of which is “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” The MonsterVerse Godzilla is definitely him, and he’s always been referred to as such on screen. Director Michael Dougherty, who directed Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was asked directly about the issue of gender in a 2019 interview with Yahoo. His answer was fairly straightforward:

“It’s him, he’s called the King of Monsters.”

Toho’s line of thinking that Godzilla is neither he nor she and more than that is supported by certain films on the property. “Godzilla 2000” and others point out that Godzilla reproduces sexually, laying an egg at some point to continue. This is how the series continued (without getting into the messy continuity of the whole thing) after the original 1954 “Godzilla” movie killed off the monster with an Oxygen Destroyer.

There’s also the idea that Godzilla transcends gender by being a literal god. logo for A dark 2016 reinvention of the “Shin Godzilla” series He was literally “God incarnate. A doomed city.” This is also something to consider. It’s not as simple as “boy” or “girl”.

The frustrating answer to the question we started with is that there is no specific gender that one can associate with Godzilla. It depends on the film we are talking about, the person we are talking about, and the language in which a particular film is being watched. To a large extent, the question of male gender identification has stuck around thanks to the popularity of English translations, but there has been much that has been introduced over the years to complicate matters (the “god” of it all being perhaps the most complicating factor).

The most interesting exception to any existing rules came in 1998 when the first ever American version of the franchise was released. Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” may have been a major disappointment at the timebut it also provided something interesting for the mythology. It is revealed in the film that this new version of Godzilla is actually produced asexually. Or in other words, only one parent is needed to produce offspring. The film’s climax sees a massive nest of Godzilla hatchlings prepare to invade New York City, before they are blown to smithereens.

This version of the creature was later renamed Zilla was not very popular and was eventually killed in “Godzilla: Final Wars.” Whatever the case, the idea of ​​a monster being able to reproduce asexually once again muddies the question of “is Godzilla male or female.” Godzilla is probably a hermaphrodite, a being with both male and female reproductive organs. Although this film can’t really be used to represent the broader “Godzilla” canon, it did help raise an interesting question. It also proves that this question does not have a black and white answer.

You can get the original “Godzilla” movie in 4K or Blu-ray via Amazon.