THAN-KAIJU-GIVING: Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)

Directed by Kensho Yamashita and written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara, this is the sixth and next to last movie of the Heisei era that begins with The Return of Godzilla in 1984 and ends with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in 1995.

SpaceGodzilla was first conceived in 1978 and is similar to new kaiju villain Biollant. Creature designer Shinji Nishikawa saw SpaceGodzilla as a Western dragon-like creature with large fin-like wings on its back. Godzilla’s son would be redesigned to be cuter and not like the dinosaur in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

Speaking of Biollante, Godzilla’s cells were brought into space by that creature and when they’re exposed to intense radiation from a black hole, SpaceGodzilla is born. The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center comes to Birth Island and use a mind control device on Godzilla while The Cosmos, Mothra’s twin priestesses, appear to psychic Miki Saegusa and warn her that SpaceGodzilla is coming.

Even M.O.G.U.E.R.A. (Mobile Operations G-Force Universal Expert Robot: Aero-type), the new version of Mechagodzilla, fails to stop the creature from coming to our planet. Godzilla can’t even keep the monster from stealing his son and starts to use volcanoes to grow in power.

How wild is it that former All Japan Womens wrestler Masanobu Okamoto AKA Little Frankie was Little Godzilla?

If this movie had come out when I was a little kid, I would be drawing SpaceGodzilla in every class instead of learning about things I would never need to know from grade school. As it is, I’ve been drawing him in my notebook at work for the last day or two.