THE BEST GODZILLA DESIGNS OF ALL-TIME

Godzilla is a horror icon and has been for more than seventy years. Since its first appearance, the King of Monsters has lumbered its way through various cities around the world in many unique and different designs. Becoming Godzilla, a site dedicated to crafting Godzilla costumes based on every iteration, lists all thirty unique costume designs by year, and Wikizilla includes entries for each design, including versions that never saw the screen.

By looking at each design, one can start to see which ones emerged as the coolest of their era, moving the public's shared memory of Godzilla in different directions. Godzilla started as a basic movie monster and has grown into an environmental statement, and each of Godzilla's coolest designs left marks that led to the monster fans know and love today.

ShodaiGoji Inspired Timeless Terror

• ShodaiGoji is the original Godzilla.
• Every design tries to meet the bar ShidoGoji set in 1954.

The original Godzilla design premiered in 1954's Godzilla, paving the way for every iteration of the King of Monsters to follow. Sometimes called ShodaiGoji, the first generation Godzilla suit was one of two suits made for close-ups on Godzilla's feet and face separately, but its red-black and brownish colors didn't show up on film.

The suit, modeled by Teizo Toshimitsu, Kanju and Yasuei Yagi, and Eizo Kaimai, was heavy, hot, and complicated to operate, but its distinctly mammalian gait and genuine lifelike features made it the icon it remains today. The ShodaiGoji suit loomed brutishly, so today's computer-generated monsters could run, swim, and crawl with the ferocity of genuine living animals.

MireGoji Looked Mean

• MireGoji is more reptilian than other designs.
• Millenium Godzilla is especially vengeful.

Created by Shinichi Wakasa, Godzilla's Millenium era brought the MireGoji design. With sharper and more distinct reptilian features, the Godzilla featured in Godzilla: Millenium has a look to match its vengeful nature. When scientists try to exploit Godzilla's DNA for its healing properties, they unleash an alien scourge for Godzilla to deal with.

MireGoji looks angry and violent, a far cry from the iterations that are presented as defenders of Earth and all its inhabitants. This Godzilla has no friends, only foes. Its proportions blend the original suit design with elements of the Heisei era. Its small white eyes evoke the stop-motion Godzilla from Return of Godzilla with a predatory edge, and it was the first Godzilla suit to be painted green. GiraGoji came from the same mold, but wear and tear on materials make MiraGoji the cooler design.

BioGoji Started the Heisei Era

• BioGoji introduced mammalian intelligence.
• Every Heisei-era design builds on BioGoji.

1989's Godzilla was bigger and badder than ever. With a smaller head featuring mammalian eyes that became gold in following iterations, two rows of razor-sharp teeth, and a more feline facial structure, BioGoji was designed to look like an intelligent super-predator. BatoGoji, RadoGoji, and MogeGoji are all direct variations of BioGoji's design, and Godzilla vs. King Ghidora's GhidoGoji was a modified version.

Evolved from the fictional Godzillasaurus, BioGoji's enormous and absolutely rippling with muscle and the spikes on its back are huge and menacing, making this design feel like a huge step toward the current depiction of Godzilla. It retains the features that make Godzilla feel like a living, breathing organism while adding more biological complexity and mystery to its design, allowing the King of Monsters to continue his unknowable journey across the silver screen.

Bigger Can Mean Better

• Godzilla Earth is the largest iteration to date.
• AniGoji is more plant-themed, illustrating its archaic nature.

AniGoji, or Godzilla Earth, is the largest incarnation of the King of Monsters, bearing resemblance to many other designs with a few distinct differences. Its reptilian snout, crude teeth, and small eyes convey its primordial nature, while its limbs have a distinctly humanoid shape despite their planetary scale. These defining traits are also present in this version's subspecies, Godzilla Filius, though AniGoji is distinguished by its intelligent blue eyes.

AniGoji, unlike other designs, is inspired heavily by trees and plant life. Filius and AniGoji both have fibrous, tree-like structures lining their exterior, but AniGoji grew a beard-like collection of spikes during its long subterranean slumber.

Hell Cannot Contain Godzilla's Fury

• Godzilla revisits many eras in Hell.
• Demon Godzilla is made of thousands of demons.

Godzilla in Hell is a limited series that sees the King of Monsters traverse the afterlife, revisiting different eras along its warpath back to the land of the living. Facing biblical foes in the realms of the dead, Godzilla's rampage causes the forces of Hell to consume its entire being in a roiling storm of wings and rage.

Not even an army of demons consuming every morsel of its body is enough to stop Godzilla. The demons find themselves controlled as if under a spell, flying in tight, weaving formations to reconstruct Godzilla. The ten-story-tall iteration made of screaming demons eventually tears its way out of death, shedding one of the coolest Godzilla designs to date on the way out.

Shin Godzilla Is an Eldritch Horror

• Shin Godzilla comes in many forms.
• The designs are undeniably cool despite changes to Godzilla's character.

Some fans took issue with the grotesque designs of Shin Godzilla's multi-stage life cycle, but the character overhaul functions as a powerful and jarring statement on humanity's ecological impact. Godzilla starts as a simple organism and grows into a monster resembling several popular designs, but its notable differences set it apart as one of the scariest and coolest.

Shin Godzilla's eyes are small and fish like, even in its most recognizable upright form. As the beast breathes acidic blood onto terrified citizens, those small eyes reflect a lack of personal intelligence, portraying Godzilla as a raw force of nature with only natural malice. Its final form is never shown in full, but consists of a hive mind of humanoid mutants which spring from its tail in the film's final shot.

Godzilla Rules the MonsterVerse

• GareGoji and DougheGoji combine previous forms.
• Legendary's Godzilla is mostly reptilian.

Legendary's Godzilla has two designs, GareGoji and DougheGoji. Both are among the largest iterations to appear on-screen and feature more distinctly reptilian features than other versions while retaining basics like the iconic leaf-like dorsal plate shape. Legendary does their best to harken back to classic Godzilla without relying to heavily on fan-service, carrying on the tradition of altering its powers and abilities while honoring its complex morality.

DougheGoji's purple radiation spreads through its body more than other versions, but it burns just like DoruGoji's classic Burning Godzilla look. What really sets Legendary Godzilla franchise apart from the rest is the quality of its animation, allowing Godzilla, Kong, and the other monsters to move and behave faster and far more realistically than ever before.

Minus One Blends New and Old Designs

• Minus One Godzilla modernizes old designs.
• Godzilla's feline face is reminiscent of BioGoji.

Godzilla Minus One reintroduces the personal tragedies at the heart of Godzilla's most impactful stories by pitting a normal human soldier against an avatar of nature. The design for this Godzilla incorporates the feline aspects of the Heisei era with modern CGI to compete with Legendary's GareGoji and DougheGoji in terms of scale and movement.

Designed by Takashi Yamazaki and Kosuke Taguchi, Minus One Godzilla has that mammalian intelligence in its face that tells viewers its destructive rampage is personal. It's not the mindless monster from Shin Godzilla, the last live-action Godzilla film released before Minus One, and is instead a love letter to classic Godzilla and what it represents.

GMKGoji Is Evil Godzilla

• GMKGoji is one of the scariest Godzilla.
• Giant Monsters All-Out Attack allows for a Godzilla unlike any other.

Made exclusively for Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidora: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, GMKGoji looks nastier than any other version. With elements from ShodaiGoji and several other models in between, GMKGoji added more muscle and white, dead-looking eyes to reflect the sheer malice and rage of this version.

With longer claws and grey veins on his face, GMKGoji bears none of the friendliness many people associate with Godzilla. It may have drawn inspiration from Ghost Godzilla, the unused spirit kaiju of the original Godzilla from 1954. Giant Monsters All-Out Attack is a self-explanatory kaiju exhibition match, so it makes total sense that designer Fuyuki Shinada would strive to create the darkest version of Godzilla's traditional look.

Burning Godzilla Is the Coolest

• When Godzilla reaches critical mass, it becomes Burning Godzilla.
• Burning Godzilla emerged in multiple eras.

Burning Godzilla is not confined to one specific era, but DesuGoji's flaming orange chest is the one most clearly burned into fans' collective memory. DesuGoji adds glowing eyes and draws on the changes made by BioGoji and looks very similar to other suits of the Heisei era, especially in the face.

The legendary "critical mass" scene from Godzilla vs. Destroyah caused carbon monoxide to flood Godzilla's actor, who fainted several times to bring fans this iconic look. Charging beyond capacity became a last-resort for Godzilla from that point forward, and Burning Godzilla has appeared in several films since, including Legendary's MonsterVerse.

2024-08-14T13:52:48Z dg43tfdfdgfd