Redesign Series: New Monster General Election!

In the not-so-distant future Godzilla Day 2026 is going to mark the 72nd birthday of the kaiju king, and with his franchise enjoying a level of international success and popularity that hasn't been seen in decades, Toho is running the monster hype train as hard as they possibly can right now (which is probably for the best since Godzilla will probably eat it come November 3rd). We've got trailers, teasers and more teasers, rumors of a Shin Godzilla sequel and new Japanese film series, mainstays like the IDW comics and Hiya & S.H. Monsterarts figures consistently pumping out quality new releases, Ryunosuke Kamiki and a suit iteration of his Minus One co-star throwing the ceremonial first pitch at LA's Dodger's Stadium, that same stadium hosting a drone show celebrating the character's history, and we even had Godzilla X Hello Kitty happy meal toys at McDonald's. What a time to be a Goji fan!

G-Day day itself will also launch a slew of new projects including the highly anticipated sequel to Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One, a remaster of the GameCube favorite Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, and a new suitmation anniversary short titled Tokyo Vanishing which will be pitting a Burning variant of Godzilla 2000 against Monster X. Speaking of anniversary shorts, Toho has this little thing going on right now called the "New Monster General Election"... maybe you've heard of it?

Yes, for those not in the know (because if you're into this stuff you probably haven't stopped hearing about it since it was announced), Toho and the visual effects company Shirogumi are hosting an online poll to see which of eight potential candidates should enter the kaiju canon and show up in next year's anniversary short. Said character will get brought to life via practical special effects, brought to un-life by Godzilla, and then subsequently sold as merch. And who knows, maybe that won't be their only appearance. Maybe one of these kaiju will actually get to appear in a feature length film some day! Or in a show, or video game? At the very least we'll be getting some "I fought Godzilla and all I got was incinerated" t-shirts with their faces on it or something.

Really though, the winner entering the Godzilla pantheon will be a pretty big deal. It's a globally recognized rogues gallery 70+ years in the making and the list of fictional characters who've tried to gain entry to it and failed is larger than you probably think. Few of the G-man's adversaries are as famous as he is, but there are still some pretty humongous names in there like Mothra, Rodan, King Kong, and Mechagodzilla. Whoever wins this poll will be rubbing elbows with the biggest of big wigs and gaining entry into a very prestigious club.

So who will it be?! ...I dunno! Cast your votes and find out on Godzilla Day, folks, this aint a speculation post!

No, I'm here to take a deep dive into each of these eight candidates, give my personal opinions, and then taking a crack at drawing my own interpretations! Buckle up, gang... it's redesign time!

 

CANDYROY

Assessment: 

Going in alphabetical order, our first candidate is the Waste Monster, Candyroy. He-- what? No, no, not the Smog Monster, Hedorah, the Waste Monster, Candyroy! He came to Earth on a meteorite and grew from a tiny little creature to a Godzilla-sized heap of animate trash by feeding on pollution. Hedorah came to Earth on a comet and grew from a tiny little creature to a Godzilla-sized heap of animate trash by feeding on pollution. See? They're nothing alike!

In all seriousness, the one glaring flaw with this contest (which is otherwise a ton of fun and a great idea!) is that it almost seems afraid to propose new ideas. All eight of Shirogumi's candidates come packaged with a free case of déjà vu, and it's usually not hard to see why, with most of the bunch sharing very obvious similarities with pre-existing fan favorites. Perhaps the pressure of adding a new character to such an old and storied franchise scared Shirogumi's team into playing it safe, but my theory is that the business men at Toho probably had more to do with it; they've pulled pretty similar stunts in the past, like asking GMK director Shusuke Kaneko to replace Varan & Anguirus in his script with the "more marketable" Mothra & Ghidorah, or getting cold feet about canonizing Bagan for the umpteenth time because a public survey said Ghidorah was really popular. I'm only speculating, of course, but my point is a lot of these new monsters are going to feel really familiar if you're already a Goji fan.

Candyroy for example definitely has his own vibe, yes, but there's no getting around the fact that he's not so much a new character as he is a sillier variation of one we've already known for 55 years. It's a decision that severely limits his sense of identity and makes me as a voter less interested in him. That said, it's only one of two reasons why I didn't vote for him.

I like Candyroy. Despite how unoriginal he is I still think the dumpy little chicken-faced cyclops is quite charming. He's silly, nostalgic, cute, and very non-threatening. Friend-shaped, even. He'd make a good plushie or mascot.

Soooo... why do we wanna commission his snuff film?

Seriously, have we already forgotten that's what this contest is about? That the winner is going to go straight to Shinjuku and fight Burning Godzilla to the death? A lot of people online seem to be championing Roy the Boy as this sweet, lovable underdog who deserves to win in spite of it all because darn it, he's got heart, and I know that's coming from a good place, but if he does pull this off his prize is NOT going to be a friendly picnic on Monster Island.

We're all supposed to be picking an enemy here. An adversary to challenge and threaten our hero, a looming danger whose end should be a cause for celebration. Of the eight monsters Shirogumi has submitted, Candyroy is objectively the worst possible option when viewed through this lens. Please cast zero votes for my boy Roy. He is a sweet little lad who doesn't deserve to be atomized by a lizard. Thank you.

Redesign:

 

Being my pick for the least appropriate candidate, Candyroy was naturally going to be one of my most radical redesigns. The number one thing I had to address was his identity problem, not only because it was one of the most glaring examples in the contest, but because it also presented one of the most obvious solutions. He's a silly character, his name is Candy Roy, and the first thing he interacted with and absorbed on Earth was candy... so why give him the same general pollution theme as Hedorah? It's just creating a problem where there doesn't need to be one. Let the poor guy be himself! Don't back down from the goofiness, embrace it!

Granted, does switching him from garbage to candy instantly fix all his other problems and make him an appropriate foe for Burning Godzilla...? No, but I think this proposal would at least let the poor guy get atomized with a little bit of dignity. He'd get to meet his maker as his own monster, not just Hedorah's hapless understudy. 

But of course I don't want Candyroy to get atomized, so I tried my best to give him more of a fighting chance. I gave my version a much goopier, drippier, and more elastic look to imply an ability to stretch and morph. He's got a much longer reach and more mobility for evading and intercepting attacks.

I also chose to swap out Roy's human-esque legs and inexplicable robot claws for tendrils, which if I'm reading the original design correctly were already present anyway. It seems to me his true form is an eared, one-eyed squid thing with a lot of really long, thin tentacles which hold his collected body-mass together like a skeleton. So, I just imagined some of those intertwining and fusing together to form extremities. It'd further increase his reach and unlock a lot of new attacks like dragging, strangling, whipping, flinging projectiles, and muzzling Godzilla's mouth when he's trying to charge his beam.

(As an aside, I imagine he started out with two legs just like the original design, but outgrew them as he grew larger and had to form tendrils to pull his bigger body around!) 

To further elaborate on his biology just a little bit, I imagine this Candyroy collects things not just to cover himself up and grow bigger, but because he's actually ingesting some of what he's collecting and gaining physical properties from it. A more threatening member of his species might've chose to do this with the hardest metals or most noxious chemicals available, but our boy Roy here found candy first. And you know what? HE LOVES IT.

I don't think my version is necessarily unaware that there are stronger and more useful substances to absorb, he just doesn't care anymore. Candy is sweet! Candy makes him happy! He just spent the last few millennia hurtling through the black, cold void of space holding on to a big rock for dear life- he's earned a little bit of joy in his life, dammit!

The problem is Roy doesn't understand that reaching his tendrils into stores and engulfing whole factories is dangerous and frightening. He doesn't know what money or property damage are. He's not trying to hurt anything. He just knows what he loves and desperately wants more of it. He's only a threat because of how big he is and how little he understands. So while this version is arguably a lot less cuddly and non-threatening, ultimately I still wanted to emphasize his sympathetic nature above everything else.

If Godzilla absolutely has to destroy him then I want it to be a tragic event: something that needed to happen for Earth's greater good, likely even as an inevitability, but still not something that anyone with a conscience really wanted. I believe Candyroy's character is at its most effective- and saddest- when he's both dangerous and endearing.

...Buuuut none of that matters cuz my headcanon is Jet Jaguar intervenes before the killing blow and whisks him back to his home planet to tell all the other aliens about Skittles, wheeeeee! 

GIGASECTO

Assessment:

Alright, let's get the obvious out of the way first: Gigasecto is Bagan.

The majority of voters probably won't recognize that because Bagan's never been in a movie, but it's very blatant if you know him. Bagan is a kaiju with a very long and convoluted story that goes back 50 years, but the TLDR is that some artist cooked this guy up back in 1976 and Toho has been doing their damndest not to use him in anything ever since. He's been rejected by the higher ups no fewer than nine times (that we know of!), not including that time Simon Strange said he was too boring to put in Godzilla: Unleashed. Ouch! For most of his history Bagan's only official appearance has been tucked away at the end of a notoriously hard and un-fun Super Nintendo game, but he has been acknowledged more recently in some other fringe forms of Godzilla media like Bandai and X-Plus figures, mobile games, and a shockingly ambitious children's puppet show.

Now, to Shirogumi's credit, Bagan is also one of the easiest monsters to copy accidentally because he has a lot of different designs (getting reworked over and over for 50 years will do that to a kaiju). There's really only one general look that's lasted over the years as his "canon" appearance, though, and this is eerily close. If you want to really get into the reeds, this is basically his Super Godzilla incarnation, slimmed down and given an extra dose of the Dynastinae DNA he (almost) used in Mothra vs. Bagan. He even uses those Bagans' "Slasher Claw" attacks, described here by Shirogumi as "sonic vacuum blades that slice through spacetime". Total gibberish, but sounds badass.

It's also worth noting that another, more popular monster, Megalon, also uses this same rhinoceros beetle theming. 

Anyway, most people casting votes in this contest won't recognize Gigasecto as another case of character cloning, but if you know, you definitely know. I know, so I refused to vote for him on principle. Bagan has had it hard enough already, the last thing he needs is a look-like to compete with!

All that being said, if you pretend for a minute that Bagan doesn't exist (blasphemy, but also kind of accurate!), Gigasecto actually stands out as one of the contest's most solid monster designs. He's very menacing and intimidating with a strong silhouette, memorable wavy horns, and unusually bestial anatomy that pushes the limits of what's possible with suitmation. His digitigrade stance and long metatarsals don't match up human leg anatomy, and he has four arms and a very long torso... probably the only way you could get an actor in there would be to put them up on stilts and have their head somewhere in-between his two sets of pecs, with the upper pair of arms and head being controlled by puppetry. It's a pretty ambitious proposition and one I'd love to see the effects team tackle!

My favorite part of this design is a subtle little detail that's easy to miss: his toe claws are Japanese rhinoceros beetle horns! Damn, that's clever! The only thing I have a genuine critique about is his nasal horn, which seems to be growing out of a pretty flimsy little faceplate in spite of how thick it is.

At the end of the day Gigasecto serves as a staunch reminder of why it's detrimental to play it so safe in this scenario. The artists who created him clearly put a lot of work in, were having fun thinking about personal challenges and ways to elevate their craft, and made a really cool looking character that I definitely would have liked to champion, but keeping him so close to a character that already existed just didn't do anyone involved any favors.

Redesign:

Just like before, my main objective for this redesign was to make this monster look more like its own unique character. That turned out to be a much more difficult task than I 'd anticipated and I went through many different ideas in my quest to reinvent him without throwing away what I liked about the original. Luckily, the inspiration eventually came to me. Literally!

Initially I was afraid to show off this new direction, because even though it solves all of my problems with Gigasecto design-wise, it is still a pretty drastic change, turning him from a rhinoceros beetle to a walking stick. Much to my relief however Toho eventually released additional concept art of each monster, and as luck would have it earlier versions of the character actually were taller and thinner than the final design! Perfect!

Changing what type of bug he was immediately did a lot to separate Gigasecto from what came before: not only did Bagan and Megalon already tread this ground in the Godzilla franchise, but Japan in general just has a TON of rhinoceros beetle themed characters. They're one of the country's most popular insects and show up in everything from fellow kaiju series like Ultraman, Gridman, and King of the Monsters to other Japanese properties like Pokémon, Digimon, Zoids, Medabots, Megaman, and One Punch Man, to foreign-made but Japan-inspired productions like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Big Bad Beetleborgs. Yes, I remember Big Bad Beetleborgs. Moving on!

Walking sticks get a lot less play in fiction overall, which is a shame, cuz they're very neat bugs and much more diverse than most people think! Looking at them allowed me to keep Gigasecto's three "horned" visage without going full Bagan and also gave opportunities for more distinct textures and an extra pop of color in the wings. The end result is a much lankier beanpole of a monster, arguably something that'd stand much less of a chance against Burning Godzilla (at least he only looks like kindling!), but in my defense that's also a body plan no other Toho monster has ever fully embraced, and he doesn't necessarily need brute strength to hold his own anyway.

I imagine this iteration of the character is a lot more nimble and stealthy. He's way too big to convince anyone he's really a stick, of course, but I think it would make sense for him to be able to change color or turn invisible like the 2004 Kamacuras. I picture him creeping between skyscrapers, stepping carefully and pretending to sway in the wind, only visible for a few fleeting moments. The swaying motion I mentioned is actually a fairly important detail to me because I think it could be used to further flesh out his character and make him sympathetic. Lemme explain!

According to Shirogumi company, Gigasecto comes from the Amazon rainforest. We're not told how exactly he became a kaiju (just that he grew in a larval stage for a very long time), but if you know anything about the Amazon rainforest in 2026, it's that it's in serious trouble. Deforestation and wildfires have absolutely ravaged the Amazon, so it only seems natural to make some kind of statement about that with a monster that originated there. My Gigasecto isn't an overtly sad character, but there is a tragic air to him. Sure, your kneejerk reaction might be to laugh at the hilariously oversized twig that's rocking back and forth like a chameleon and doing the meme bug dance, but it's entirely our fault that he looks that silly. Everything about him, physically and behaviorally, evolved to put him in sync with his forest... a forest that, for reasons totally beyond his control, was probably already gone by the time he hatched. He's dangerous and aggressive, sure, but he's also a relic of a healthier world, an oblivious specter left behind by the passage of time and the destruction inflicted by human greed. We did Gigasecto dirty, and now he's on a collision course to get wiped out by another unwilling product of our hubris. Damn...

GILX

Assessment:

Gilx is another monster who I wanted to vote for but didn't feel that I could, but in this case it's a little more complicated. He both is and isn't a copy of another monster. Design-wise, he plays it a little too safe for my tastes but looks cool and is distinctly his own character. There are some comparisons you could still draw, mostly to some of the unused concept drawings for Orga (which are rad and I would recommend canonizing anyway) and certain Ultraman kaiju, but there's nothing else in Toho's canon that looks quite like him. That's good! But, his backstory is a 1:1 copy of Godzilla's most famous enemy, King Ghidorah. That's bad.

That leaves us voters in a pretty frustrating position, because if we're just going by looks this guy should be a front runner, but he's been characterized in the most generic and unoriginal manner possible. Described as an evil alien who flies around space sucking the life-force from planets, he's not only an obvious Ghidorah expy but also an example of what's become one of the most tired tropes of all time, the Independence Day styled resource-gobbling, world-destroying alien. As a character I'm sorry to say Gilx brings literally nothing to the table. That's a pretty hard thing to ignore.

But, to play devil's advocate a bit and sing his genuine praises, Gilx does have some truly neat design elements. The doubled tails that act like organic Doc Oc tentacles are obviously his big calling card, but the gnarled "wings" on his back have also grown on me; for such rigid structures they have a very flowing, wispy shape, almost as if they first emerged soft and tentacle-like but petrified over time. They even remind me a little bit of dead trees, which sounds weird but isn't at all unfitting for a monster that leaves barren landscapes in his wake.

Gilx also has the advantage of having a more conservative body plan. His double tails would require some extra puppeteering, but his proportions and limb structure lend themselves well to suitmation. Personally I wish he were just a little less conservative as the Godzilla series has no shortage of upright, tail-dragging man-in-suit-asaurs, but in practical terms it does guarantee that he's something Toho could convincingly bring to life, which isn't something I can say for every monster on this list.

Redesign:

Though he's only third on this list, Gilx is the last of the eight monsters I drew, and I'm not ashamed to let it fly that it's because I had the hardest time with him. Gilx was already a perfectly acceptable, distinct, and menacing villain and my qualms with his appearance were all minor and subjective. The only thing Gilx actually needs, objectively, is more interesting characterization. But, this is a redesign project, and I can't not put my own personal spin on things when I draw them. So, I had to change something, I just wasn't sure what or how. I went through a ton of different designs and liked almost none of them. They just didn't feel necessary, or like they were really the same character. As my self-imposed deadline approached I started to fear I wouldn't have anything interesting to do with him.

Then Toho uploaded that extra concept art... God, I wish they'd shared that to begin with!

It turns out that at some time during development (I would guess quite recently based on how similar everything is) Gilx had a much squatter, stumpier, and less upright build. I saw those renders and it all coalesced instantly.

Gilx does exactly the same thing as Ghidorah, yes. He has exactly the same motivations and goals and has exactly the same backstory... but in every other way that matters he's everything Ghidorah isn't. He's short. He's clumsy. Goofy, graceless, crude! He's not majestic, he's not theatrical, he doesn't plan, he isn't beautiful! He's everything Ghidorah would look down on. A crass and ugly schmuck, muscling in on his territory with no pomp or circumstance, trying to just abruptly do what he's spent the last 62 years scheming to execute to perfection. He didn't earn the right to destroy Earth.

Suddenly the whole character dynamic shifted. It's the Dio Brando and Frank Reynolds show. Gilx isn't some mundane character clone, he's Danny DeVito the Destroyer... and King Ghidorah is jealous of him!

Oh, I leaned into that idea super hard after seeing that. My version had to look more like the concept render than the suit. Ultra bulky, super squat, all head and belly and thighs with no neck. He has the same build as a meat-eating dinosaur, technically, but his proportions are so cartoonishly absurd that it still manages to feel fresh to me. To finish off his design I dialed up the cracking skin and exposed gum textures, made his blue/bronze color scheme more vivid, and generally just tried to make him a bit freakier; aliens that don't feel alien are kind of a pet peeve of mine (unless it's well explained!) and the mystical green gem on his forehead didn't make a lot of sense to me, so I converted that to another eye and then added another pair for good measure.

The end result is a brutish, gormless and absurd accidental usurper whose mere existence is weapons-grade ragebait for Godzilla's most iconic foe. I'd say that's mission accomplished!

 

MADOMUH

Assessment: 

Just in case you thought these contest candidates were all gonna copy Godzilla monsters, here's Cthulhu. Actually, here's ONE Cthulhu. We'll get to another Cthulhu later. Yes I'm serious.

Uh, Madomuh is a fascinating option because the concept behind him is so absolutely batshit. It's funny enough that he's such a clear and unabashed replica of H.P. Lovecraft's most famous character, but the eldritch cherry on top is that Cthulhu and indeed all of H.P. Lovecraft's creations have been in the public domain for years, so legally speaking there isn't even a reason for this guy to exist. Cthulhu could just enter the Godzilla universe and it wouldn't be a problem. Actually, Cthulhu has entered the Godzilla universe, in the comics.

As you might've guessed, that's made Madomuh something of a controversial candidate. I've seen him called pointless, shamelessly unoriginal, and a waste of a slot. Cthulhu is most definitely not a new original character and the Shirogumi team did not create him create him. These are all perfectly valid complaints, to be honest, and I've given similar if less severe critiques of every other monster thus far, and yet... Madomuh got my vote. Several and in fact most of my votes went to Madomuh, because Toho allowed and encouraged voters to cast new ballots every day.

So you're probably asking: "Why? What made dollar store Cthulhu worth voting for?"

Well, for one I think he actually has some really interesting and novel powers! I was expecting something fantastical for the Mesmeric Entity, but according to his bio Madomuh actually launches what sounds like weaponized parasites at his enemies. Gross! They're described by Shirogumi as "spores", but basically they're living projectiles that burrow under the skin of other creatures. He grows two separate kinds: one that can germinate inside a target and alter their brain chemistry to put them under his control, and another that violently ruptures and explodes under their skin. Again: gross!  

He's also got a good design. A design I've already seen countless versions of before, yes, but it's one of the most solid interpretations I've seen and might be my new favorite. He feels gothic, he feels alien, and he conjures up visions of the deep sea and ancient past. He even exudes a certain amount of cultural influence which comes across to me as a distinctly Japanese. Things like tentacles, insectoid armor plates, and multiple sets of red glowing eyes are common enough tropes in Japanese creature design as a whole, but there's also his chibi-like proportions, which remind me of the iconic Vanguard from Demon's Souls, his barbed and banded wing-arms like the robots from Castle in the Sky, his vaguely Hedorah and Mothman-like silhouette (Japan LOVES cryptids), and his kind-of-but-not-actually-bat-inspired wings (which would 100% be modeled after anatomically accurate bat wings in a Hollywood design).

You could drop Madomuh into the very real sea of Cthulhu designs that already exists and I would still be able to pick him out as the one that was designed by artists from Godzilla's homeland. He also benefits from some really strange body proportions, having an ultra-wide, round, and almost legless build that no other Toho kaiju has ever used. His weirdness is a bit of a double-edged sword, since it would make him more cumbersome as a suit, but to be fair I did already sing Gigasecto's praises for that exact same reason. Sometimes it's just more fun and rewarding to tackle something you aren't confident you can pull off. Madomuh might be more fun to work on than Candyroy or Gilx and I'm genuinely interested to see how well Shirogumi could animate him.

But, completely independent of all that, I personally just think it would kick ass if Madomuh (or the other guy) replaced Cthulhu in the Godzilla-verse, because as heavily requested for crossovers as he is, I don't believe that he or any of his other mythos-members are very well suited to it at all.

Lovecraft's stories are all about slowly building dread for unconquerable and insurmountable reality-ending doom, with creature designs that are deliberately left vague because their unfathomably complex and multi-dimensional natures are too far beyond our human capacity to understand. In other words it's basically not possible to adapt them faithfully to any visual medium, because nothing could ever do them more justice than our limitless and varied imaginations, and the theming and structure of their stories would completely fall apart if their threats were molded into things that the audience could understand and the hero could defeat.

Everybody says they want to see the big spooky octopus man fight the radioactive lizard, but in order to make that match-up happen you'd have to tell either a really crappy Godzilla story or a really crappy Cthulhu story. Really what most of the people making that request think is the same thing I do, which is that Cthulhu looks cool. I would personally rather accept a replacement than deal with all the baggage that comes with including the real thing, especially since H.P. Lovecraft and the ideals he infused into his works were so unsavory.

Plus, if I'm being completely honest, I just can't stand the powerscalers. Iykyk.

Redesign:

Click for FULL SIZE!

I actually did two drawings for Madomuh, because again, the concept art shared later ended up totally changing my perception of this character. I'll leave the link to the original there in case you're curious, but having seen everything I've seen, I kind of hate it now. It was too limited to just being Toho Cthulhu.

The concept art version of Madomuh totally recontextualized his design for me. It's very similar to the final product, but the anatomy there is so much more easier for me to decipher. So much more natural. The fat and round body, the big facial tentacles, the eyes on the shoulders... it just clicked again. Madomuh isn't Cthulhu, Madomuh is an octopus. There's other cephalopods hiding in there too: dumbo octopus, blanket octopus, vampire squid. It's an amalgam of different deep sea molluscs, some kind of primordial triphibian kraken that just happens to look like Cthulhu. Maybe it was even the inspiration! Maybe Lovecraft saw this thing during one of his breakdowns and later immortalized it in his works, not sure if it was a fever dream or reality.

To be honest, I'm pretty fond of this early take on Madomuh and wouldn't have any qualms with them adapting it to screen as-is. But, fair is fair. Everybody gets a redesign!

My take on the Mock Old One is, perhaps, too much... but, I just couldn't help myself. It was a LOT of fun to design! Basically, I tried to make something that was in-between the two Shirogumi versions: it's kind of an octopus, it's kind of Cthulhu, but it isn't clear. That was the point: I wanted to make something that had so many eyes that it gave the viewer a sense of pareidolia, that you started to see multiple faces in an unconscious effort to try and make sense of it.

Like, is that the head in front, with the four eyes? Are all four of those real? Or maybe none of them are real, and those are all decoys on top of its feeding tentacles... that would mean the real head is in the back there, with the eyes on its shoulders! So is that its mouth at the top? Or something else? Oh, but there's also those four eyes on the wings. Surely those couldn't be real, that doesn't make any sense, but... they sure don't look fake, like the eyespots on a moth's wings. None of them look fake, actually. Does that mean they all are, then? Or they all aren't...?

It was a lot of fun to create. I also enjoyed going ham on all the tentacles and wings and inhuman proportions! This is definitely a Madomuh that would be better realized through puppetry than a suit. Even if most of the tendrils were left floppy I think a certain amount of animatronics might be required to make him feel alive- something like the mane on Sammael from Hellboy.

MINACIAS

Assessment:

Now here's a breath of fresh air! Minacias is a weirdo, a total full-blown weirdo, and there's no pre-existing kaiju it clearly correlates to. Its origin is kind of the same as King Caesar's, and it is another replica of an Asian mythological guardian (this time a Qilin rather than a Shisa), but while that construct was a noble creature whose artificial nature wasn't even discernible, Minacias is overtly mechanical and even high-tech with a rogue AI persona. It's roughly the same type of creature as Dodongo (the horse that Ultraman rode, not the dinosaur Link blew up), and a lot of people have compared it to the God Pokémon Arceus, but none of those comparisons are especially damning. Minacias might remind you of something else, but it isn't something else.

That alone raises this candidate into the upper echelon of the competition, but another thing it has going for it is how unconventional its body shape is. It's not even the standard "two guys in a horse suit" build, it's long and snaky with a body that's 60% neck and digitigrade limbs that are so crouched down they almost look reverse-jointed. There is absolutely, positively no way a human being would fit inside this thing; that is a fascinating choice for a non-CG Godzilla monster. Minacias would almost certainly have to be something like a giant rod puppet or a marionette, which is admirably ambitious and quite rare in the kaiju genre.

But, what about the design? It's unique, but do I actually like it? Well... kind of?

The concepts are strong, but the execution doesn't quite do it for me. Like, the revelation that this cutting edge cyber-creature is "millennia" old and "predates recorded history" is nothing short of shocking, and there are some genuinely fascinating and unsettling stories you could tell with that, but if Minacias really is that old then why does it look so pristine? How does it look so pristine? It's almost comical how much it doesn't look like what's supposed to be, it makes you doubt that it even is what we're told it is! Are we completely sure Minacias wasn't just assembled two months ago by Xilians or Futurians or Boston Dynamics?

Compared to that my other complaints are all just nitpicks, but there are a fair few things that I wish Shirogumi had thought about or at least explained more. It's a fairly busy design with a lot of oddly angled parts and segments and layers and extremities; what's ornamental and what's function isn't really clear, and to be honest I actually had to go back and rework part of my redesign after the fact because the concept art Toho released later showed that those giant decorative horn things move?! They're the "horn" that his signature attack shoots out of? How the heck were we supposed to know that?! Being indecipherable was Madomuh's shtick, Minacias, pick a lane!

Redesign:

The most obvious thing I changed is all that added wear and tear. In truth it's still not as much as it logically should be, but a fossilized lump of unrecognizable scrap metal does not an interesting character make. In my defense I also imagined him being much younger (thousands of years old, not millions) and having spent a good chunk of his dormancy in a relatively sheltered indoor space. Of course it still needed to look inexplicably advanced for its age, but I wanted that lengthy span of time with no maintenance to show in its design. The corrosion and rust effects were the lengthiest part of the whole process and I spent a full day just breaking down the beautiful, pristine mech I had already drawn. It felt wrong, but also... sort of cathartic?

 

At one point I had planned on making my Minacias out of brass or bronze to further emphasize its origins, but the more I thought about it the less sense it really made: a civilization advanced enough to build circuit boards and power generators would've had no trouble processing stronger metals, and the stark white look does help distinguish it from King Caesar.

 

The other changes that I did commit to are subtler, but numerous. My Minacias is a bit more robust, slightly thicker in the neck and a lot thicker in the body, and its front legs are a good deal longer. It still invokes the general image of a Qilin (I hope!), but I tried to sneak in traces of cobra, tiger, fox, and even Brachiosaurus to make the design feel just a smidge more feral, sturdy, and Asian. Speaking of, I also gave Minacias thick "lips" and curving fangs in an effort to make it look more like something an Eastern ancient culture would've sculpted. Its forehead horn is also bigger, but that's a holdover from when I thought that was where its main attack came from...

 

The meddlesome neck-horn-things that apparently can move are mostly unchanged (I originally had the top pair fused to its head), but I did give them a slight size gradient, with the middle pair being longest. I don't know if there's a comparable secret function to those shide streamer things he has in the back, but I interpreted them here as a power intake, flailing around in the air like fox tails and extending their inner circuitry to drain the power from other machines.

 

At the end of the day I'm honestly not sure that I feel any differently about my version than I do Shirogumi's. It's just not hitting that mark for me, I still like the idea more than the execution... but hey, it looks proper old and I gave it a fair shake. Hopefully my redesign isn't too offensive to you mecha-dragon-horse fans out in the audience, but for what it's worth I did back this candidate in the polls; after Madomuh, Minacias was actually the monster I cast the most votes for. It's just too original and unconventional not to support!

 

RIGEDOH

Assessment:

Swinging back into some more familiar territory, we have a big angry dinosaur: Rigedoh! This one is almost less of a character copy and more of a whole movie copy. Have y'all seen Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire? The artists at Shirogumi sure have!

What we've got here is the hulking frame and neon pink spines of Godzilla evolved, the snow white skin and bipedal/quadrupedal stance switching of Shimo, and for good measure, big ol' beefy arms like King Kong. If you've seen that (popular, recent) film then it's impossible not to look at this and get déjà vu.

Was that the point? Maybe everybody at Shirogumi is over there in their office going wink-wink nudge-nudge at us. Maybe it's an in-joke? A jab? A loving homage? I have no idea. At this point almost every entrant has been like this.

 So, let's just ignore that part for a minute. What does Rigedoh have going on besides that? 

Well, despite having the typical Man-in-suit-asaurus Rex body plan, they seem to be based on a Triceratops. That's not a half-bad start, because as common (some might even say overdone) as dinosaur kaiju are in Godzilla films, this is one type we've never seen done. Toho's other dinosaurs are all carnivores of some stripe, and come to think of it, herbivore-based monsters are just really rare in general.

Basing Godzilla's new foe on this particular herbivore also offers a potential theming option. Triceratops and T. rex are famous pop-culture adversaries, and the Big G is partially based on Tyrannosaurus. He's also black, while Rigedoh is white, and his spikes glow blue*, while Rigedoh's glow red. It's Herbivore versus Carnivore, Light versus Dark, rivals from the dawn of time. Heck, maybe Rigedoh could even rock a white knight theme, since the last anniversary short called Godzilla a "Red Dragon" and Google initially translated his title as "Dragon Slayer"? With that in mind he might actually be the perfect choice to stand between the world and Godzilla's impending meltdown!

*Normally; he might still be in his Burning form when the next short gets made.

Buuuut, you probably know where I'm going with this by now, don't you? The idea is grand, but the execution wasn't what I hoped for. For something Triceratops inspired Rigedoh sure doesn't use much of the kit it had, and the parts he does adopt are significantly downplayed: he's a New Empire reference first, a roided up muscle Godzilla second, and begrudgingly, a Triceratops third*.

*See what I did there? Third? Cuz of the three horns? I'm hilarious!

Anyway, yeah, it's a weird direction. Part of me admires the bold subversion of transforming such a gorey and front-heavy beast into a muscular grappler, but at a certain point you just have to ask "what's the point?". Rigedoh could've been any number of other famous plant-eating dinosaurs with small heads and big bodies (Iguanodon, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus), so if he's not gonna look or fight like a Triceratops, why be a Triceratops?

It also drives me a little crazy that he has sharp teeth just like Godzilla, but I can't give Rigedoh too much flak for that; Anguirus started off as an inexplicably fang-toothed herbivore too and I love him! Still feels like a missed opportunity, though.

What I will give Rigedoh flak for is his tiny, tiny, pitiful little head. Just look at that pint-sized pea of a noggin! It looks kind of okay in some of the profile shots, where you're assuming or at least hoping there's some amount of foreshortening going on, but... wow, look at that front view! Are we sure this guy isn't secretly a Cotylorhynchus?! Oh my goodness. Dial it back, guys! I'm not supposed to be laughing!

Last and absolutely least (because this is the granddaddy of all nitpicks), there are some things about Rigedoh that simply don't sit well with me as a paleontology enthusiast. I could've anticipated sharp teeth on a Triceratops-type, that's been done by every old cartoon and bootleg toy under the sun, but are we really still doing the "dinosaurs were all brawn and no brain" thing in the big 2026? And implying that they were wiped out by the ice age? I know this series started in the 1950s, but we don't have to act like we're still living in them, guys. To Shirogumi & Toho's credit this is, again, a giant nitpick, and the reasons for my grievances are probably coincidental since "frozen in suspended animation" is a trope unto itself and plenty of dinosaurs do have small heads, but I digress. Had to say something! Sorry!

Redesign:

For my Rigedoh design I aimed to bring the herbivore part of his identity back into the forefront. I gave him a full-on beak (with jagged edges to reference his old teeth), blunted his claws down to gnarly nails, and made his nasal horn and frill just a little bit more pronounced. I took care to make him look weathered and gnarled and tough, like a tortoise or a rhinoceros; not a predator, like the other dino-kaiju, but something that just sits around and does its own thing, stubbornly enduring everything the world throws at it.

The most obvious change is to his build. Being an absolute unit was obviously important to Rigedoh's character, but I wasn't vibing with the body builder idea: there are more ways than one to be strong, especially in the wild, and slapping human-like musculature on the guy just felt like a cop-out to me. I looked again to rhinos, but also komodo dragons, bears, and ground sloths. Iguanodon was hiding in there too, albeit more in spirit than anatomical reference.

The white and pink color scheme was another feature I couldn't do without, so even though I thought it was too gaudy and on the nose, still I kept it. Hopefully I blended them in a way that feels more naturalistic. I also made him an albino, cuz the colors needed a reason, and if we're being that obvious about referencing recent Hollywood dinosaurs we might as well get some Indominus Rex in there too.

I also kept the pea head. It's not nearly as small as it was (I imagine it's a fair bit wider when viewed from the front, too), but proportionately speaking it's still pretty dinky so as to make all of Rigedoh's muscles look extra big. Figuring out exactly what size the head needed to be was far and away the hardest part of the whole process... the Goldilocks zone between Imposing and Comedic is a treacherous little sliver that I had to navigate with utmost care. I couldn't tell you how many times I shrank, grew, and then re-shrank his head. I really did lose track.

Of course as became the custom with this series, Toho later gave me second thoughts by revealing more of his concept art, but as rad as Shirogumi's OG design looks all powered-up like that, I'm still pretty happy with my alternative take.

SAGIUS

Assessment:

Shirogumi's contest comes with not only two Cthulhus, but two giant robots, too! Neat!

I wish I had as many good things to say about this one as I did Minacias, but it just isn't as special. Sagius, whose name is basically short for Sagittarius, is a centaur archer with vaguely Greek/Sumerian/Babylonian roots. That's a novel basis for a kaiju, but unfortunately its origin and design are far less original. I mean, it's not hard to see which Godzilla enemy this is borrowing from. Sure, it has four legs and an energy attack that's called an "arrow", but that's where all the theming ends and poor Sagius doesn't have any identity of its own to fall back on. The design is so familiar that one of my friends honest to goodness saw their thumbnail on the website and thought Mechagodzilla had inexplicably been added to the contest.

It is a headscratcher. If this mech isn't connected to Mechagodzilla and isn't meant to invoke them, then why was it given a saurian head shape, sharp claws, a thruster that's shaped like a back plate, and what seems to be some sort of "tail"?

The only other parts that even seem worth mentioning are the mysterious fan-like structures on its arms and the army of flying drones it controls, which weren't even shown to us until much later. They're a decent start, I suppose, but don't coalesce into anything super memorable or centaur themed. The whole character just feels unfocused to me, like somebody on the team really wanted to make a cool-looking robot but didn't actually have any ideas for it.

Redesign:

I'll be upfront: Sagius is another redesign that I'm not super confident in, and not just because I'm bad at drawing robots. I like all the changes that I made, but I still wouldn't say that I like the whole design... I think this is just one candidate I was never going to be able to do justice; the base character didn't make sense to me or pique my interest, but I couldn't deviate too much from it or else I'd just be making another new character. I did the best that I could, but Sagius just never resonated with me and it shows.

Still, I have to explain what I changed! Most of the general construction is the same here (because most of Sagius DOES look cool), I just made little tweaks to simplify it and make it more mobile. It's got much larger legs, to facilitate jumping and maybe even a bit of climbing, and its new talon-shaped toes are for grappling. It has a flexible waist now, so it can look up and down and around, and the thruster that was behind the shoulders has now been relocated to the "butt" area, where I think it would be more helpful; I'm not entirely sure what the intent was on the original, but mine uses it to leaps into the air like a rocket-propelled grasshopper.

There's also those wingy-fanny-things on the arms, which so far haven't been explained. I initially thought they must be part of the big "bow" apparatus Sagius fires its final attack from, but I wasn't completely sure, so I just made them into defensive switchblades and said "well uh, maybe they can charge up with energy, too, and then they project the arrow in front of him". A few weeks later the second batch of concept art released and it turned out the arms have nothing to do with that attack. Whoops.

Moving on to the body, I angled the lower half of it down toward the back, partly for balance and partly to make the thing look less an aircraft carrier with a torso attached to it. Then I changed the head into something more anthropoid. Shape-wise it's pretty close to the original, but I twisted it into a samurai/knight helmet that I think better fits its centaur inspiration; giving it a less Mechagodzilla-like head went a long way in making this its own character.

Still, I have a lot of second thoughts about how I did this redesign. I kind of wish I'd given it an equine build with stamping hooves, but I didn't want both of the robot candidates to look like they were part horse, especially since in this case it would (weirdly) be more of a departure. I'm still not even sure if that kind of idea would be appropriate : Sagius' namesake would have those traits, definitely, but would Sagius itself? What should Sagius look like? I don't think it's well defined enough for me to say.

XENOLHU

Assessment:

Aha! I told you there was another one of these!

Xenolhu is Contest Cthulhu Number Two, because apparently one One One just wasn't enough. His design is different enough that at a glance you might've been able to argue that he wasn't another Cthulhu, but this tentacle-faced biped still has -lhu at the end of his name and is described as an interdimensional being that crawls from the abyss to drive mortals insane and drain their will. He's Cthulhu. Maybe even more Cthulhu than the first Cthulhu!

The strange thing to me is that the online reaction to him has been completely different, at least from what I've seen. A lot of people hate that Madomuh is what he is, but so far as I can tell Xenolhu is this contest's darling. He's got more endorsements, more memes, more positive social media posts and way, WAY more fanart: we're talkin' 2D drawings and paintings, 3D models, sculptures, I even saw an anime girl version of this thing! People love Xenolhu. I fully expect him to be announced as the winner of this contest come Godzilla Day; I just haven't seen anywhere near this much love for any other candidate, except maaaaybe Candyroy.

If you know me, though, you know that's all contributing to me liking this guy less than Madomuh. I LOVE a good underdog story. I don't go with the popular vote. I like to shine a light on obscure and forgotten characters nobody seems to care about, like Miba and El Gusano. I like designs like Gorosaurus and Varan that are easy to write off as "just big dinosaurs" but actually have a lot of weird subtleties and depth. Madomuh was always going to be my squidhead of choice here, especially since everybody online seems to just be pretending he's not another Cthulhu clone "cuz he looks cool"!

But, that doesn't mean I don't like Xenolhu, either. It's no mystery why he's so popular. He's one of the contest's most menacing looking monsters, and not just in a feral animal kind of way; there's a looming intellect behind that lowered head and narrowed eyes. He looks like a proper villain, something that can hate and scheme and be cruel. You can just tell he'd be fun to root against, he's perfect for this type of role. And he looks cool! And he does look cool. He looks very cool! I love that the designers were able to work in so many harsh angular edges in spite of how fluid and curvy his body is, and the splashes of vibrant orange and pink and blue on his underside are nothing short of gorgeous. He is an expertly crafted creature, and objectively speaking I have no problem admitting that he is the more competent Not-Cthulhu design. Well... almost no problem.

There is one crucial flaw in this design, in my opinion, and it really brings this guy down a few pegs in my ranking. He's like 95% of a perfect design made baffling by one hideous, glaring weakness. It's maddening.

Why does he have dinosaur legs?

Everything else about Xenolhu's design looks so good and makes so much sense, it's thematically and biologically sound, it's unique, it all flows together and makes this slick and cohesive whole, and then... there's just dinosaur legs. Just slapped on there! For no reason! Like somebody leaned over at the end of the design process and went "ermmm, kaiju are supposed to have two legs and a tail that drags". UUUUGH!

No! Kaiju are not "supposed" to have two legs and a tail that drags, that's just a common trope because of how popular Godzilla was and how it balances out a suit and the way people used to think dinosaurs moved and- ugh, it doesn't matter! It just isn't a requirement, okay?!

Not everything has to be built like Godzilla, or Destoroyah, or Baragon, or Gamera or Zedus, or Gorgo, or Gilx or Gigasecto or Rigedoh or the several HUNDRED Ultraman kaiju that use that frame. There's nothing wrong with having that body type, it's a great body type, but have a little faith in your audience, Shirogumi! People aren't gonna look at a monster that has spider legs or a snake body or wings for feet and go "duuuuuh that can't be a Godzilla monster! Godzilla monsters have feets"! You're allowed to use your imagination! Make him weird, make him unconventional! He's a levitating, reality-bending tentacle monster from another dimension, why does he need two legs and a tail?

It genuinely looks like somebody merged the lower half of a different character onto him. The transition effect is interesting, I'll give them that- really neat how the harder saurian parts of him look like they're ripping themselves out of his musculature- but there's still no reason I can parse as to why they need to be there in the first place.

This was such a slam dunk and they just... marred it at the literal tail end. I don't get it.

Redesign:

Yeah, saw that coming a mile away, didn't you?

I just took off the legs. That is almost exactly all I did. A few minor details are tweaked here and there just to put my own spin on things, his tail matches with the rest of his body now and he can stand on it like a cobra when he's not flying, but that's it. Because that's all it needed to be!

 

And that's all eight candidates! Whew! Took me a lot longer than I expected. Guess I had a lot to say!

But what did YOU think? Did I give a fair analysis, or have I just been blabbering on like a crazy person? Did I improve on these designs, or make them worse? Are the Candyroy fans organizing an angry mob yet?

Ignoring everything I just made you sit through, what are your thoughts on the contest as a whole? Do you like these eight candidates? Who's your favorite, and who do you think is gonna win? 

In just a few short days we'll find out four of these monsters got the most votes, and then voting will begin again in Round Two! I'm looking forward to it!

Thanks for reading, stay safe, and VOTE MADOMUH!