Megaro

Real Name: Megaro

Identity/Class: Kaiju/Giant Monster

Occupation: Deity, Weapon of Mass Destruction, Destroyer

Affiliations: The Seatopians, Gaigan, Nebula M Spacehunters; formerly Jetto Jagâ

Enemies: Jetto Jagâ, Gojira

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Megalon (English translation)

Base of Operations: Seatopia

First Appearance: "Gojira tai Megaro" (first aired on March 17, 1973 in Japan) a.k.a. "Godzilla vs. Megalon" (English translation)

Powers/Abilities: Despite resembling a gigantic beetle insect, Megaro is bipedal and has only four limbs compared to the usual six legs found in normal insects. Megaro is of tremendous size and stature, standing approximately 180 feet tall, and weighs over 44,000 tons. As a result of his tremendous size Megaro possesses awesome strength and his armored exoskeleton has proven invulnerable to immense impacts and even heavy artillery fire.

One of Megaro's more bizarre physical features is a pair of arms which extend into a sharpened metallic spades. These are highly useful for digging and excavation, and incidentally serve as a formidable weapons as well, capable of inflicting considerable damage to any structure or objects in his path. Further, Megaro can slam his arms together and combine these sharpened spades together to form a rotating drill bit capable of boring through solid bedrock with tremendous speed. Megaro can attain speeds of approximately 2,200 miles per hour or Mach 3 underground.

Megaro possesses a pair of wings underneath a protective carapace on his back. However his tremendous weight makes it impossible for him to fly for any great distances. Instead, these wings enable him to make tremendous "leaps" of approximately 6 miles at a time.

Megaro's sizable forehead horn can generate and discharge a shocking blast of electricity. He can also spit blobs of solidified napalm from his mandibles. These napalm bombs remain solid for several seconds before they detonate in a fiery explosion of immense potency.

Despite his awesome powers and amazing capabilities, Megaro is not very intelligent and becomes easily confused. He is a formidable brawler, but all he understands is using his strength and offensive powers to carry through his battles instead of any strategic or tactical planning. Thus it is possible for a canny opponent to hold their own and even theoretically defeat him, such as Jetto Jagâ once did.

History: A gigantic insectoid creature, Megaro has existed for untold centuries. His awesome power and unparalleled might made the ancient undersea kingdom of Seatopia worship him as their living god. In recent years however, the Seatopians found themselves suffering greatly from the various ecological problems unleashed by an uncaring humanity's recklessness and polluting ways. Fearful that they were facing extinction, the Seatopians decided that for their civilization to survive, mankind must die. To that end, they intended to unleash Megaro to destroy humanity. However the dull witted kaiju required a guide so he didn't get lost and agents of Seatopia selected the mechanical man Jetto Jagâ for this task. Invented by the brilliant scientist Goro Ibuki, Jetto Jagâ was a remarkable multipowered robot that Ibuki used mainly to aid him around the house and look after his younger brother, Rokuro. Agents of Seatopia kidnapped Goro and his brother Rokuro, as well as their friend Hiroshi Jinkawa, and took them, Jetto Jagâ and Jagâ's primary control unit to Seatopia.

Megaro was released from his slumber and the Seatopians had Jetto Jagâ guide the monstrous kaiju to Tokyo, where he proceeded to destroy the city. Goro, Rokuro and Hiroshi escaped from the Seatopians, and Goro used a backup control unit he had concealed to regain control of Jetto Jagâ. Realizing that perhaps only the King of the Monsters, Gojira, held enough power to defeat Megaro, Goro ordered Jagâ to immediately fly to Monsterland and summon the mighty kaiju to fight on humanity's behalf. The Seatopians quickly realized they had lost control of Jagâ and that their plan might be doomed if Jagâ mustering Gojira's assistance, and contacted their occasional allies; the Nebula M Spacehunters.

After alerting Gojira, Jagâ raced ahead to Japan, finding Megaro still destroying Tokyo, and struggled to delay the destructive cockroach until Gojira could arrive, expanding its size and stature to match Megaro in battle. Although overmatched in raw power, Jagâ's superior fighting skills enabled him to hold his own until the arrival of a new foe, Gigan. Sent by his controllers, the Nebula M Spacehunters, Gigan combined forces with Megaro and the two kaiju overwhelmed Jagâ, pummeling him until Gorjia's arrival turned the tide. Battling it out between Gojira and Jetto Jagâ, Gigan and Megaro found themselves losing ground and finally the dreaded space cyborg fled, abandoning Megaro, who decides to retreat and presumably returned to Seatopia to recover from his wounds and resume his easy life as an object of worship. Neither he nor his faithful worshippers, the Seatopians, have never been seen or heard from since.

Comments: Megaro was portrayed by Hideo Date and originally was slated to be used as the villain in a movie tentatively titled "Jetto Jagâ tai Megaro". Jetto Jagâ was to be Toho's answer to the hugely popular Ultraman series. This film was to be Jetto Jagâ's debut, prior to his television series. Because of the somewhat fantastical and unusual designs of Ultraman's monstrous foes, this influenced the designs of the monsters of this period such as Hedorah and Gigan but were best exemplified in Megaro's bizarre appearance. However early film audience tests proved to be disappointedly negative and Toho shelved the project. Deciding to recycle as much as the movie as possible, they had the script rewritten to include Gojira in hopes that he would be able to carry Jetto Jagâ on his own star power. Additional cost cutting measures forced Toho to reuse as much footage as they could and they decided to use recycled scenes from several previous movies particularly the previous year's film, "Chikyu Gogeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan". This is probably the reason behind the addition of Gaigan to the movie and why, during the fight scenes, it changes from day to night and back again in a matter of seconds. Even Megaro's own lightning beams are merely recycled stock footage of Kingu Ghidorah's gravity beams. Not too surprisingly with all of this cost cutting and recycling methods, "Gojira tai Megaro" was a colossal failure not only in Japan but also in the United States, where it suffered flawed dubbing and where, in order to obtain a G-Rating from the MPAA, they cut several critical scenes leaving the movie both confusing and disjointing. This film was probably most responsible for ruining Gojira's reputation in the US for years as nothing more than a bad actor in a cheap rubber suit as it was perhaps the most widely seen movie due to an aggressive marketing campaign.

"Gojira tai Megaro" was the first and last appearance of Megaro (and Jetto Jagâ) on film. Despite his sole dismal film appearance, Megaro has somehow managed to remain a viable part of Gojira's cast of characters, mostly appearing in a number of video games based on Gojira. So far Toho has yet to bring Megaro back to the big screen.

Thanks to Michael Higuchi for the above profile.

CLARIFICATIONS: None.

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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