Minira

Real Name: Minira

Identity/Class: Mutated Dinosaur/Infant Kaiju

Occupation: None

Affiliations: Gojira, Saeko, Goro Masaki, Rodan, Anguiras, Gorosaurus, Manda, Mosura

Enemies: Kamacuras, Kumonga, the Kilaaks, Kingugidora

Known Relatives: Gojira (adopted parent)

Aliases: Son of Gojira; Minilla (English translation), Minya, Minira (alternate spellings)

Base of Operations: Sollgel Island; later relocated to Monsterland, Ogasawa Islands

First Appearance: Kaijuto No Kessen: Gojira No Musuko (first aired on December 16, 1967); Monster Island’s Decisive Battle: Son of Godzilla (English Translation)

Powers/Abilities: Despite his relative youth, Minira still possesses incredible strength and durability as he stands approximately 50 feet, towering over most living beings. He can uproot gigantic trees and kick boulders with impressive force but in comparison to other mature and adult kaiju, his strength is far inferior and he has proven much more physically vulnerable.

Minira’s most prominent ability is his power to blow plasmatomic smoke rings which do relatively little damage. Under great effort or duress, he can discharge a true atomic ray from his mouth for brief periods. Although not as powerful or potent as his adopted parent’s, the ray is still able to deliver considerable damage.

Minira is also able to communicate telepathically with Gojira. Under some unknown fashion, he is able to project his thoughts or feelings to Gojira. As a side effect of his mental communications, other transmitted signals such as radio waves becomes scrambled or disrupted in his general vicinity.

Presumably, as Minira matures, he will increase in size and mass as well as strength and durability; he may also grow to more physically resemble Gojira and may even develop similar powers and abilities as his adopted parent.

History: The exact origin of the baby kaiju dubbed Minira is unknown. It is believed though that Minira may be unrelated to the much larger Gojira as anatomically and other physical evidence suggests that they are not biologically related. His snout is more upturned and his eyes are placed more forward on his head, he lacks any noticeable fin spines, his body is predominantly green in coloration, and he has three toes instead of the four that Gojira has. However Minira and his parent do appear to possess much closer ties than can be easily explained than biology.

Minira or rather his egg was first discovered on Sollgel Island, a remote island in the South Seas which was the location for an experiment in weather control being conducted by the United Nations. Their experiments are hampered by the presence of unusually large insects including several preying mantis nearly the size of a man and later by the arrival of a nosy Japanese reporter Goro Masaki. One of their tests goes awry by an unexplained and incredibly powerful signal that interferes with their equipment and results in a radioactive storm that covers the entire island, mutating various life forms on the island including the preying mantis until they are now tower nearly 50 feet in height and are dubbed Kamacuras. The scientists watch as the Kamacuras accidentally unearth a mammoth egg buried beneath a mountain and greedily crack it open to gouge on the contents. They find a nearly helpless infant dinosaur when Gojira suddenly appears and angrily attacks, slaying two of the Kamacuras and forcing the last to beat a hasty retreat.

The scientists realize that the infant is the source of the disruptive signals which were a call for help that Gojira instinctively responded to. Realizing that the infant is in fact, a miniature Gojira they name it “Minira”. Gojira quickly adopts Minira; playing with him, allowing Minira to ride on his tail, and even later proceeds to teach him how to defend himself, helping Minira unleash its plasmatomic breath. Minira subsequently encounters one of the human natives of the island, Saeko and makes friends with her. Saeko also encounters the Japanese reporter, Goro Masaki, whom she leads to her underground caves for shelter against another gigantic arthropod, a humongous spider known as Kumonga. Straying from Gojira’s protection, Minira stumbles across Kumonga’s path. The giant spider quickly turns on this new and much larger prey to feed its voracious hunger. Minira is soundly defeated and swiftly cocooned in the giant spider’s webbing when Gojira, alarmed by the disappearance of his offspring, comes rushing in and furiously attacks the spider who manages to incapacitate the King of the Monsters with it’s webbing. However before it can kill him, Minira unleashes it’s own radioactive breath, distracting the giant spider long enough for Gojira to free itself and together, both monsters are able to seize the upper hand and defeat Kumonga, apparently badly injuring it.

Meanwhile, the UN scientists along with Goro Masaki and Saeko escape Sollgel Island and trigger their weather machine, freezing the entire island. Minira succumbs to the extreme cold and falls asleep. Unwilling to leave its adopted offspring, Gojira attempts to shield Minira until it too succumbs to the terrible cold and enters a state of extended hibernation.

Presumably afterwards, Gojira, Minira, and the other surviving kaiju including at least one Kamacuras and Kumonga are taken off Sollgel Island and relocated to a protected zoological preserve on Ogasawa Island dubbed as Monsterland.

In the year 1999, the alien race known as the Kilaaks invade Monsterland and enslave the various kaiju imprisoned there, including Minira. After a group of Earthlings destroy the Kilaaks’ mind control device, Minira apparently accompanies the other monsters into fighting the Kilaaks and subsequently King Ghidorah alongside Gojira, Rodan, Anguirus, Gorosaurus, Manda, and Mothra although he mainly stays on the side and cheers for his larger parent. After King Ghidorah is defeated, Minira and the other kaiju return to live peacefully in Monsterland.

Comments: A younger, cuter, child version of Godzilla that is more human interactive and friendlier has made appearances throughout several different incarnations of Godzilla in several movies and cartoons. Minira happens to be the first and the prototype for all of them.

Minira also appears in another film “All Kaiju Daishingeki” released on December 20, 1969 which translates into “All Monsters Attack”. Written primarily for younger viewers in mind, the film features a young boy named Ichiro whose parents have to work long hours and is often alone. Bullied by the other kids, he pretends to have adventures with his favorite monster, Minira on Monster Island. In the film, Minira has problems of his own with another monster, Gabara who torments him (and coincidentally is the name of Ichiro’s main antagonist). Minira ultimately overcomes Gabara and Ichiro uses Minira’s example to stand up to his own bullies and also help the police capture a group of bank robbers. Minira demonstrated the ability to shrink to human size in this film. However due to the dubious nature of this film; since much of it occurred in a young boy’s imagination, neither Minira’s encounter with Gabara nor any additional abilities he demonstrated seem to fit into his regular profile.

Minira would also make a brief cameo appearance in the 1972 “Chikyu Gogeki meirei: Gojira tai Gigan” or “Earth Destructive Directive: Godzilla against Gigan” as one of the numerous inmates of Monsterland. However due to the budget cuts, Toho was forced to reuse stock footage for Minira’s (and several other monsters’) appearance.

Minira was portrayed via suitmation by “Little Man” Machan.

Hanna-Barbara’s 1978 animated series, “The Godzilla Power Hour” introduced a younger version of Godzilla (Gojira) known as Godzooky that was undoubtedly based on Minira. Godzooky lived with and interacted on a regular basis with the main human characters and was able to communicate with Godzilla.

During the Heisei Era, another young Gojira type of kaiju first appeared “Gojira Vs. Mechagojira” as Baby Gojira and ultimately grew up over the course the next few films into Little Gojira, Gojira Junior, and finally in "Gojira Vs. Destoroyah” evolving into a full adult Gojira.

Another Godzilla cartoon called “Godzilla: The Series” that first aired in 1998 was a direct sequel to the American “Godzilla” film of the same year, featured a Godzilla hatchling that quickly grew to full adult size and became the mascot and ally to Nick Tatopoulos after it was born and imprinted itself on Nick as its “parent” and would serve as an ally to Nick to battle other mutations and monsters throughout the series.

Minira himself would make a reappearance in the Millennium Era in the 2004 movie, “Gojira: Final Wars” like so many forgotten kaiju of the previous era. He was portrayed by Naoko Kamio. Minira, like his adopted parent Gojira was apparently immune to the Xiliens’ ability to control the various kaiju so presumably like Gojira, Minira does not possess M-Base in his DNA. He befriends a young Japanese boy, Kenta Taguchi, who shields the 5 foot tall kaiju from his grandfather, Samon Taguchi who attempted to shoot the distraught Minira with his hunting rifle. Later as Minira watched Gojira in battle, he developed the ability to breathe radioactive blasts and began to grow in size until he stood approximately 65 feet. Presumably, this ability to grow in size was adopted from the “All Kaiju Daishingeki” film. At the finale, Gojira has defeated all of the kaiju opponents, even Kaiser Ghidorah, as well as the Xiliens and turns and is about to finish off the crew of the Gotengo as well when Minira rushes out and like Kenta did at the very beginning of the film for him, shields the confounded Gotengo crewmen. After a long tense standoff, Gojira finally capitulates and turns and begins to walk away with Minira trailing after him.

Profile provided by Michael Higuchi.

CLARIFICATIONS: None.

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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