#BNHA I don't really know how to start this thread but: Godzilla and My Hero Academia Share a Fuck Ton, a thesis by my brain worms

Or: Horikoshi-sensei is a giant Godzilla fanboy & so am I and here's how I see its influence

(I will unroll the thread at the end so you can scroll there for a convenient link to read this easier.

Contains spoilers. And there’s no tl;dr besides “yes they do share a fuck ton” but if you’re lazy, I am BEGGING you on my HANDS AND KNEES, at least read the (ENJI) portion)

Horikoshi loves Godzilla/Gojira. Evidence?
-Pics from his twitter,
-probably interviews idk i'm lazy
-a Godzilla-themed hero in BNHA Two Heroes designed by him
-Chimera in Heroes Rising is a Gojira reference

I love Godzilla. Evidence?
-my fuckin shrine

For those not that familiar with Godzilla or his theme, basically it boils down to an environmental message. Humans polluted the earth to hell and back & waged nuclear war on it, and Godzilla is the product of all that abuse. He's the Earth's vengeance.

So now for MHA. Where obviously OFA vs. AFO represents the main good vs. bad conflict, but really OFA/AFO are just the extreme projections of hero society vs. villain society. The real war. The characters are just extensions of that & fill in the grey areas in-between.

And at this point in BNHA, it's 200 years since quirks first appeared. Things are escalating. Quirk singularity and all that.

In comparison, the thing that finally awakened/created Godzilla was the use of atomic bombs. Our weapons escalated in severity, the USA used them.

So in both MHA & Gojira, humanity/human nature is the Big Bad. doesn't matter what people call themselves, heroes or villains, they're KILLING each other & destroying everything. And Horikoshi shows that line blurring more and more anyway (Endeavor, Hawks, Twice...)

Quirks are a sort of pollution. They weren't bad in their infancy, and maybe they're still sort of good for the world, but one day they won't be containable. They'll be agents of war, a bomb will drop that can't be taken back. And both heroes and villains are rising to it.

So who in MHA is Godzilla? Well there are different eras of Godzilla! There’s an era where he's a vengeful monster that wants to kill & purge, an era where he's earth's default protector, and an era where he's this nasty beast whose existence is more of a tragedy than anything.

ANYTHING SOUND FAMILIAR?!??

In my */opinion/*, Dabi, Endeavor, and Shigaraki represent those pieces of Godzilla. They’re the villain, the anti-hero turned savior, and the environmental antagonist

Side-note, I don't talk about heroes. Because Godzilla movies really don't have any. There have rotating casts of human characters fighting for humanity, but it never gets much deeper than that.

So sure you root for the humans to win. But you aren't attached to a hero, and you kind of root for Godzilla too. Because he's just a product of instinct, and you hear him roar when he's hurt, and maybe humanity isn't always that heroic & deserves to face a little karma

(DABI) is the Showa-era Godzilla, framed as the villain, this terrible monster, no matter where he came from or how he came to be. Gojira wants to destroy. And Dabi wants what Stain wanted, to purge hero society, but rlly he means burn it all to the ground indiscriminately.

(DABI) Dabi is an agent of destruction. And if he's Touya ('if' lol) then quirk 'pollution' created him. It's why he even exists in the first place - because of Enji being corrupted by quirks, wanting more - and so it ruined Dabi just like atomic radiation did Gojira.

(DABI) And Maybe that should be tragic, but you see his lack of remorse and his chaos and all the people he kills, and it's hard to feel sorry for something so evil.

(DABI & ENJI) Then there's his self-destructive quirk. Which is something he (& Enji) share with Gojira!! In Godzilla vs. Destroyah, the radiation that created him is now killing him, overheating him out of control, causing these giant patches on his body (Dabi’s scars…)

(ENJI) And in that movie, they literally try to cool Gojira down with *ice* rays. It’s the only way to counteract the inevitable meltdown.

So here's pre-meltdown Gojira… next to Endeavor’s hero costume…

(ENJI) So there’s the Heisei-era Gojira. Who's still a bad monster, indisputably, but he's all the Earth has in the form of protection. The begrudging antihero. Because it turns out there’s a whole mess of antagonists who want to destroy the world THEIR way, which he hates. A lot

(ENJI) So this Gojira isn't the hero humanity would prefer but he's the hero we have, and he's powerful as hell. In Heisei-era he's also introduced as a villain, but by the end of all the showdowns you are cheering for him to win. GOAT Gojira. ...all sounds like Enji Todoroki !!!

(ENJI) HOLY SHIT HERE WE GO.

Endeavor's "debut" as a hero was his fight against High End, a genetically modified human being/DNA-spliced noumu. We also see Enji identifying heavily with him, as if High End is not only a monster, but represents him, his past, abusive self.

(ENJI) Then there's Godzilla vs. Biollante. This was HIS “debut” as Earth's hero. Biollante is ALSO a genetically modified human/plant/Kaiju hybrid. & the Kaiju DNA they spliced to create her? Godzilla's own.. He fights a piece of himself!!

AND THEN JDNFDKF TIME FOR PARALLELS...

(ENJI) Please... Look at Biollante vs. High End.

(ENJI) More Biollante vs. High End

(ENJI) Last time I promise

(ENJI) AND OHHHHH MYYYY GODDDD
Remember I said there was plant DNA in Biollante? Yeah... Here is some concept art of that… and then for your consideration, the flower Enji sends to Rei…

(ENJI) Now we have the flower (did I mention that Biollante’s human DNA is spliced from a tragic female character !) & the fact that these fights are both Enji & Gojira’s first heroic showdown... bruh the LOOK of High end, like a venus flytrap, using tendril-like limbs to fight…

(ENJI) Heisei-era Gojira also has.. a canonical son. Yep, there’s a Godzilla Junior throughout these movies who looks like his father, is a little more tame, more receptive to humans, and - in the final movie - he 'dies' in front of Gojira.

Who mourns his son & overheats

(ENJI) But wait, Junior is alive! And takes his father’s place as Godzilla.

So now we have that parallel. Enji's character which relies so heavily on his family, on Shouto & Touya who he wanted to take his place.. the overheating.. AND we have Junior and Touya both 'dying'...

(ENJI) FUUUUUCK alright this is out of place because I came back from Shigaraki’s write-up but.

Endeavor’s Flashfire Fist vs. Shin Godzilla shooting atomic rays out of his spine.

(ENJI & HAWKS) What was that? Why, yes!!! I DO think that Enji & Hawks are a Gojira & Mothra parallel!!

In the monsterverse, the two of them fight at first, but then become invaluable allies. And Gojira has very few allies because he's a grump.... but Mothra is one of them.

(ENJI & HAWKS) Mothra powers-up Godzilla, she helps heal him, she helps him fight greater threats. Kinda like… how Hawks used his wings to help Enji defeat High End :”)

(HAWKS) Also... big blueeeee eyes

Other things... two Kaiju in this era, Biollante and Destroyah, have DNA-splicing + Mad Scientist origins. (I could explain further but whatever it's nerdy)

Destroyah also has "forms" of varying strength… and forms with and without wings…

Different forms/metamorphoses is a super common theme in the Godzilla monsterverse! Examples w/o pics…
-Mothra & Battra have life cycles.
-Biollante was first a mutated looking rose-bud before Godzilla’s DNA was added.
-Destroyah has four distinct crustacean-like forms.

Then there’s Shin Godzilla who has five forms.

Shin Godzilla is rlly unique & separate from the rest of the Godzilla universe, for a lot of reasons.. no rambling... But the movie was v thematic, and centered around human society/politics, and Gojira was portrayed very tragically

(note: the movie released in 2016 when the MHA manga was ~chapter 100)

(SHIGARAKI) So here's our boy. I don’t need to spell it out but the parallels to Gojira are there: tragic circumstances leading to a destructive monster. But now let’s talk about Shin Godzilla specifically!!

(SHIGGY) This Godzilla starts out aquatic and undergoes metamorphoses, each time becoming more grotesque, more destructive. It is an /abomination in looks and behavior. But it’s also alone, and governed by this visceral hate that it doesn’t even understand.

(SHIGGY) The OST of the movie is from Gojira’s POV, and not to get emo w the lyrics but there’s a sense that it’s. Hurting. That maybe it wants to die, but it’s also an animal, so it fights to take its enemies down with it & has this uncontrollable, absolute power.

(SHIGGY) Now in comparison, there’s Shigaraki. Whose origin story is all sorts of tragic, he kills his whole family with this power he can’t stop. His hair changes color. It’s his first metamorphosis. He’s hurting through it all (and eventually, he snaps)

(SHIGGY) Shin Godzilla is the MOST powerful Godzilla in terms of destructive capability. When it snaps, it’s over. Nothing can even hope to touch it, everything around it crumbles. During the climax of the movie it reduces a city to ruins. All sounds like… Shiggy vs. Re-Destro

(SHIGGY) And it doesn't stop! bc Gojira goes into a kind of “hibernation” to build up power again, so it can unleash more of its rage

Meanwhile Shiggy does the same thing! He seeks out the doctor, he goes into hibernation to become more powerful than ever before. Metamorphosis..

So how to end this thread… idk

I think Enji vs. High End & Godzilla vs. Biollante are UNBELIEVABLY similar, like comparing them together knocked me out cold. In my humble opinion, Enji Todoroki IS Godzilla, and Dabi & Shigaraki have Godzilla parallels.

One last thing, I guess... in the original Godzilla 1954, it’s said that if Godzilla is killed, and nuclear testing continues, another will rise again. And he’ll keep coming back, over and over again, as many times as it takes. As long as humanity doesn’t change. He’s a constant.

So applying this to MHA, killing Shigaraki isn’t the solution, or Enji, or Dabi. The outcome of OFA vs. AFO isn’t even the solution. Human nature is cyclic and as long as quirks are part of society, there’s no stopping what kind of monsters they create - on both sides.

I have Many thoughts about the potential ending now, but I’ll...keep them inside and enjoy the ride. bc rlly we’re all here to watch a bunch of superheroes smack each other around & look hot doing it and i think that's beautiful

so The End !!! long live Gojira & Mirko's thighs.

@ThreadReaderApp unroll please senpai