List of fictional locations in the Godzilla films
This is a list of fictional Earth locations depicted in films of and tied in with the Godzilla series. Like most fictional universes, the world of the Godzilla films has been enriched by fictional locales ranging from small Pacific Islands to galactically distant nebulae.
- 1 Islands
- 2 Countries
- 3 Planets
- 4 Places
- 5 References
Odo Island (or Ohto Island), a southern Japanese fishing village, is from where the monster Godzilla receives his namesake. This island, probably part of the Bonin group, is featured in the original Godzilla and referenced in a few subsequent films. Gojira was an antiquated legend of the Odo islanders. In "the old days", according to an elder, when the fishing was poor the villagers sacrificed young virgins to appease the sea monster's hunger. When ships began inexplicably sinking off the coast of Odo Island in 1954, the natives performed a purification ceremony, the last remnant of the old traditions, in a village temple. Odo is the first location where the kaiju is known to have come ashore. While its appearance was presumably coincidence, paleontologist Kyohei Yamane elected to name it "Gojira" after the legend.
The Polynesian Infant Island, first introduced in Mothra, was the site of Rolisican nuclear tests prior to 1961, when the Kinu maru ran aground on the island leaving four survivors. These men reported an encounter with natives on the (presumed uninhabited) island who drank an unknown juice to prevent radiation poisoning. The island was later discovered to be home to two minuscule priestesses called the Shobijin and a giant egg, worshiped and called "Mothra" by the natives. Mothra would eventually hatch into a giant caterpillar, metamorphose into a giant moth, and continue this cycle through several subsequent films. The island is mentioned in the 2003 kaiju film sequel, Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. and seen in the 1992 kaiju film, Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth, which is not a sequel.
Two species endemic to Faro Island are a medicinal red berry, bartered from island natives by Pacific Pharmaceuticals; and the giant ape King Kong, worshiped by the natives but subdued and captured during an expedition sponsored by Pacific in King Kong vs. Godzilla. The island's natives associate Kong to the frequent lightning on Faro, as Kong is later seen to draw power from lightning. These natives were of a more stereotyped and comical appearance than those of Infant Island, and, in contrast to Infant, the island serves only as an origin for Kong, and is not seen (and only briefly mentioned) for the duration of the film after Kong's capture.
The tiny Devil's Island was chosen by the Red Bamboo - a terrorist organization with nuclear ambitions from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster - as the site for a heavy water factory. Coupled with its obscurity, the island conveniences the Red Bamboo by being home to Ebirah, a mammoth shrimp, which attacks vessels in the surrounding waters, preventing their enslaved Infant Islanders from escaping. The island also turns out to be home to a hibernating Godzilla, which had apparently settled underground after his battles with King Ghidorah. Also sometimes referred to as "Letchi Island" (and not the same as the real-life Devil's Island).
To test theoretical methods of weather control, the United Nations secretly send a team of Japanese atmospheric scientists to tropical Sollgel Island in Son of Godzilla. Unfortunately for the scientists and their experiments, the island turns out to be home not only to several giant arthropods, but also, a giant egg and Godzilla.
Due to unexpected interference to their equipment, the team inadvertently causes a radioactive storm during their first experiment, which causes intense heat and excelled growth in the insect inhabitants but no noticeable change in the island's flora. Ultimately a second experiment is successful at cooling the jungle environment of Sollgel; the island is last seen buried in snow. Godzilla and his son Minilla are left to hibernate until the island becomes tropical again.
In Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, the last of the Marshall Islands engaged by U.S. forces in World War II, Lagos Island was defended by the only Japanese garrison to survive the onslaught. Though they intended to fight to their last man, the battle with U.S. landing forces was interrupted by a dinosaur living on the island. This dinosaur, a Godzillasaurus, slaughtered the invading force while ignoring the Japanese but suffered near-fatal wounds in an attack from the off-shore U.S. fleet.
In the following years the United States conducted nuclear tests on the nearby Bikini Atoll, and even on Lagos itself in 1954. As theorized by science fiction writer Terasawa, the irradiated dinosaur consequently mutated into Godzilla.
Long a dump for radioactive waste, Adona Island came to broader attention when a scientific team uncovered a half-buried human-sized egg and subsequently encountered Rodan and Godzilla in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. As a consequence of the high levels of radiation on Adona, the egg, which had been of the species Godzillasaurus, had mutated in such a way that the hatching Baby was more a baby Godzilla than a dinosaur.
After Godzilla and Baby Godzilla swim off to sea at the end of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II they settle on an uninhabited Pacific island, called Birth Island in the following two films (By the start of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah the island has vanished, as underground uranium deposits on the island caused Godzilla's radioactive energy to go unstable, and destroy the island in the process). In Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, the island is home not only to Godzilla and Little Godzilla, but also to Akira Yuki, who has devoted his life to killing Godzilla, and to members of the T-Project, whose goal is to control Godzilla via telepathy.
International relations are central to the plot of almost every Godzilla film, from the indirect blame placed on the U.S. for awakening the beast in 1954 (Godzilla), through the role of Interpol in thwarting Black Hole Alien invasions (Terror of Mechagodzilla), to the spectre of Japan's own war crimes manifested in Godzilla (GMK). Occasionally a film will feature a fictional country, often in place of an unnamed but easily inferable real-life country (or bloc of countries).
In Mothra, greedy businessmen, led by Clark Nelson of Rolisica, kidnap the Shobijin for the purpose of making money off their performances. Mothra hears the girls' telepathic cry for help and goes searching for the girls in Japan. When Nelson and his associates flee to Rolisica, Mothra, upon becoming an adult, flies to New Kirk City and ravages the metropolis looking for them.
Rolisica is widely interpreted as a stand-in for the United States and the Soviet Union, with New Kirk City—featuring a Manhattan-like skyline, several suspension bridges—obviously standing in for New York City, Soviet styled military uniforms, and its population being clearly of European descent. In the Japanese version, Rolisican characters often speak English with American accents. A significant portion of the film Mothra depicts diplomatic relations between Rolisica and Japan, particularly over two issues: their claim that Infant Island had been searched and verified to be uninhabited before their nuclear tests were conducted; and the Rolisican government's position on Nelson's ownership of the Shobijin.
In Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Selgina is said to be a small Himalayan monarchy. The country's princess, Salno leaves her homeland to escape to Japan from a group of assassins from an enemy country who are trying to kill her, and conquer Selgina. While she is on a plane, she becomes possessed by the spirit of a Venusian and jumps from the airplane before it explodes. Miraculously, she is later found unharmed.
By 197X (1971 in the English-language version), the underwater kingdom of Seatopia has lost a third of its ocean floor to nuclear tests conducted by the surface world and, according to their grandiloquent leader Antonio, must finally and reluctantly fight back. They beseech their god Megalon to attack the surface world and deploy their own human agents to sabotage the powerful robot Jet Jaguar. When the agents' plans are thwarted and Megalon proves ineffective against Jet Jaguar, Seatopia requests the help of Gigan from Space Hunter Nebula M Aliens, though both monsters ultimately succumb to the combined might of Jet Jaguar and Godzilla.
The film Godzilla vs. Megalon introduced the Seatopians during the space alien themed 1970s (see 1972's Godzilla vs. Gigan and 1974's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla). Though human and not extraterrestrial, their shadowed origins, alliance with the Nebulans, and apparent goal of world conquest are more in keeping with the several alien races from the Godzilla films than with the usual diplomatic roles assigned to fictional countries.
Mu was an ancient empire located under the Pacific Ocean. It sank below the ocean many, many years ago, and eventually became a myth among the people of the surface. Mu was apparently happy to live undisturbed for many years, worshiping the sea dragon Manda. They eventually revealed themselves to the surface world in the 1963 film Atragon, while attempting to destroy the super submarine Atragon, which threatened their underwater supremacy. In the end, they were unsuccessful, and all of Mu was destroyed in an explosion when the Atragon tunneled into the primary power generator.
The Republic of Saradia is an Arab Middle Eastern nation from the film Godzilla vs. Biollante with a desert climate with large petroleum deposits, wealthy due to its oil wells and exports and possibly a member of OPEC. It is generally recognized as a stand-in for any of the Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries, in particular Saudi Arabia. Through its bioengineering program Saradia nurtured hopes of harvesting its deserts and becoming an agricultural exporter. One asset to this program was Dr. Shiragami, a displaced Japanese geneticist.
In 1984, following the appearance of a new Godzilla, Saradian agents obtained a Godzilla skin sample from devastated Tokyo. With the self-reproductive properties encoded in Godzilla's cells ("G-cells"), Shiragami intended to develop desert-sustainable food crops. This program was foiled when the American terrorist organization Bio-Major destroyed the Saradian laboratory housing both the skin sample and Shiragami's daughter and assistant Erika. In 1989 Shiragami was recruited by the Japanese government to develop anti-nuclear energy bacteria (ANEB) from another sample of G-cells.
Two major enterprises of Saradia maintain a presence in Japan: the Saradia Oil Corporation, which exports petroleum from the state; and its espionage program, for which the Oil Corporation serves as a front. A prominent Saradian spy is SSS-9, the assassin who had pillaged the original skin sample and later a vacuum flask of ANB from Bio-Major agents.
The Federation and The Alliance
Fictional stand ins for the United States/NATO, and the USSR/Warsaw Pact which appear in The Last War (1961). A global nuclear altercation involving the Federation and Alliance destroys the world at the film's climax.
In the 1959 film Battle in Outer Space, an alien race known as the Natalians tried to invade the Earth.
Planet X was first revealed in the 1965 film Godzilla vs. Monster Zero as a mysterious planet located in the umbra of Jupiter, home to the Xiliens. Its surface is barren, inhospitable, and lacking in water, so the Xians have been forced to make their home in a series of caves beneath the surface. It appeared that Planet X was ravaged due to the constant attacks of the space dragon King Ghidorah, but this turned out to be nothing more than part of a ploy by the Xiliens to conquer Earth to steal its water.
Kilaak is said to be a small planet that exists between Mars and Jupiter. Little is known about this planet except that its inhabitants, the Kilaaks, have found it uninhabitable and so attempt to take over Earth as their new home.
Godzilla Prediction Network
Godzilla Prediction Network is a research center facility for doing scientific studies on Godzilla and other giant monsters. This was featured in the 1999 film, Godzilla 2000.