Godzilla Junior
| Godzilla Junior | |
|---|---|
| Godzilla film series character | |
 |
|
| First appearance | Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) |
| Last appearance | Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) |
| Created by |
Wataru Mimura Takao Okawara |
| Portrayed by |
Hurricane Ryu Little Frankie Kenpachiro Satsuma |
| Aliases | Baby Godzilla Little Godzilla |
Godzilla Junior (Japanese: ゴジラジュニア Hepburn: Gojira Junia?) is a kaiju which first appeared in Toho's 1993 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.
During the production of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, the decision to introduce a character similar to Godzilla's first adopted son, Minilla, was made in order to appeal to the largely female audience that made Godzilla vs. Mothra a financial success, despite objections by director Takao Okawara, who held a low opinion of the 1960s movies the character had previously been featured in. Okawara redesigned the new Baby Godzilla as more dinosaur-like than its predecessor, but strove to make it physically appealing in order to contrast it with the more brutish-looking Mechagodzilla. Baby Godzilla was portrayed by Hurricane Ryu, who wore a full-body suit with an animatronic mouth and eyes. The skin was also made smoother than Godzilla's in order to imply that Baby Godzilla had yet to be exposed to the mutagenic radiation that transformed its father. According to Godzilla suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma, Godzilla Junior was not intended to be the literal son of Godzilla, but "the baby of a cousin." In an early draft for the film, Godzilla would have had soldiers injected into his bloodstream, who'd then trigger a nuclear meltdown which would have killed the monster, only to have the radiation absorbed by Baby Godzilla, who would have grown and subsequently defeated Mechagodzilla.
In Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, special effects artist Koichi Kawakita redesigned the young Godzilla as a more cartoonish character, having disliked the character's previously more dinosaurian appearance. Kawakita also intended to use the new design in a children's spinoff TV special entitled Little Godzilla's Underground Adventure. He was portrayed by "Little Frankie", a professional midget wrestler.
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