Godzilla’s first fight with another monster wound up being hugely important to the franchise’s future. In the 1954 classic that spawned a pop culture icon, the King of the Monsters’ only enemy was humanity. However, it wasn’t long before the studio behind the kaiju, Toho, decided to pit him against other monsters.
While Godzilla’s first outing involved a battle with the military, it’s his monster fights that drive the franchise. Godzilla has been plowing through his fellow kaiju for decades. Movie after movie, Godzilla has succeeded in saving Japan from powerful threats. The vast majority of his films have seen him do battle with at least one other monster, with some of his most commonly-recurring opponents being Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. As for where it all started, Godzilla’s history of fighting monsters dates all the way back to his second appearance on the big screen, which came in 1955.
Godzilla’s First Monster Fight & Importance Explained
Serving as a direct sequel to the 1954 original, Godzilla Raids Again featured a monster fight that ultimately set up a key player in the Godzilla franchise. The movie saw the titular kaiju come to blows with Anguirus, who is actually known today as one of Godzilla’s biggest allies. Contrary to his reputation as Godzilla’s faithful sidekick and a heroic kaiju in the franchise, Anguirus was presented as an aggressive rival to Godzilla. As an ankylosaurus mutated by the same nuclear radiation that created Godzilla, Anguirus was viewed as a threat to Japan until he was beaten and subsequently killed by Godzilla.
Later movies with Anguirus curiously don’t acknowledge their history or provide any impression that the two were once enemies. When Anguirus returns in Destroy All Monsters, they’re already on the same side, as is the case with Godzilla vs. Gigan, which is ed as the movie that made Godzilla and Anguirus into a duo. Even though most of the movies exist in canon with each other, there’s no explanation for Anguirus’ return and new friendship with Godzilla, which is why it can be assumed that this Anguirus is actually a different member of his species. That does seem plausible, considering that this was how Toho brought Godzilla back after his death in the 1954 movie.
Does Anguirus Also Exist In The MonsterVerse?
So far, Legendary’s interpretation of Godzilla’s story doesn’t officially include Anguirus, but an Easter egg in Godzilla: King of the Monsters paid tribute to the classic kaiju and inadvertently – or perhaps purposively – opened the door for him to appear eventually. A skeleton identical to Anguirus was spotted in Godzilla’s underwater city, essentially making his species MonsterVerse canon. Based on this hint, it’s possible that like their Toho counterparts, the MonsterVerse versions of Godzilla and Anguirus were allies who once lived together. If that’s true, a proper team-up could be a real possibility for a future MonsterVerse installment.
