infernogalore - Tumblr blog

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I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

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Girl and her freak <3

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david lynch look like he's about to put a bomb collar on me as part of a mastermind plot to rob the sierra madre casino

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I've talked about MechaGodzilla in the past, but with a franchise as old and long as Godzilla's, it's inevitable that the character has changed over the years. He's gone from a tool of conquest to a defender of humanity to a raging mech turned against its masters.

But if I had to highlight my favorite iteration of the character, I have to go with the Millenium version that debuted in Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla and appeared one last time in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. Aside from having arguably the coolest design, this MechaGodzilla (also known as Kiryu), actually does have something that the others don't: he has a character arc and isn't either a threat to be conquered or a tank.

The only problem with Kiryu is that talking about him runs the risk of sounding like a mad man. So disclaimer: everything down below is real. I am NOT making this stuff up. At all.

So our story starts in 1954 with the original Godzilla.

By now you should know the story. Baptized in the fires of the hydrogen bomb, the original Godzilla went on a rampage in Tokyo and completely leveled the city, killing countless. He was only stopped when the brilliant scientist Dr. Serizawa reduced him to a skeleton with the Oxygen Destroyer. Anyone who's familiar with Godzilla lore knows the story.

Well, in the continuity of the Kiryu duology, that skeleton becomes extremely important.

When a second Godzilla appears in 1999, the Japanese government knows they did some kind of superweapon to defend themselves (especially since conventional weaponry won't do jack). Taking a page out of Pacific Rim's book, they decide their best chance is a gigantic mech to fight the monster. But even then, Godzilla's vicious enough that even a conventional robot might not enough.

And here's where things get...interesting.

Thanks to recent developments in robotics and bioengineering, they're able to use the bones of the original Godzilla to build MechaGodzilla. The reason being that a robot that uses organic DNA will be able to react faster than a completely automated one. Plus, thanks to those aforementioned advancements, Kiryu would be able to fight as effectively and viciously as when it was Godzilla while remaining under the JDSF's control. Think of it more as a cyborg than a true robot.

So to reiterate, they built a mech out of the bones of the original Godzilla. It's also able to fight just as well as its organic counterpart. Something like an EVA from Evangelion.

...everyone still with me? Good. Cause it gets stranger.

Kiryu does turn out to be as good of a fighter as they needed. While he isn't as powerful as some of his other iterations, he's able to fight the new Godzilla on equal footing. He's able to fight Godzilla to a draw in the first film inflicting grievous wounds and even defeated him in the second with the help of Mothra.

There's just one problem. Remember how I said Kiryu was a cyborg brought to life by the original bones of Godzilla?

During his first scuffle with Godzilla...Kiryu remembered who he was when he heard Godzilla's roar. And when a monster realizes he's been brought back to life by those that gave him painful mutations, turned him into a living weapon, and made to fight one of his own...

He goes berserk.

Yeah, once the reality of Kiryu's state comes to mind, there's some serious questions on whether or not creating him was a good idea in the first place. For one, how exactly can anybody rely on a machine that thinks like a monster? For another, what are the moral implications of even creating such a thing and forcing him to fight what is essentially another of his kind? Or even bringing him back to life and thus playing God? These are actually given a ton of weight in the film as the ethical lines behind Kiryu's creation are blurred. Especially when MechaGodzilla being brought online is what's triggering Godzilla's rampages in the first place.

But the interesting thing here is Kiryu himself. There's a lot of hints that he's a lot more self-aware and in control than most people give him credit for. For one, he seems to have an affinity for his first pilot Akane and one of his technicians, Yoshido. His eyes almost seem to glow when Akane is in danger and flat out says farewell to Yoshido on a computer in Tokyo SOS. The implications are that he seems to sympathize with Akane's feelings of worthlessness and appreciates Yoshido treating him like he was an actual being despite essentially being a robot.

And then there's his relationship with Godzilla. Thing is...he doesn't want to fight one of his own. While he runs out of power in the first film before he can kill Godzilla, Akane speculates that Kiryu genuinely didn't want to fight anymore. While he'll certainly fight Godzilla to stop the monster's rampage (all the more impressive since this is technically the original Godzilla we're talking about), killing him is another matter entirely. Which creates a bit of conflict since his purpose is to kill Godzilla.

And he gets his chance in Tokyo SOS when he grievously wounds Godzilla...but then stops dead in his tracks when his "brother/son" cries out in pain. He then lets the Mothra Larvae to wrap Godzilla in silk and effectively bring the exhausted dinosaur to the earth, giving him an opportunity to finish the job. Hell, the pilots and mission control are basically ordering Godzilla's execution at this point.

Instead...he doesn't.

He gives off a roar that sounds like the original Godzilla, disobeys every command to finish the fight, and gently embraces his organic counterpart before taking them both out to sea where no one can reach them. Godzilla is able to live, and Kiryu (and by extension the original Godzilla) is finally able to rest in peace.

This is why this version of MechaGodzilla is my favorite. His whole arc to me was about choosing for himself and wrangling with his relationship to both mankind and Godzilla. About whether he should kill his own or let innocents get hurt. Or even just learning to move on past his grudge against people. Those are things you don't typically associate with kaiju movies. Cause in the end, Kiryu isn't just another mech or monster. He's got character to him as well. Something I think the Godzilla movies do well.

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used to be a nice kid

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the personification of death being portrayed as deeply kind in fiction is something that reduces me to tears every single time

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Local herbo crushes beer cans against forehead to attract mate

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New OC dropped, insert donnie darko reference here

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here i am making 2009 memes

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Five Years Later

Thanks for visiting this page.

The loss of our friend April is something that shattered the lives of everyone who knew her, and an introduction to concept of what loss of innocence truly means.

The Mostly Mutts Zeldathon is something I started hosting all the way back in 2018 to honor April—her obituary requested donations to their organization in lieu of flowers, and in the wake of existential devastation, it was a spot of hope for myself and everyone else as a means of catharsis, to remember her, and preserve the legacy of someone inexplicably taken from us far before her time.

April was a shining star of joy and compassion in our hometown, beloved by everyone who knew her, a girl next door with a barking, infectious laugh who loved dogs more than anyone else in the world.

She was someone we grew up with, experienced so many ups and downs of life with, someone we went to college with, someone I and so many others regularly laughed or cried all night with, and ultimately, someone who was snatched away from the people who love her by a devastatingly, unfairly cruel universe that still doesn't make sense five years later.

She was a kind, funny, creative person who loved cosplay, creating art, playing piano, sushi, attending conventions and concerts, playing video games, and so much more. She could be friends with anyone.

She used to volunteer at Mostly Mutts and would visit other rescues and pet stores in the area just to play with puppies and love on them. She had the gentlest giant of a Bernese Mountain Dog named Lacy, and was beloved by her roommate's Husky Nova and boyfriend's Black Lab Coco. She was goofy as hell and always found something to laugh about. She loved spontaneous games of You Laugh, You Lose and always had a meme ready to send you.

There wasn't a mean bone in her body, and even when someone was cruel to her, she laughed it off. She was someone I and many others thought would always be around, someone to joke with when we inevitably ended up in the same nursing home together in fifty years, still barking that TAH-HAH-HAH laugh you'd recognize anywhere.

The Legend of Zelda was also her favorite video game series. It was something we bonded over, and it became a sort of interest-glue that kept us and so many of our friends in touch through the years. We used to stay over at each other's houses with our friend Liz marathoning the games together—her favorite was Twilight Princess, Liz's was Wind Waker, and mine was Ocarina and Majora. She had a Triforce purse, Triforce lamp, tons of stuff from Etsy, official stuff, she cosplayed, she went to Symphony of the Goddesses several times. She even had a replica of the Ocarina of Time she learned to play.

The Song of Storms was the first song she learned to play on it. Supposedly, it started raining when she did it one time. I believe it, she had the spirit for it.

It means so much to be that so many people turned up to the first stream and to subsequent streams to help Mostly Mutts. Life as we all know it has changed in ways I’m sure none of us thought were ever possible.

Thank you for being supportive friends, supportive strangers, supportive human beings. I’m glad we as community can make an effort to do some positive in the aftermath of her passing. We will never forget her and the joy and friendship she brought not only to my life, but to so many others’ too. 

Everyone grieves differently and I hope everyone is doing the best they can one five years later. I have more to say on grief in other posts—it's something that isn't talked about enough in any aspect of life. We'll have more this weekend.

As I've gotten older and learned more, I wanted to make a serious effort to archive and preserve her legacy and continue helping it grow with all of you. Let's make another wonderful years of memories together.

From the bottom of her family's, her friends', and my hearts, thank you so much for being here.

Brian

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It's that time again. :) See you tomorrow.

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THE WIDOW MAKER - CARPENTER BRUT

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Allowing myself my annual Lex redesign as a birthday treat to myself