G-Series Appearances: 19
Other Appearances: Godzilla: Project Mechagodzilla
Battra is a secondarily modified offshoot of a Mothra, so everything said on that page will pertain to here. As for why Battra is a different monster from Mothra, while it doesn't fit the first rule of monster speciation listed in the N.R.A.Q. of the monster main page, that rule is simply an automatic qualification. Both other conditions are met, because the creation of Battra was done because of Gaia's will, and although we don't know the specifics behind how exactly Gaia did this, we know that Mothras cannot simply turn into Battras without the action of said third party, meaning individual variation cannot account for Battra's differences. After that point it's speculation, but even if we assume that Gaia transformed an existing Mothra into a Battra - whether from an egg, larva, or imago - we still have to default to this kind of mutation counting as a distinction. The closest comparative case we have here is Leo, who over the course of the Mothra trilogy transforms into new forms twice from the intervention of third parties. The thing is, the Elias always continue to refer to Leo as Mothra, while Battra, although it is acknowledged as A Mothra, is consistently called by Battra and never personally identified as being "Mothra." Because this is a supernatural creature we're dealing with here, we don't have all the rules available to us the same way we do natural speciation, so the fact that the only beings who can speak knowledgably about Battra do so in a way that distinguishes her from Mothra is significant. Additionally, we can confirm on screen that Leo's transformation into their Rainbow Mothra form is just that same individual being granted new abilities, but as I've said as much as we can speculate on exactly how Gaia created Battra, we never actually see that creation happen on screen, the Battra we see isn't the original but rather the offspring. And that's really the thing that cinches it here: Battra is capable of reproducing just like Mothra is, but when Battra was laid to rest in the Arctic Ocean, her offspring thousands of years later was not a Mothra, but rather another Battra. Therefore we can assume that only Battras can spawn more Battras and they are only capable of spawning Battras, and likewise for Mothra. And at that point we're no longer dealing with monster speciation rules, but real life criteria for defining a species.
History: 12,000 years ago an ancient civilization created 12 weather control machines. This upset the supernatural lifeforce of the Earth, and so it created Battra as a new form of Mothra specifically to destroy the machines and then the rest of the ancient civilization. This brought it into conflict with an ancient Mothra, and after a great battle the original Battra was destroyed and laid to rest in the North Sea. A meteor impact in 1992 caused a number of changes to the Earth, awakening Godzilla (3rd), and created a typhoon that uncovers an ancient Mothra egg. This prompts the appearance of a new Battra from the resting spot of the original a few months later. Battra rampages through Nagoya on a path towards Godzilla and the newly hatched Mothra (4th) where it engages in a three way battle with them out at sea. Mothra swims away, but Battra continued battling Godzilla underwarter in the Phillipine trench until both are swallowed by an undersea volcano. Battra re-emerged from the sea and transformed into their imago form, engaging in an aerial dog-fight with Mothra in the skies over Yokohama. When Godzilla also arrives, Battra and Mothra declare a truce and manage to carry Godzilla at to sea, though at the cost of Battra's life.
Notes: The way the Cosmos talk aboot it, it seems like it's the same Battra. But that's obviously not the case because the Battra we see in the present day is a larva, while the Battra in the cave paintings was an adult. The obvious conclusion is that the ancient Battra died and created an egg on its way out, which is a very normal Mothra thing to do, and Battra is after all a type of Mothra. However, in a spiritual sense, there's only one Battra so far as we know, while most timelines have multiple Mothras, so in that sense we could consider the modern Battra something like a reincarnation of the ancient one, which feels more in line with what the Cosmos probably meant.
History: Battra awakened in August 2037 in order to counter the approaching Gorath. However, it encountered Godzilla (Earth) at least twice, and was ultimately killed. A piece of Godzilla's dorsal plates was blown off with some of Battra's DNA attached to it, which was recovered off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Tokumitsu Yuhara analyzed the remains and called the monster "Monster M," and a search was on for the monster, which was known to be able to wound Godzilla, as it wasn't realized that Godzilla had already destroyed it. It wasn't until 2048 when the shrine maiden Lira revealed the existence of Mothra and Battra, and confirmed that Battra had awoken 11 years previous.
Notes: These stats are totally speculative. My thinking is like this: unlike the radiovore monsters, the size of Mothra seems to be entirely determined by the size of the threat their countering. They tend to scale with Godzilla, and there's no obvious reason why they're wildly different sizes over the course of the Mothra series. Therefore, if Godzilla in the 21st century is on the 50 meter scale, then we can probably assume the South American Mothras from the AniGoji timeline would be aroond the same size as the 2nd generation Mothras. In that case, we should be looking for the size of a hypothetical "Showa Battra." To do that, I took the stats of Battra and the 4th generation Mothra as a percentage, assuming that the two were equal in the sense that Battra is the "Black Mothra" version of the 4th generation, specifically. So the "Black Mothra" version of the 2nd generation should have the same proportions when compared to a regular Mothra, is the assumption. For the larva, 90m is 75% of Mothra larva's length and 20k tons is 1⅓ Mothra's weight. Applying that to a 40m long, 10,000 ton Mothra would give us a Battra larva 30m long and 13,333.333333... tons. Official Toho monster weights are never that specific, so I rounded it up to 15,000 which seems more like what we'd actually see if such an official stat block ever existed. Repeating the process for the imago form, everything is how the math dictated aside from the wingspan, which I put as 140m rather than 138.8571 for similar reasons. As for the abilities of novel Battra, since the novel is untranslated, I truly have no clue, so I'm just gonna play it safe and assume they're the same because there's no compelling reason not to.
