Fist Appearance: Godzilla versus Hedorah (1971)
Subtitle: Smog Monster
Origin: Alien Hedrium lifeform.
Emergence: Spore from M Space Hunter Nebula1, first sighted in Suruga Bay, 1970.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
水中棲息期 • Tadpole Stage
Length: 20 meters
Weight: 16,000 tons
Abilities: Acidic Sludge, Sulfuric Acid Mist, Division, Recombination
上陸期 • Terrestrial Stage
Height: 30 meters
Weight: 24,000 tons
Abilities: Acidic Sludge, Sulfuric Acid Mist, Division, Recombination
飛行期 • Flying Stage
Length: 40 meters
Weight: 32,000 tons
Abilities: Acidic Sludge, Sulfuric Acid Mist, Division, Recombination
完全期 • Final Stage
Height: 60 meters
Weight: 48,000 tons
Abilities: Acidic Sludge, Sulfuric Acid Mist, Hedrium Ray, Division, Recombination
History: An alien monster, presumably unknowingly brought to Earth by the Nebulans, began feeding on the rampant pollution on Earth. The pollution was so abundant that it grew to incredible sizes, progressing through its four-stage life cycle. As it feeds and grows, it comes into conflict with Godzilla three times, once in its terrestrial form, once in its flying form, and finally near Mt. Fuji for their final battle. The battle is fierce, with Godzilla suffering a number of injuries from the toxic monster. Hedorah is only finally defeated with the help of the human-made giant electrodes, which Godzilla activates with his breath, causing the smog monster to dry out and die.
二代目 • 2nd Generation
Subtitle: Smog Monster
Origin: Alien Hedrium lifeform.
Emergence: Dispatched by Xiliens to Tokyo, 2032.
Alignment: Lawful Evil (Under Xilien control)
Height: 120 meters
Weight: 70,000 tons
Abilities: Acidic Sludge, Sulfuric Acid Mist, Red Melting Ray, Division, Recombination
History: A male Hedorah controlled the Xiliens during their invasion of Earth in 2032. It was sent to battle Godzilla (Final) alongside Ebirah (2nd), but the king of the monsters easily defeated the two.
AniGoji
Other Appearances: 30 (mentioned)
Subtitle: Smog Monster
Origin: Bioweapon created from a Hedrium lifeform.
Emergence: Hedrium discovered in a waste mine in Heibei, 1999, but deployed as a weapon in 2005.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Height: 90 meters2
Weight: 80 tons
Abilities: Sulfuric Acid Mist, Division, Recombination
History: A pollution eating bacterial lifeform discovered in a cave in Heibei, China that was turned into a bioweapon by the Chinese. When Anguirus I and Rodan I appeared in Beijing, Hedorah was deployed to destroy the monsters. While the plan was a success, Hedorah went wild and destroyed Beijing and Tianjin overnight. Once the monster ran out of pollution to digest, it disappeared. It is likely that Hedorah was originally brought to Earth along with the organic Gigan sometime in Earth's past, presumably 12,000 years ago3.
Notes
1 - Most of the pre-home video era Godzilla movies cause headaches for modern audiences looking for continuity where there really isn't any, like me, for instance. However, in this case, we actually get a bonus for paying attention, which is a rarity. In Gigan we find out that the Nebulans have been operating on Earth for at least a year, and that in a subversion of the usual evil alien conqueror scheme, they don't want Earth for our resources so much as they come from a trash planet and evolved in the polluted environment that killed the species before them. The parallel being that our planet will become unlivable for us in the future, that's the... like that's the really blatantly obvious message of the movie. But as a sequel, this makes the previous movie, Hedorah, way better. Not only does it become obvious that Hedorah itself was an accidental invasive species transplanted to our planet like a plague rat or something, but the fact that a monster from the Nebulan's homeworld that thrives on pollution was able to survive to the point where it could go up against Godzilla here on Earth informs reinforces the plot of Gigan. What's more, it's not known for certain where Hedorah comes from, but as Dr. Yano is listing off possibilities, the film stops and hangs on a photo of the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, the most well known dark nebula. Nebulas aren't planets, normally if you have aliens in a simplistic children's movie sci-fi thing you'd expect it to be like "we are from planet gorbablutron 6" or w/e, but they heavily suggested a dark nebula, which is weird. That the next movie's aliens identify themselves with the nebula they're from rather than a planet strikes me as a little bit too obvious to not be a coincidence. Like I don't want to put myself in the position where I'm saying it was an intentional allusion, but like... why the hell else would they come up with the inordinately stupid name "M Space Hunter Nebula?" Anwyas, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't subtext, it's text, but I figured I'd make a note of it anwyas because believe it or don't I've seen people who miss this.
2 - We have really nothing at all to go off of for the dimensions of the novel Hedorah, and in fact it's probably stupid to even attempt what I've done here in the first place since Hedorah is described as taking on a "mist-like" form according to what wikizilla knows. It's pretty difficult to weigh mist, let alone measure it. That said, I'm not lazy, and it's my webzone, so I want some stats to put up, so I had to come up with something. So it's described as "giant" which would be a pointless description if it wasn't like giant monster sized, and since it kills Anguirus I and Rodan I, it must be quite large indeed. Not that it needs to be extra huge, but at least as big as the 1st generation Hedorah. That said, this Hedorah is clearly no joke, and seems to be way more dangerous than the original, so rather than just copy the height, I figure it could be halfway between the two adult Hedorahs from the series, which would make it 90m tall, very imposing compared to the size of the Anguirus and Rodan in question but not ridiculously so. Then we gotta deal with the weight. Again, because it's got a definite size and approximate form, and is powerful enough to kill things, this mist-Hedorah is at least dense enough to be an actual thing. I mean, it has eyes. So what I figured is, it's probably going to be less dense than even Godzilla Earth, to a degree that seems like it would take a lot of math to get totally accurate. And we don't want to get too accurate because then we might bump up against the fact that these are monster movies and not hard sci-fi. So how do you figure out the weight of a monster that's paradoxically the size of a skyscraper with the density of a cloud but supposedly somehow a single creature with defined eyes? Easy! You use the whackodoodle Gamera series monster weights! Looking at those, the best template we've got is the 90's trilogy Gyaos, where the Super Gyaos is 85m and weighs 75 tons, while the Hyper Gyaos from G3 is 88m and weighs 78 tons. A 90m tall monster that weighs only 80 tons may make sense in the Gamera series, but here it's exactly the kind of insanely porous material we would expect a Godzilla movie to suggest a monster made out of concentrated smog to weigh. Yeah, I came at it from a weird angle, but I got something to put up on my webzone, and I don't see anybody else coming up with a better idea.
3 - As I've said in other places, the fact that all of the other monsters from the prequel novels are consistent with their 1954 continuity family counterparts despite Godzilla himself being so different is really weird. For most monsters this is pretty cut and dry, but Hedorah and Gigan in the novels have weird twists that, at first glance, make them incompatible. Both monsters are discovered on Earth, Hedorah a kind of microorganism living in a cave, and Gigan was found hibernating in the Arctic Ocean. Gigan's desciption, of course, is very clearly intended to reference Gappa, who was repeatedly stated to be an alien in promotional materials despite the fact that in the film itself they're discovered on Earth and no mention of them being aliens is made at all. The rest of the details of this are best worked out on Gigan's page, but the point is, the monsters are still both definitely aliens. Hedorah I can understand evolving naturally on Earth, but Gigan? We already know what Earth dinosaurs look like, and they aren't that. Therefore, if we've got a Gigan on Earth, it probably brought a little bit of Hedrium with it. As for the 12,000 years ago thing, that's an assumption based on the mummified Gigan in Final Wars. The way I figure is, the 1954 continuity family is the same up until aboot 12,000 years ago when Mothra's history diverges and a prehistoric Xilien invasion occurrs. If this timeline is going to have this many similarities, then at the very least we can say it branches out from back then, so why not have an organic Gigan that traveled to Earth of its own volition instead of a cyborg one? Outside of that we don't really have a way to date the Gappa-adjacent monster's arrival, and the coincidence is too fun to ignore.
