モスラ

Mothras are a known quantity that are a full monster outside the regular reaches of standard scientific nomenclature based on the natural laws of the real world, hence, as a species, they are just "Mothras." The supernatural force in this case is, according to the Mothra films of the 90's, the life force of Earth itself. This is a reference to Gaia hypothesis, which came aboot in the 70's as an observation regarding the similarity of how the interaction between and interdependence of the various cycles of the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere of Earth resembled that of a living thing. The idea that this actually represents some kind of emergent superorganism is largely disregarded as a literal scientific interpretation, but the reality of these interactions and interdependencies in a practical sense is real enough, and that delicate balance has spiritual meaning to people despite that. Monster movie logic is completely comfortable with this idea, and after Mothra flirted with the language of it, the 90's Gamera trilogy famously took the ball and ran with it, turning the idea of Mana into a supernatural energy source that could be measured and observed, effectively turning the idea of Gaia as a living thing into a real science. Toho's monster movies have never gone that far, prefering to keep a kind of fairy tale-like view of the supernatural nature of Mothra, leaving it as something "other" and bigger than the natural world, but still connected to it. However, and especially with their fantasy films showing other examples of these kinds of kaiju, it's probably safe to say that it works something like it does in the Gamera series, but rather than something humans manipulate, the Gaia lifeforce itself has its own personal will and it is able to manipulate these energies to create monsters as a kind of defense mechanism, like an immune system for the entire planet. The exact mechanics are not explicit, but the will of the Earth very much is, and so regardless of how it actually works, Mothras, as a species, are a creature created by the supernatural immune system of this Gaia lifeforce.
     Mothra's supernatural origins are never altered from or contradicted by any of her appearances in the Godzilla series (or even in the solo Mothra films), so there are no edge cases to account for. There is an alternative idea of their origins as a specific species of silk moth (Antheraea yamamai) being mutated by non-supernatural means, but that isn't possible even with monster movie logic and the films themselves outright deny this possibility, so it's not worth considering. It is obvious, however, that Mothras ARE definitively moths, and we can assume that their transformation into monsters by Gaia initially would have happened from non-anomalous moths. The Rebirth trilogy has analogous Mothras and Ghidorahs present and so probably branches off from Godzilla continuity back during the ancient past seen in Mothra III, however, so whatever the original ordinary moth species was that was transformed into the original Mothras we couldn't say for certain, and it's probably not worth considering. Additionally, based on the appearance of Battra as well as the other obvious contenders for a Gaia-based origin, the Orochi monsters Kumasogami and Muba, exactly how Gaia creates these monsters doesn't seem to be very straightforward or one to one with known animals if they are created like that anwyas, so that kind of speculation wouldn't be worth it without knowing the exact process of Gaia-made monsters in the first place.

The Mothras of the 90's trilogy are descendents of the survivors of a battle against Death Ghidorah, who apparently never existed in the 1954 continuity family and probably only exists as a consequence of Leo's time meddling. This makes the furthest we can take back the ancestry of the Mothras in the Godzilla series 12,000 years ago to the time of the ancient civilization mentioned in Godzilla vs. Mothra. In that timeline, the Earth created a black Mothra, Battra, and the civilization was destroyed by it, with both Mothra and Battra leaving descendents. This is so far back in the past that it bears basically not at all on any of the other branches of the 1954 continuity family. However, the film itself draws a direct parallel to the Mothra versus Godzilla by having its Mothra egg be buried under the soil of Infant Island and exposed by a typhoon. Now, this isn't the same Infant Island - it's in the middle of the Java Sea - but there is still a parallel here. Because the egg was buried, it must have been there for a very long time, long enough for it to be covered in layers of sediment, since of course Mothras can't really dig. This means that the 2nd generation egg isn't the child of the 1st, the 1st and 2nd generation eggs are both very old and must have been on the island for a comparable length of time. Which... implies the existence of not one, but two ancient Mothras in the past of the Showa timeline as well. This could mean that in the VS subfamily, Battra was transformed from an existing Mothra - probably using an unhatched egg - and that event was what changed the timeline to having a Mothra and a Battra instead of just two Mothra.
     The legends of the Infant Islanders mentioned in the original serialization of the Mothra treatment had two primordial dieties, Ajiko the goddess of daylight, and Ajima the god of eternal night. Together they laid one giant egg and many smaller eggs (oh, and humans, it is a creation myth of a people group after all). The smaller eggs hatched into caterpillars which transformed into moths and flew away, which infuriated Ajima who slew himself. This drove Ajiko mad with grief and she tore herself into 4 pieces, which resulted in the 4 fairies from that earlier draft, with the remaining giant egg of course being Mothra's. If there is any literal truth to the myth, Ajiko and Ajima are absolutely Mothras, and a god of night that becomes enraged over the scattering of animals sounds awfully similar to a description of Battra to me. So here I've taken to calling the ancient Mothras in the timeline without a Battra by these names, with Ajiko being the one that remains a Mothra in both timelines, and Ajima being the one that becomes the original Battra in the VS continuity subfamily. The GMMG timeline has that same 1st generation Mothra in it, so would have a version of Ajima as well, but there is no equivalent in that timeline for the buried Mothra egg, so we can't say anything for sure about their Ajiko.
     From there it's just a matter of descent, and that covers most of them. The ones it doesn't are the GMK and AniGoji Mothras, who's original ancient parents are obviously completely different from the ancient Mothras of the other timelines. The one in GMK originally appeared in Japan during the Heian period, and was antagonistic for unknown reasons. This is unusual for Mothra, but it's not without precedent, so perhaps it involved some ancient attempted Japanese invasion of Infant Island? Regardless, the Heian Mothra can't obviously be either Ajima or Ajiko. The same same is true for the AniGoji Mothra and Battra, which are both from South America, which is way off from southeast Asia or Oceania. They're still all clearly Mothras, though, and the inability to trace their descent back to an ancient Mothra already known from the rest of the series just means the timeline is so different that Mothra's history differs even further back than 12,000 years ago. Again, we could probably make more sense of this with the prehistoric time travel shenanigans of Mothra III, but Godzilla's not in that timeline at all so it's outside the scope of this site.

初代モスラ • 1st Generation Mothra

History: Mothra began life as an ancient egg worshipped by the people of Infant Island. When the tiny fairies of the island were stolen, Mothra hatched and went on a warpath through Tokyo to get them back. She spun a cocoon around the toppled Tokyo Tower and later emerged in her imago form after being attacked by atomic heat ray cannons deployed in Japan as part of an agreement with the Rolisican government. The adult Mothra flew to New Kirk City in Rolisica to continue the chase for the twin fairies, until they were finally returned. Three years later, at the behest of an empassioned plea from three Japanese visitors to her island, Mothra flew out to face the returned and rampaging Godzilla (2nd). While she wasn't able to stop him and died in the fight, a new generation of Mothra was born to continue the battle.

初代モスラ • 1st Generation Mothra (GMMG)

History: Mothra began life as an ancient egg worshipped by the people of Infant Island. When the tiny fairies of the island were stolen, Mothra hatched and went on a warpath through Tokyo to get them back. She spun a cocoon around the toppled Tokyo Tower and later emerged in her imago form after an attack by the JSDF with atomic heat ray cannons. The adult Mothra flew to New Kirk City in Rolisica to continue the chase for the twin fairies, until they were finally returned. Sometime later she laid her own egg, which hatched in 1999, and the two Mothras worked together to defeat the space monster King Ghidorah, though the elder Mothra perished in the fight.

Notes: The Completion book had some fun little extra bonus blurbs fleshing out the timeline some more. Most of these are fine and unobtrusive, but the one aboot Mothra actually causes some issues with the films. GxMG treats the reappearance of Godzilla as the biggest deal and something the JXSDF is unprepared for, it's the whole reason they go all in on the giant robot in the first place. GMMG then talks aboot Mothra's allegience as an open question, with her being viewed as equally likely to be an untrustworthy monster as a guardian and possible defense against Godzilla. When you have King Ghidorah appear the same year as the second Godzilla, and have the original Mothra sacrifice herself and put her own child in danger in order to stop them, both of those plot points fall flat on their face.
     So the addition completely contradicts both films, so why do I mention those details here? Well, when considering the history of the monsters in question, leaving that info out would leave some holes, and it's also leaving stuff on the table when it comes to all of the comparisons between the timelines that I'm so into. We definitely should be assuming that the adult GMMG Mothra is not the same one from the original film. While the characters themselves don't make this distinction, everything outside of that contradicts the idea that they are the same by the various inconsistencies in size, appearance, etc, and what's more there is no licensed or supplementary material outside of the film that I'm aware of that espouses for them being the same. So if we were to make that argument we'd be doing so with no backing as characters treating different Mothras as if they're both... Mothra... isn't a iron clad case. So there has to be a transition at some point and so far as we've seen on screen there are only two possible cases of adult Mothras dying off screen, this and GFW. GFW notoriously had all of it's, y'know, story removed, so the absence of an explanation there is expected, but the GMMG continuity is a little more tightly written and so it kinda sticks out like a sore thumb, especially when the parent Mothra from Rebirth is implied to be literally millions of years old. Which means that if an adult Mothra died, it kind of had to be through violence.
     The issues could then potentially be resolved by having the Mothras battle with Ghidorah happen away from human eyes, which sounds crazy given Ghidorah's MO but y'know Earth is a pretty big planet. It's also worth noting that Chujo already knows aboot Mothra's poison powder and that using it signals that she's nearing the end of her life. This is a thing from Mothra versus Godzilla, not the original film, and Hiroshi Koizumi was playing a marginally different character in that one. This leaves room for the knowledge to be gained during Mothra battling another monster at some point. So really all of the details of this even could work within the universe of GxMG and GMMG as shown in the final films, it's just that they can't work all at the same time. So my current working model here is to have a double standard: for these monster pages, all info I can get on the history of the monsters which doesn't contradict each other is valuable, but on the timeline pages where I'm trying to make the world of those films as fleshed out as I can, I'm going to need a better explanation than this for what happened to the first Mothra. I'm a bit off from working on that page, so, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

二代目モスラ • 2nd Generation Mothra A & B

First Appearance: Mothra versus Godzilla (1964)
Other Appearances: 5 (B only), 7 (B only)
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Origin: Mothra.
Emergence: An egg laid on Infant Island in the ancient past, unearthed by a typhoon and hatched in Japan in 1964.
Alignment: Chaotic Good

History: As an egg buried under Infant Island for untold years (probably 12,000), Mothra was unearthed by typhoon 8 and rode the waves all the way to Japan. There it was bought by unscrupulous capitalists with a plan to rake in the money by building a theme park around a giant incubator for the egg. Godzilla (2nd) eventually appeared and destroyed the incubator, but was stopped by the elder Mothra from destroying the egg. Although the 1st generation Mothra died after its battle, with enough praying from the fairies and the people of Infant Island, the egg hatched into not one, but two infant Mothras. The two Mothras followed Godzilla to Iwa Island where they used teamwork to cocoon him in silk. After returning to their home, Mothra A died under unknown circumstances, leaving only a single larva left. This Mothra was called on again to attempt to talk Godzilla and Rodan (2nd) into joining forces to defeat the space monster King Ghidorah (1st). The attempt was unsuccessful and Mothra decided to engage King Ghidorah on her own, but Mothra's bravery and the futility of her attempt managed to convince Godzilla and Rodan to fight alongside her, finally driving the monster back into space. Back on Infant Island, Mothra spent some time in peace where she matured into her imago stage, but her villagers were being enslaved by the terrorist organization the Red Bamboo. Through her fairies, Mothra told her people to build a large net, with which she would carry them back home herself. Although after her arrival on Letchi Island she had a brief altercation with Godzilla, she ultimately managed to get her people back to the island safely. The surviving adult Mothra sometime later laid an egg on Monsterland, and died of unknown circumstances.

Notes: The stats for the Showa era Mothras are all over the god damned place. Part of the problem is that, I guess in order to make sense of the scale seen in Mothra versus Godzilla compared to that in the original Mothra, the adult 1st generation Mothra started being given stats that made it seem shrunk down, which appears to have started happening in the early 90's. This kinda makes sense, although truth be told the prop used for the adult Mothra in that film was genuinely enormous so it makes more sense if you squint that you'd think it would. But this gradually spiraled into all sorts of crazy stuff, and as a result the 1st through 3rd generation Mothras are given stats that include lengths anywhere from 40 to 180 meters and weights of between 3 and 20 thousand tons. These have been jumbled up over the years and it's a big mess at present, but this chart made by a Wikizilla editor gives a nice summary of it. So where does that leave me? Well my thinking is like this: there are definite trends aroond the statistics here and so it's pretty clear that the 1st generation Mothra is by far the largest, the 2nd generation adult gets the stats that have been used as the 1st's "shrunken" stats, and the later larvas are actually pretty small. The most consistently used lengths for the larvae are 40, 53, and 180 meters, so that settles that, with the imago dimensions being given as either 250 by 80 or 135 by 65 in all but a couple of cases. That just leaves the masses, and every source that specifies the weight for the G-Series adult agrees that she's 15,000 tons. If the first Mothra was far larger, then she should also be heavier, so the only place to go from there with the stats we're given is 20k tons. I've stuck the rest of the larvae at 8 and 10 thousand tons each based on scaling the weights with the length given, so if a 40m larva is 8k tons, and a 53m one is 10k, while the 180m larva is 20k tons, then between 100 and 150 meters your larva would weigh between 12 and 15 thousand tons. And this actually works, as the VS series Mothra larva is indeed 15,000 tons at 120 meters in length. While I would love to have differentiated the two larvae of the 2nd generation as they are sometimes given different stats, I'm pretty sure the two used interchangeable props and no matter how much you squint they really aren't that different on screen, plus... unless one of them was like 100m or something there's no spare stats left in the jumble that would make that puzzle fit together. Oh well, I guess twins are really similar, who knew?
     The other thing here worth noting is the assumption I make on this site that the egg from Mothra versus Godzilla is very old and isn't the offspring of the first Mothra. I'll admit that when I was younger I did assume just the opposite, so it doesn't at all surprise me to see people repeat that idea uncritically. The fairies also repeatedly refer to the egg in a possessive sense, it "belongs" to Mothra, so it is completely reasonable to make this assumption given the narrative of the film. However, the whole credits sequence is taken up by the egg being washed out of the ground and out to sea, that's the very first thing you ever see in the film and I just... I can't wrap my head aroond why people haven't noticed this. It's literally in the ground, like what the hell do people think Mothra did? Dig a hole for it with her little insect legs? I use the possible connection with the past mentioned in the VS subfamily as mentioned in the parachronic summary at the top of the page to try to make sense out of where that egg came from, and y'know, what can I say, these are films and my personal interpretations, art is art and not science and at the end of the day there is no correct answer. But there IS an incorrect answer and if you think the 1st generation dug a fucking hole for her egg there is something wrong with your brain. I will say, though, if you can show me an example of an adult Mothra digging a hole with her weird little vestigal insect legs that shares some demonstrable affinity with the 1954 continuity family, then I'll concede that it is possible. But I happen to know for a fact that this doesn't exist, because, y'know... y-you've seen this site, right? You know who's writing this, don't you? If a Mothra could dig a hole, I'd know.

三代目モスラ • 3rd Generation Mothra

First Appearance: Destroy All Monsters (1968)
Other Appearances: 12 (Stock footage)
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Origin: Mothra.
Emergence: An egg laid on Solgell Island in the early 70's, moved to Monsterland and hatched in the early 90's.
Alignment: Chaotic Good (Natural), Lawful Evil (Under Kilaakian control)

Length: 40 meters
Weight: 8,000 tons
Abilities: Mandibles, Silk Spray, Telepathy

History: Born in the controlled and monitored environment of Monsterland in the Ogasawara islands, Mothra lived peacefully until the invasion of the Kilaakians, who controlled Mothra and sent her to attack Beijing, and then later Tokyo along with Godzilla (II), Rodan (2nd), and Manda (2nd). Once the Kilaakian's control was broken, Mothra joined the other Earth monsters in an assault on the Kilaakian's base, and was instrumental in helping kill King Ghidorah (1st). After the conflict, Mothra returned home to live out her days in peace once again.

Notes: ~stock footage from DAM & history~

四代目モスラ • 4th Generation Mothra

First Appearance: Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992)
Other Appearances: 21
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Origin: Mothra.
Emergence: An egg laid on Infant Island 12,000 years ago, hatched over the Phillipine Trench in 1993.
Alignment: Chaotic Good

History: As an egg buried under Infant Island for 12,000 years, Mothra was unearthed by a typhoon caused by a meteor impact. Discovered by three explorers, one of whom worked for the Marutomo Company, Mothra's egg was floated and brought to Japan for secret unscrupulous capitalist purposes. However, Godzilla (3rd) appeared while at sea, forcing the egg to hatch, and Mothra to defend herself and the fairies and passengers on the boat from Godzilla, and then also Battra. Mothra managed to get away while Godzilla and Battra fought each other, but soon made her way to Tokyo to recover the Cosmos, who had been taken for unscrupulous capitalist purposes. Although content to turn back peacefully after discovering the Cosmos to be okay, Mothra was attacked by the JSDF, and retreated to the Diet Building to spin a cocoon. After emerging in her imago stage, Mothra engaged with Battra over the skies of Yokohama. When Godzilla arrived, Mothra and Battra called a truce and worked together to carry Godzilla out to sea. Mothra, who survived Battra, had made a promise to the late monster to take up his task of destroying a meteor prophesized to strike Earth at the end of the millennium. At some point, after completing this mission, Mothra returned to Infant Island where she laid her own egg to continue the line.

最珠羅 • Mosura (GMK)

Fist Appearance: Godzilla: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)
Subtitle: God of the Sea
Origin: A Mothra guided by the souls of the dead to become a Guardian Beast⁴.
Emergence: An egg laid under Lake Ikeda a thousand years ago, hatched in 2002.
Alignment: Neutral Good

History: A thousand years ago, a Mothra appeared to attack humanity. This Mothra was ultimately defeated, but laid an egg in Lake Ikeda. The warriors who slayed the elder Mothra prayed for the egg, so that it would one day arise to defend Japan. This occurred when Godzilla (GMK) was resurrected by the spirits of the angry war dead who died from the various atrocities of the Japanese empire. The egg hatched and, after cocooning a few disrespectful teens, cocooned herself, later emerging as an adult and flying off to confront Godzilla in Tokyo, along with Ghidorah (GMK). Mothra was killed in battle, but was able to transfer her energy into King Ghidorah to carry on the fight.

GMMG

Fist Appearance: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Length: 36 meters
Wingspan: 108 meters
Weight: 12,000 tons
Species: Divine Moth
Origin: Infant Island
Faction: Radical

Abilities: Flight, Claws, Hurricane Winds, Reflective Scales

History: The child of the original Mothra was born in 1999 to help stop the space monster King Ghidorah. In 2004, Mothra became angered at humans for using the bones of the original Godzilla to build Mechagodzilla, and threatened to declare war on mankind unless the spirit of Godzilla was allowed to rest. To replace the machine, Mothra offered to protect mankind herself should Godzilla ever return. He did return, and when Mothra was summoned to protect Japan, she fought valiantly and gave her life to try and stop the monster.

Taro & Hanako

Fist Appearance: Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Length: 43 meters
Weight: 9,000 tons
Species: Divine Moth
Origin: Himago Island
Faction: Radical

Abilities: Mandibles, Silk

History: Twin Mothras born from a single egg laid on Himago Island, for the express purpose of continuing the battle with Godzilla should the elder Mothra die. Taro and Hanako utilized teamwork not only between themselves, but with Mechagodzilla in order to defeat Godzilla. They presumably went to their native home of Infant Island after the battle.

5th Generation

Fist Appearance: Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)
Subtitle: Giant Moth
Length: 72 meters
Wingspan: 216 meters
Weight: 25,000 tons
Species: Divine Moth
Origin: Infant Island
Faction: Radical

Abilities: Flight, Bomber Lariat, Poisonous Scales, Fireheat Attack

History: Born sometime after Mothra's return to Earth from space, this Mothra arrived to help Godzilla in defeating Monster X, but was intercepted by an upgraded Gigan. Mothra as a last ditch effort used her "fireheat attack" to destroy Gigan completely, at the cost of her own life.

Mothra IV

Fist Appearance: Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)
Subtitle: Houtua's God
Species: Divine Moth
Origin: Tanzawa Village
Faction: Protector

Abilities: Psychic Projection

History: Though still unhatched, the egg left by Mothra III's decomposing body is capable of psychically projecting a thought image of it's adult self into the minds of others. Which as it turns out, is exactly what was needed to interrupt the "cursed dream" of Metphies and send a message to Haruo Sakaki revealing that Metphies is the observer through which Ghidorah is able to interact with our universe. In this way, even unhatched, Mothra was instrumental in saving the planet from destruction.