A week ago, news throughout the Godzilla and anime communities reported that Godzilla will make an appearance in an anime film called Shinkansen–Transforming Robot Shinkalion The Movie: The Mythically Fast ALFA-X That Came From The Future. For the rest of this post, I'm just calling it Shinkalion or the Shinkalion movie since the full title is a real mouthful. The Shinkalion is a collaborative animated movie produced by TOHO Animation based on a popular toy franchise about bullet trains transforming into giant robots.
As you may have guessed, the toys became popular so Japan that it got an animated show and now a feature film. The Shinkalion movie is set to star many other popular anime characters such as Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Hatsune Miku from an audio editing software program called Vocaloid, and of course, Godzilla. There is even a three minute clip of the Shinkalion movie from Yahoo Japan that shows Hatsune Miku having a stand off with Godzilla at the beginning of the film. The video is in the link below if you want to check it out.
This new version of Godzilla has a design that looks heavily inspired by the Godzilla from the 90s era. His face is shorter and more puggish, but the most notable trait is his whole body from head to tail being covered in ice and snow. Since all of the screenshots shows Godzilla covered in snow, many fans have started calling this version either Snow Godzilla or Ice Godzilla. Even his dorsal fins show to look more like crystals. However, there is one striking detail that fans on social media have also noticed. This particular Godzilla is similar to a design from a short fan film called G vs G from the Japanese YouTube channel that goes by Gemstone.
The pictures above are still images from the G vs G fan film from Gemstone. The fan film is about Godzilla fighting a horde of Gigans that were invading Earth. I will link the video below, but if you compare the images above with the images from the Shinkalion movie you can see that they are the same, or if not, very similar to the one in the G vs G video. Perhaps TOHO saw the video on YouTube and probably contacted the creator/creators to hire them to design the new Godzilla or made a deal with Gemstone to use their Godzilla design for the Shinkalion movie.
While Shinkalion is not an actual Godzilla movie, it has made fans start talking about Godzilla appearing in more animated movies. After the failed animated Godzilla trilogy films (Godzilla: Monster Planet, Godzilla: City On The Edge Of Battle, and Godzilla: The Planet Eater) TOHO has commented at last year's SDCC that they are looking to do more animated Godzilla films. With his next appearance in Shinkalion this can be used to test what they can and can't do with the character from audience criticism.
What are your thoughts on the new Godzilla design? Will you be watching the Shinkalion movie if it comes to the states or are you not interested? Leave a comment on your thoughts on Godzilla in a new animated movie. Make sure to follow me on my Facebook, Twitter, and Minds pages to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.
Yahoo Japan: 3 Minute clip of the Shinkalion movie; Hatsune Miku vs Godzilla
Gemstone: G vs G
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