The first usage is hidden, but the Ginza blast is shown in detail. Godzilla's dorsal fins slowly extend, resembling pylons in a nuclear reactor. Godzilla breathes in once the top fins extend and spits a concentrated blast, which explodes and leaves behind a mushroom cloud. Immediately before the blast, all the dorsal fins immediately retract to their original position, like firing pins setting a bullet into motion.
This is the most powerful Godzilla's Atomic Breath has ever been. Not only does the beam itself demolish everything along its path through what appears to be a combination of extreme heat and unbelievable pressure, but when it hits its target it explodes like a nuclear bomb. Heat, flash, mushroom cloud, an expanding pressure wave that obliterates everything in a gigantic radius, then an imploding pressure wave just in case everything hasn't been fucked up enough already. . . if this version of Goji ever fights another monster, that monster will need to be significantly beefed up to have a hope in hell of surviving Goji's signature attack. And whatever location they're fighting in will quite simply cease to exist.
Shikishima, Noda, Shiro and Yoji managing to evade Godzilla on a small wooden tugboat and even briefly injure him by dropping a mine into his mouth and blowing it up. If it weren't for Godzilla's healing factor they would have single-handedly saved Japan. Then the heavy-cruiser Takao arrives and diverts Godzilla's attention away which results in the ship being destroyed, but before that they weren't backing down when Godzilla was clawing at the ship. Even though the Takao wasn't able to take down Godzilla, they remain Defiant to the End and blast the creature with salvo after salvo. Even when Godzilla has destroyed the ship's tower and is pulling it so far to the side that people on the top deck are fighting not to fall off, the gun crews manage to turn their guns on him and get one more shot, which seems to actually catch Godzilla off guard. Plus in the long run, them saving the Shinsei Maru crew proved very vital as if they hadn't saved them, then nobody would have any knowledge on how to stop Godzilla and Japan would've be left in much worse fate.
Noriko is on a train attacked by Godzilla, who picks up the car behind hers in his mouth and lifts it into the air. The rest of the train crumbles, causing Noriko to cling for dear life to her seat, and when she gets dislodged from that, cling to a steel bar to avoid falling to her death. As Godzilla keeps moving, still holding the train, she sees she's over water. Taking her one slim chance to survive, she steels herself and lets go. The water and some good diving technique let her survive.
Noriko, clearly terrified of Godzilla and its oncoming nuclear blast, shoves Shikishima into a nearby alley before it carries her away. Made better when she's revealed to have survived.
Operation Wada Tsumi, Noda's plan to stop Godzilla:
They use one decommissioned IJN destroyer to bait Godzilla's atomic breath, then wrap him with canisters of freon while Shikishima distracts Godzilla with two other decommissioned destroyers. The freon shoots Godzilla down to 1500 meters to crush him with pressure, before the life preservers raise him to give Godzilla explosive decompression. It's basically an enlarged and inverted version of the minesweeping job: instead of cutting mines free in order to dispose of them, two massive ships have to wrap the target up with a belt in order to sink it.
The group knew that Godzilla would fire his Atomic Breath... so the first two destroyers Yuukaze and Keyaki are diversions sent ahead to goad him into firing it so that he'd have to regenerate before he could reuse it.
Godzilla gets one for being smart enough to chew through the preservers. The plan would have been completely ruined if not for Mizushima arriving with a fleet of tugboats to drag Godzilla the rest of the way, severely injuring him.
The two destroyers Hibiki and Yukikaze have to loop the cables holding the freon tanks and flotation devices around Godzilla by circling him and cinching the cables tight, or the plan won't work. This means they have to cross each other's path so close that they trade paint — Yukikaze has an elevated crane carrying its cable, allowing Hibiki to sail under it with only meters to spare. Yukikaze's retired captain Hotta's Danger Dead Pan sells the discipline and professionalism the thrown-together crews have, stating that "damage is inevitable," and calling out "Brace for impact!" just before the destroyers touch. Later, even though Godzilla is charging his atomic breath, and the crews have seen what it did to their decoy vessel, they wait until the cable's snap taut and Noda gives the order to activate the freon tanks, sinking Gozilla down into the water.
Did we mention that this wasn't a military action by the way? With the post-war Japanese government playing a game of responsibility ball passing, a coalition of fed-up ex-Imperial Japanese Navy sailors and staff drafted this entire plan, including requisitioning the ships, the Shinden, and the resources to make it happen.
Shikishima performing a kamikaze attack on Godzilla, crashing a plane loaded with a bomb into his mouth. The blast decapitates Godzilla, causing the prepared atomic breath to shred his body. Due to this, Shikishima becomes the latest character of human badassery in the Godzilla franchise and one of the rare few that have dealt the finishing blow to Godzilla. On its own, this would not be awesome, given the connotations of kamikaze attacks; but what seals the moment is that it takes the concept of the suicide attack and subverts it. Shikishima survives the attack because Tachibana, having forgiven Shikishima and realizing he had matured past the man who'd let his comrades die, revealed that the Shinden is equipped with an ejector seat and parachute, and gave Shikishima a direct order to survive this operation. Many theaters burst into applause as Shikishima's parachute opened in the film. And that sentiment is shared In-Universe, as the people who saw Shikishima do this all cheered for him once they got back to port. The end result? Godzilla's head is blown off, and his body crumbles into pieces as his atomic breath shoots through and destroys his structure. This is the most thoroughly Godzilla has ever been killed. But...
The final scene is every bit as horrifying as it is spectacular to behold. Only a tiny piece of the beast's flesh remains as it drifts downward… then it pulsates, mutates, and rapidly regenerates as Godzilla's iconic theme song blares out at full volume and segues into the Close on Title and credits. He will return one day.
