And this is just the Showa Era!
The Tohoverse is The 'Verse that Toho's Kaiju films are set in. It's perhaps best known as the place that Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster inhabit.
The Tohoverse is notable as one of the first Shared Universes in film along with Universal Horror, and for hosting some of the earliest Crisis Crossovers in fiction in the form of the aforementioned Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters, released decades before the trope became standard franchise procedure.
Tohoverse continuity is rather complicated, the best way to describe it is that Godzilla (1954) is the only film that happens no matter what, and that several Alternate Timelines springboard off its conclusion, for the sake of clarity and completion, several non-canon films and Alternate Continuities will be placed in this article due to the presence of Tohoverse characters and concepts in those pieces of media.
See also the MonsterVerse and the Shin Japan Heroes Universe, both of which feature elements of the Tohoverse in starring roles.
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List of Timelines
- Showa Era: The official Godzilla timeline from 1954 until 1975, in this timeline, a second Godzilla appeared in 1955 and battled Anguirus, but after King Ghidorah appeared on Earth, he had a change of heart and became the Earth’s greatest defender.
- Heisei Era: The first Alternate Timeline, at the tail-end of the Cold War a second Godzilla with a Wild Card morality shows up due to a volcanic eruption, and proceeds to ravage humanity while also fighting against even greater evils. Infamous for the Continuity Snarl that arose from whether or not previous films were erased from the timeline.
- Godzilla 2000 Timeline: In this timeline, a second Godzilla showed up just in time for the Turn of the Millennium and did battle with the Millennian UFO.
- Godzilla vs. Megaguirus Timeline: A What If? timeline where the Oxygen Destroyer was never built, and thus the first Godzilla lives to the Present Day, a black hole device was attempted as a means of getting rid of Godzilla, but giant dragonflies were released instead.
- GMK Timeline: In 2001, the ghosts of World War II’s civilian casualties wrecked havoc in Japan in the form of Godzilla, also notable for the fact that a Godzilla-like creature appeared in 1998, but it’s been clarified that it wasn’t the real Godzilla.
- Kiryu Saga Timeline: The timeline where Toho’s “other” Kaiju Films take place, currently the last timeline to branch off from the main Tohoverse.
Works set in the Tohoverse
- Godzilla
- Godzilla (1954) (All Timelines)
- Godzilla Raids Again (1955) (Showa Timeline)
- King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) (Showa Timeline)
- Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) (Showa Timeline)
- Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) (Showa Timeline)
- Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) (Showa Timeline)
- Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966) (Showa Timeline)
- Son of Godzilla (1967) (Showa Timeline)
- Destroy All Monsters (1968) (Showa Timeline)
- All Monsters Attack (1969) (Real Life)
- Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) (Showa Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) (Showa Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) (Showa Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) (Showa Timeline)
- Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) (Showa Timeline)
- The Return of Godzilla (1984) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995) (Heisei Timeline)
- Godzilla (1998) (GMK Timeline)
- Godzilla: The Series (GMK Timeline by association)
- Godzilla 2000 (1999) (2000 Timeline)
- Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) (Megaguirus Timeline)
- Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! (2001) (GMK Timeline)
- Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002) (Kiryu Saga Timeline)
- Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) (Kiryu Saga Timeline)
- Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) (Alternate Continuity)
- Mothra (1961) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Rebirth of Mothra (1996) (Alternate Continuity)
- Rebirth of Mothra 2 (1997)
- Rebirth of Mothra 3 (1998)
- Rodan (1956) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- The Mysterians (1957) (Heisei and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Varan, the Unbelievable (1958) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Gorath (1962) (Kiryu Saga Timeline)
- Atragon (1963) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Dogora (1964) (Kiryu Saga Timeline)
- Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- War of the Gargantuas (1966) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- King Kong Escapes (1967) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Space Amoeba (1970) (Showa and Kiryu Saga Timelines)
- Zone Fighter (1973) (Showa Timeline)
Tropes
- Alternate Continuity:
- The Rebirth of Mothra trilogy has no connection to the first film and the films are only canon to each other.
- Godzilla: Final Wars, while intended as the Grand Finale to the whole Tohoverse, officially takes place in an entirely separate universe with no connections to past films.
- Armies Are Useless: Unless they have a Superweapon or Humongous Mecha, the military really can’t do anything to stop a Kaiju attack in the Tohoverse.
- Crisis Crossover:
- Decades before all of reality collapsed and all of Marvel’s heroes were sucked into Battleworld, Toho’s three biggest monsters had to team up to defeat Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.
- Destroy All Monsters has all the monsters rounded up on a remote island until aliens mind control them. In the climax, the monsters are freed, and they team up for one last battle against King Ghidorah.
- Crossover: Many early Godzilla films were crossovers between him and monsters from formerly independent properties. Mothra vs. Godzilla was a crossover between Godzilla and Mothra, and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster served as a sequel both to that film and Rodan. King Kong vs. Godzilla is probably the most traditional example, as it was a crossover not just between Godzilla and King Kong, but between properties from two different film companies.
- Kaiju: The 'Verse that some of the most famous giant monsters of all inhabit, most of whom wreck cities.
- Mammal Monsters Are More Heroic: King Shisa (King Caesar in the English localization) is one of the few mammalian Toho kaiju, and also one of the most consistently heroic. Unlike many of the other monsters in the series, he is generally portrayed as a protector of humanity, and in his debut appearance in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, he is the guardian deity of an ancient family from Okinawa.
- Moral Disambiguation: In the original 1954 movie, Godzilla was a tragic creature seeking revenge on humanity after being a victim of their hubris, but as the franchise went on, the character generally became a campy Anti-Hero opposed to more generically-evil and sadistic kaiju and space aliens, such as Monster Zero, Gigan and the Xiliens.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
- Mothra, Rodan, and Varan all started out in their own films independent from Godzilla, later being put together with him in crossover films for the sake of more marketable film concepts. Though Varan is this to a lesser extant, Mothra and Rodan are now firm additions to Godzilla lore.
- Originally, King Ghidorah was a threat to the Tohoverse at large, appearing near exclusively in Crisis Crossovers, but after Destroy All Monsters, he became Godzilla’s Arch-Enemy, appearing near-exclusively in his films until Rebirth of Mothra 3, where he was transplanted again to become an opponent of Mothra’s.
- The Kaiju Baragon was originally the enemy of a giant version of Frankenstein's Monster in Frankenstein Conquers the World. However, Baragon eventually became part of Godzilla's Rogues Gallery thanks to video-games, action figures, and the films Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack!.
- The robot Moguera was a class of war machines created by alien invaders to conquer humanity in The Mysterians, and forty-something years later, it is crossed over into the Godzilla series as a weapon created by humans to kill Godzilla.
- Gorosaurus started out as an Expy of the Meat-Eater from King Kong for the giant ape to square off against in King Kong Escapes. After featuring in Destroy All Monsters, he is now more associated with Godzilla than he is with Kong.
- The Rogue Planet Gorath was originally a threat independent of the Kaiju, but menaced Godzilla in Godzilla: Final Wars.
- Shared Universe: While not as interconnected as modern day shared universes are, the Tohoverse still stars various Kaiju inhabiting a singular universe.
