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alt title(s): Daikaiju; Daikaijuu 
Giant Japanese monsters that assault Tokyo, hapless island explorers, or each other are called Kaiju. Just ask The Other Wiki. [1]
Typically they arrive from somewhere Far Away. Whether that means space, Beneath The Earth, or a South Pacific island varies. Expect lots of Stuff Blowing Up to result, but, since Giant Equals Invincible, don't expect the explosions to actually hurt them. Examples of this genre can range from straight-up Disaster Movie ( Cloverfield, the first Godzilla movie) to all-out wrestling matches between People In Rubber Suits (Most of the later Godzilla movies). As this genre features a judicious application of Rule Of Cool, expect the MST 3 K Mantra to be in full effect. Often, you'll only watch this kind of movie to see the monsters fight, which can often involve an Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny (such as King Kong vs. Godzilla.)
This is actually one of the oldest genres in film, dating back to the early days of cinema when special effects were new. Pioneers of the genre were The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, King Kong, and The Lost World (which was actually the earliest example of the genre).
Rent A Zilla is a Sub Trope, where the work doesn't focus on the monster.
Compare Disaster Movie, Attack of the Killer Whatever and Attack of the 50 Foot Whatever. Has its roots in Tokusatsu.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- Most Digimon. A lot of Mons, in fact.
- The Shito/Angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- The Evas themselves, having been cloned from Angels. Their armor just makes them look like Humongous Mecha.
- Though without it, they just look like human, albeit ugly ones. Which only makes sense, since they are human.
- When Suzumiya Haruhi gets particularly irritated (or, presumably, watches too much Evangelion), she manifests Kaiju-like monsters in a Phantom Zone. Fortunately, she also dreamt up some people to fight the things.
- Voltaire and Hakutenou of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. The two of them even get to battle in a heavily damaged city.
- The monstrous form of the Book Of Darkness also counts as a Kaiju.
- A recent example from Bleach involves Espada #0 Yammy Rialgo, whose release 'Ira' transforms him into a monstrous Kaiju.
- In the CLAMP series Card Captor Sakura, Touya's pet name for his sister is "Kaiju", which is usually followed by Sakura shouting about how much she isn't one, complete with monsterous stomping about the house. Which naturally only adds to Touya's argument that she is a noisy kaiju.
- Franken Fran had a massive human-like Kaiju that came from the sea and seemed intent on attacking an island town. Turns out that it's just a girl whose wish of living with the whales was granted by Professor Madaraki. She's just there to find her mom so she could give her the great news that she's now pregnant. Happy end!
- All members of the Heroic Tribe in Heroic Age are essentially GIANT SPACE MONSTERS. Which destroy planets on a regular basis.
- The eponymous Humongous Mecha in Dai Guard ends up fighting a lot of kaiju.
- Cenco and the other monsters in Cencoroll.
- Done hilariously in Seto No Hanayome when Nagasumi is turned into a giant. San's father summons a large octopus to attack him.
- How could nobody mention Naruto? It even has a giant snake named Manda
Comic Books
- Superman has a recurring enemy named Titano, who is basically King Kong with the power to shoot Kryptonite-flavored laser beams out of his eyes.
- Fin Fang Foom of Marvel Comics.
- Foom is a holdover from when Marvel published monster comics as a major source of revenue. Today, Marvel's Monster Island houses lots of Kirby-designed and inspired Kaiju.
- Speaking of which, Marvel briefly had the rights to publish Godzilla comics, and featured him as part of the Marvel Universe.
- Batman: Gotham After Midnight, a very bizarre miniseries, featured Bat-foe Clayface devouring people whole and growing into a gigantic mud-monster... which the Dark Knight fought with a Bat-mecha he had built for just such an occasion. Crazy Prepared, indeed...
- Exiles had the Monster World arc, which envisioned Curt Connors, Bolivar Trask, Tony Stark and Hank Pym as a team of Action Scientists fighting Kaiju in a transforming mecha. They fight it out with Fing Fang Foom in Japan at the end of the arc. It was awesome.
Film
- The earliest example of the familiar Kaiju formula is present in the 1925 film The Lost World, in which a dinosaur wreaks havoc in London, setting the template for the genre before the sound era.
- Godzilla ranges from antagonist to Anti Hero with a Protectorate
- Godzilla's English Distaff Counterpart Ogra from the film Gorgo. Gorgo himself counts too, but he gets captured and held by those damn humans.
- Mothra, usually trying to either aid humanity (and her friends the fairy twins) or defend her eggs from Godzilla.
- The Friend to all children, Gamera, a heroic giant space turtle.
- King Kong is effectively the one memorable Western example, who assaults the Big Applesauce.
- The movie Cloverfield is a reconstruction of all kaiju attack movies, reminding people that Kaiju has its roots in the Disaster film and how terrifying, deadly, and incomprehensible such an attack would be to an average citizen as it did in the first Godzilla film (before the American edits).
- Insectosaurus of Monsters Vs Aliens, down to having the same backstory as Godzilla, though generally being a homage to Mothra.
- REPTILICUS! The giant goop-spitting snake-dragon that destroyed Copenhagen!
- THE GIANT CLAW! The
flying battleship Giant Antimatter Space Buzzard from 17,000,000 B.C.!
- The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters.
- Mongo from Shrek 2. It especially works if Drury Lane is in Far Far Away, since Kaiju rarely live in Close Near By.
- Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. The octopus attacks Tokyo Bay but for some reason we never see any scenes of this, whereas the giant shark takes a bite out of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
Literature
- Cthulhu: Not Japanese, but it came from (hyper)space, is huge and lies beneath the Pacific/Antarctica.
- Agog Press' Daikaiju! anthology is built around these, and features a number of really weird ideas. How weird? Groundsurfing on the shockwaves made by kaiju's feet as they walk around.
Live Action TV
Tabletop Games
- "Kaiju" is a template in Dungeons And Dragons (see Dragon Magazine #289), enabling the DM to turn any Animal, Magical Beast or Vermin in the Monster Manual into a fifty-foot armour-plated monstrosity capable of destroying
Tokyo Nakamaru.
- In 2nd Edition D&D, there were a number of creatures called "Gargantuas" that were Captain Ersatzs of Godzilla, King Kong, and Mothra.
- An adventure for the Oriental Adventures campaign setting, Test of the Samurai, featured a gigantic psychic monster called a "Krakentua", which is best described as Cthulhu, sans wings, in a kimono.
- No discussion of giant monsters in D&D is complete without mentioning the legendary Tarrasque. Only one exists on any given world; this reptilian monstrosity awakens every century to destroy everything in its path, devouring all life and reducing the countryside to rubble, and is completely unkillable without resorting to godlike magic.
- In Pathfinder, the Tarrasque, while still unique, is one of a whole family of unique kaiju created by the apocalypse god Rovagug. Which is itself an unbelievably gigantic insect-Eldritch Abomination imprisoned in the molten heart of the world in a cage whose bars are strong enough to hold it in, but wide enough to allow its comparatively tiny and ineffectual spawn to escape.
- The collectible miniatures game Monsterpocalypse is all about giant monsters (along with Humongous Mecha and alien invaders) duking it out.
- Exalted has its share of giant, rampaging monsters. Most of these are behemoths, created either by the Fair Folk for use in their reality shaping battles, or by the Primordials, for shits and giggles. Occasionally, an elemental dragon will ascend to such a level of spiritual development that it goes insane. Also, elder Lunar Exalted can use their Voluntary Shapeshifting to change into an incredibly strong monsters that dwarfs cities.
Video Games
- Resistance 2 has the Leviathan, a giant monster that roams the flooded streets of Chicago.
- Spoofed heavily by the Lungfishopolis level of Psychonauts: one mind is portrayed as a city of tiny lungfish-like creatures, meaning that Raz is gargantuan compared to them. Due to his distinctive headgear, the citizens immediately nickname him Goggalor. The Boss Battle of the level is the Villain With Good Publicity kaiju, who's hailed as a hero to protect them from "Goggalor" (and a Shout Out to Ultraman)
- Destroy All Humans 2 has the "Kojira Kaiju Battle" mission, a Godzilla parody complete with someone screaming "Kojira! Aieeee!", atomic breath, and those weird anti-Kaiju tanks common in Godzilla films. Naturally, it takes place in Japan.
- X-COM: Apocalypse has the Overspawn, giant aliens dropped by the Mothership for the sole purpose of rampaging all over the cityscape. They're actually pretty weak since they're usually up against the best of X-COM manufactured vehicles and weapons by the time they appear. Some players just leave them alone since they have a tendency of accidentally killing themselves when they get too close to a building they knock over.
- Speaking of rampaging, the characters you use in the Rampage series of games.
- War of the Monsters is a fighting game in which the player can choose one of ten different Kaiju, including pastiches of King Kong and Godzilla and an old school Japanese giant robot. The game has a noticeable cheesy 1950s sci-fi feel to it, features huge, fully destructible city environments.
- Kyogre and Groudon of the Pokemon games. Sootopolis was the unlucky city that had front row seats to their coming. Heck, when the time came for Pokemon Special to adapt the Ruby/Saphire games, the artist said that he wanted to recreate scenes from his favorite monster movies when he was drawing the volumes that involved those two's disaster-filled awakening and eventual battle.
- The Weapons of Final Fantasy VII are quite distinctly Kaiju, right down to incoherent roars, being vaguely humanoid, coming from the depths of the ocean and making craters on the main map screen when finally killed.
Webcomics
Western Animation
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