YMMV / Godzilla: The Series

• Anti-Climax Boss: Cyber-Godzilla is treated as the Levianthan's ultimate weapon for their quest to conquer the world, and his first action was chasing after Nick and Craven to showcase his new threat level. But by part 3 of Monster Wars, Godzilla easily beats the radioactive corpse out of him, and not once did Cyber-Godzilla land any hits on his son, then is quickly finished off.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Nick actually serious about placing Mendel in charge of HEAT or was he just joking?
  • After Cyber-Godzilla briefly regains his normal eye color, did he want to be put out of his misery? There's a part where after Cyber-Godzilla has his orange eyes, he gives his son a soft roar, and the protagonist Godzilla ferociously attacks him, indicating that he is willing to oblige before the aliens regain control.
• Character Rerailment: Though he has a bit more in common with the Hanna Barbera Godzilla, this Godzilla is much more closer to his Toho counterpart instead of his father who was a Cowardly Lion who could get shot down.
• Common Knowledge: It is often claimed that because the show was better handled and better received as a Godzilla product than its film predecessor, Toho officially recognized and honored the show's incarnation as a true member of the Godzilla lineup. However, Toho has never officially said anything like this, and this incarnation of Godzilla does not possess any trademark unique to it proclaiming as much. They said the show was a redeeming factor for the film as a concept in their official YouTube channel.
• Complete Monster: Cameron Winter takes control of Godzilla and makes him destroy properties so he can collect insurance money, even making Godzilla attack a military base and endanger the lives of 500 soldiers. Defeated by H.E.A.T., Cameron returns for revenge and creates a giant monster called the Chameleon to have it attack humans and frame Godzilla for the attacks, before having the Chameleon defeat and kill Godzilla so Cameron can be seen as a hero for creating the thing that kills Godzilla. Foiled again, Cameron breaks three men out of prison and equips them with battle mechs to kill Godzilla, ordering them to also attack H.E.A.T. and the military when they get in the way. Though the hunters are defeated, Cameron denies any connection with them and claims they stole his mechs and attacked Godzilla on their own.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • N.I.G.E.L. is quite popular, with him being a genuinely hilarious Comic Relief voiced by a pre-SpongeBob Tom Kenny.
  • Several of the recurring or one-off kaiju are very popular, such as C-Rex, Komodo, and King Cobra.
  • Then, of course, there's Monique, for obvious reasons.
• Even Better Sequel: The series came from the movie it spun off from which many Godzilla fans consider In Name Only, and even the original Japanese cast and crew (especially Kenpachiro Satsuma) disliked the film. This series however gave a near-universal praise from fans and Toho for treating the title monster as Godzilla, and made him much more Truer to the Text than the film, as well as giving him an atomic breath (called power breath in the show) to fight other giant monsters akin to the Showa and Heisei films. Even though Toho is obliged to call the film monster and the title monster Godzilla, the latter is considered worthy of the name. Toho seems to agree, since in their official channel, they considered the series a redeeming factor for the 1998 film while advertising it on their official YouTube channel.
• Fan Nickname: This one's nickname is "Toonzilla." "Junior" is also used, but "Zilla, Jr." when having to differentiate from "Godzilla, Jr."
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The fandom may not be huge compared to other fandoms, but Nick and Elsie is considered to have more chemistry than Nick and Audrey or Mendel and Elsie by several who watch the show.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The series, unlike the film it preceded from, is well-loved in Japan that even Toho loves the series.
  • In Serbia, where Godzilla as a franchise tanks horribly on regular basis, the series was popular enough to become one of only four American cartoons in history to be given a Serbian language dub. Particularly notable was that the entire series was given this, which had only happened once before. Ever.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • From the episode "Future Shock", Randy's line of "Who's been playing dominoes with the World Trade Center?" is rather harsh in a post-9/11 world. It's almost as bad is seeing Sears/Willis Tower crumbling down in an almost identical fashion in "Metamorphosis".
  • The episode "S.C.A.L.E." treats the idea of terrorists willing to bring widespread death and destruction much more laxly than any media (never mind media with children as its intended audience) in the post-9/11 world would certainly allow. The antagonist at the end, despite having plans that surely would have led to hundreds, if not thousands of deaths, is even allowed to release a document that she explicitly says will help spread their cause and is given a filmed interview with the media after being arrested.
  • And speaking of S.C.A.L.E., their endgame is eerily similar to the plot of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) where they intend to release the monsters from their imprisonment, which in no doubt would cause a massive global-scale destruction as seen in Monster Wars three-parter to the point that Godzilla was needed to intervene before more destruction happens. Luckily, King Ghidorah doesn't exist in this universe so there's a sigh of relief. Unless you consider Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! part of this universe, but with an eviler undead Godzilla instead of Ghidorah.
  • And speaking of GMK, when a Japanese child tells her mother she saw Godzilla, her mother asks "What would Gojira be doing in Japan?". At first, this seems to poke at the monster's Adaptational Nationality, but the English dub of GMK places the series in this continuity, it puts into context that Godzilla (1954) happened, and thus explaining the original (Japanese) Godzilla's resurrection. The film also states Godzilla is powered by millions of spirits in revenge for modern Japan's willingness to forget the past actions during World War II, and the original Godzilla's horrific rampage in Tokyo in 1954.
  • And thirdly, while it's a homage to Godzilla movies where Cyber-Godzilla attacks Japan, this won't be the last time an undead Godzilla will come back from the dead and starts his rampage again.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This Sony Pictures-produced series features a monster named the Crackler. Sony would later purchase the streaming service Crackle and owned it for 10 years.
  • The plot of "Future Shock" is basically Reign of Fire with some Time Travel thrown in.
  • Also, the next time Sony Pictures Television created an animated series with dragons and other bizarre creatures (about a year after this one), it was pretty much the antithesis of this show...
  • Speaking of Godzilla references, in one arc the original 'Zilla, from the film, is resurrected and is used to fight against the new Godzilla. Funnily enough, that's pretty much the origin of Kiryu.
  • "An Early Frost" has a group of soldiers tracking down the Chameleon, only to be ambushed by it when it is revealed to have camouflage abilities. The same thing happens to the Asset Containment Unit sent to recapture the Indominus Rex in Jurassic World.
  • "Shafted" feature Mae Whitman and Robbie Rist as the voice of two Siblings, the two would later star in Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012).
  • The Gameboy Color adaptation of "Monster Wars" differs from the animated series in that Godzilla is never put under mind control and instead battles his way through the other mutations one at a time, who remain under the Leviathan aliens' control, which is pretty much the entire plot of Godzilla: Final Wars.
  • The Nanotech Creature is very similar to both Hedorah and Mechagodzilla City in the Godzilla anime trilogy. Like Hedorah, it is a colony of microorganisms created to consume pollution which went rogue almost immediately after being released. Like Mechagodzilla City, it consumes matter and converts it into more of itself.
  • As discovered by a Twitter user, the show predicted the use of AI generated images in a scene where Randy in "The Ballad of Gens Du Marais" tried to make a logo for the team by scanning images into a computer, and expecting it to do all the work. The output for both attempts is a mess of barely legible images, and Monique slams Randy's idea by saying "Art comes from within, it cannot be programmed," eerily mirroring the discourse surrounding AI generators and the art world in 2023. It's only when Randy takes "a shot the old fashion way" on pencil and paper that gets actual approval from Elsie, Mendel, and Monique - the letters "H.E.A.T." under a silhouette of Godzilla's head.
  • In hindsight, the film was trying to be "realistic" with the title monster, which is why the film Godzilla doesn't have his iconic Atomic Breath. The cartoon throws all of the supposed realism out the window when you have monsters created by a man's mental state, an out of control nanotechnology monster, a giant germ, a shrew whose DNA fused with a tornado, time travel, and of course Godzilla's atomic breath being brought back in.
• Just Here for Godzilla: The reason why this show was made. Considered better than the film nonetheless.
• More Popular Spin-Off: A number of entries on this very page should clue you in on how much so.
• Newer Than They Think: The Millennium Godzillas have a specific bellow that seems to be a new roar made for Godzilla 2000 and onwards. It actually originated here in "The Winter of Our Discontent" when Cameron Winter made Godzilla go crazy and has him attack the military base, and he roars this specific bellow.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Did this to the original movie... sort of. The movie is still considered not good, but it made the characters from the film, and Zilla, Jr. himself, much improved from the original form, and powerful enough that they could call it Godzilla again, fixing his Meaningful Name as "God incarnate".
  • Nick is much better received as The Protagonist in this series than in the movie proper. Helps that he gets actually awesome moments, has character development and isn't just an awkward character that really annoyed people.
  • The original monster, as was stated previously, was not popular. He gets brought back from the dead as an alien-controlled cyborg monster, in one of the most memorable stories in the series.
• Salvaged Story: A major criticism of the live-action film is that Zilla was Godzilla In Name Only. Here, Zilla Jr. ends up being Truer to the Text, having the atomic breath, as well as each episode involving him fighting a different Kaiju, like most actual Godzilla films.
• The Scrappy: Audrey is just as disliked here as she was in the movie. Probably doesn't help that she doesn't seem to have learned her lesson and to top it off comes across as really clingy and selfish.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • The series has quite a bit in common with The Godzilla Power Hour: a team of scientists travelling around the world on a Cool Ship (bonus points for the Heat-Seeker having a hydrofoil mode for high-speed travel, just like the Calico) who can summon Godzilla with an audio signal, a heroic Godzilla that heavily deviates from standard depictions of the character (both in appearance and abilities), and a Monster of the Week format that pits Godzilla against all manners of giant monsters.
  • Alienators: Evolution Continues could be considered as one to this series, with a specialized team fending off the Genus, an alien Monster of the Week species whose character designs are quite similar to the mutations of this show.
• Strangled by the Red String: Many fans wonder what Nick even sees in Audrey at all and why he continues to put up with her. The relationship has been criticized to feeling very forced. And while not as criticized as Audrey and Nick, there are several in the fandom who have criticized the Relationship Upgrade for Mendel and Elsie. It has been argued that while not as bad as Audrey and Nick, their relationship is almost just as forced.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The animated series fixed a number of the main criticisms leveled against Godzilla's portrayal in the 1998 film, giving him an Atomic Breath and showing him in combat with other monsters.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A notable issue some fans have is that the kaiju that show up in the series usually die in their first episode and the ones that survive are quickly Demoted to Extra.
• Ugly Cute: Junior himself, especially as a baby◊ and when he figures out that Nick is "dad" during his juvenile stage. Partly it's the look, partly it's the surprised noise the great lizard makes.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series has an incredible amount of violence compared to the film, such as the lead monster dismembering various kaiju, melting some of them, and even burning one alive. You have to wonder what the FCC thinks about this. It also showed military characters using guns that had the looks of real life guns (despite some Off-Model issues) during a time when Family-Friendly Firearms was the norm for most US animation. And in the second episode, Animal flat out calls some soldiers "stormtroopers" to their faces, though the "Stormtroopers" comment might have simply been a Star Wars reference.
• The Woobie: Sydney Walker, the man who inadvertently creates the Crackler, in "What Dreams May Come". By the end of the episode you'll wanna give the poor guy a hug.