Nightmare Fuel / Shin Godzilla

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"If I die in this world, who will know something of me?"

Being that it was directed by Hideaki Anno, Shin Godzilla stands as one of the franchise's darkest incarnations, and it's not hard to see why.

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• This version of Godzilla is THE epitome of Nightmare Fuel, with sunken and tiny eyes and jagged teeth, some of which seem to be growing out of his skin. This is truly a creature affected by radiation.
  • The April 2016 trailer opens with this particular Godzilla roaring and opening his jaws far wider than any other Godzilla ever has, in a way that does not look natural. Combined with his tumor-riddled skin, sunken beady eyes, and the way he flails his head around while roaring, it makes it look like this Godzilla is in immense pain just from existing.
  • And that's from roaring. A leaked image shows him open his mouth so far wide, it should be physically impossible. This is perhaps the most miserable Godzilla in existence. And if you consider what the original Godzilla went through, that's saying something.
  • And then his jaw splits in half. This is how Shin Godzilla fires his Atomic Breath: in agony.
  • Then there's "Kamata-kun" and "Shinagawa-kun" and the coming ashore scene. People running and screaming through the streets as a giant, lumbering marine lizard... thing tears through and spilling gallons of blood everywhere, acting only on instincts. But it's also the appearance, with both forms being virtually scaleless, large dead-looking (fish) eyes that don't move in their sockets, and his jaw hanging open the entire time even when he flails about. Even after his visceral evolution, he doesn't look much different except he can stand (hardly) and is budding arms, slowly becoming the much-more-recognized Godzilla.
    • The fact that a great deal of the imagery used when the second form is coming ashore is directly referencing the 3/11 tsunami.
    • Another thing from Kamata-Kun's rampage that often gets looked over is a short scene in which a panicked mother tries to pack her bags with her husband and child. Kamata-Kun then rams up against the building they're in and knocks it over sending the whole thing crashing to the ground with the family still inside.
  • Once he reaches his fourth form, Godzilla's very behavior is extremely unsettling. He simply plods forward, looking almost vacant, not really looking at or seeing anything around him. When the military opens fire with precision shots to his head, he doesn't even react and doesn't even seem to notice what's happening, save when his eyes lower protective nictitating membranes in anticipation of an exploding bomb. He doesn't really even notice the tanks that are firing on him and, even when he destroys a few, it seems to have been more by accident than actual intent. The first time he actually displays more animalistic behavior is when the U.S. Military's bombs manage to do some damage to him - now humans have shown the capacity to actually injure him, he's no longer messing around.
• Godzilla's second form. His huge bulgy eyes initially make him appear goofy, upon closer observation and seeing move and thrash around wildly, spewing oceans of blood from his gills, he's positively nightmarish. Bloodied and in agony, he's a disturbing malformation, like something straight out of a zombie apocalypse.
  • Even the bulgy eyes are horrific when you realize why they are bulgy: they have no eyelids. And much more, they are never seen moving out of place, being fixed like a fish's eye. In short, even Godzilla's sight causes him agony, as he is always picking up whatever light spectrums he sees by (not to mention any random flying debris) and cannot close or squint his eyes the way most living things can to protect them (or re-moisturize them for that matter).
• Godzilla's night rampage in Tokyo. At that time the characters (and audience) realize that they're not dealing with a creature, they are fighting a losing battle against a god.
  • Especially when you realize what this is reminiscent of: not the great blasts caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki represented in the 1954 film, but the Tokyo Firebombings. Said fire bombings caused more destruction to life, economy, and property than both bombs combined, counting as Fridge Horror as well.
• Being trapped in a city while a natural disaster plows through it, be it a monster or otherwise.
  • Losing most of your country's government in one day due to a sudden attack.
• This Godzilla takes his atomic breath to a completely different level. He has to split his mouth to fire it, or use the tip of his tail, or use his mouth, tail, and every one of his scutes. This Godzilla is a freak even compared to the very first Godzilla.
  • Takes on another level of horror when you realize that his initial purple smoke and firestorm vomit was actually more destructive to his immediate surroundings than the laser-like breath.
• The end of the film where those humanoids spawn from the tail. There is absolutely no music during this scene. You are left to ponder on the horrifying ramification of that sight, so it's no surprise to be shocked when music does play immediately when the credits appear.
  • The implications of the final shot are terrifying. Not only does it suggest what might happen if or when the coagulant wears off and Godzilla begins to move again, but it implies that their plan succeeded when Godzilla was within seconds of spawning an entire host of monsters. To make matters worse, the USA has issued an ultimatum; if the Yashiori Strategy fails, or if Godzilla becomes fully active again, they will nuke Tokyo to stop him. Japan's capital is caught between two immovable forces; on one side, a literal god, and on the other, the destruction of everything its people hold dear by nuclear hellfire.
    • The humanoids didn't appear until after he was frozen. He's still active.
    • Not necessarily; there's a shot toward the end of the armour covering the tip of his tail cracking; it's like Godzilla was in the process of speed-running into his next evolution, likely because the giant kaiju form was increasigly unviable.
  • Closeup images◊ of the prop used for the scene show that the tail's "second head" has a large human jawbone and eye in it. Hell, you can clearly make out an arm as well, among other things. There is just so much wrong with it.
  • The final shot of the movie may also imply something much worse. Look closely at the creatures spawning from Godzilla's tail. They have skulls, limbs, and a body very similar to that of a human. And we know Godzilla was in contact with humans in the film, implying that it absorbed their cells to create new life forms. So what would happen if they got in contact with a more dangerous earth life form?
• The very notion that Godzilla might thaw out one day and resume attacking in and of itself is terrifying, not just in the fact Godzilla will return, but that America will then follow through on its original plan to drop a nuclear warhead on him and therefore Japan.
• The chunks of his flesh and dorsal plates blown off everywhere are regenerating and growing into their own independent Godzillas, thus Japan is fast on its way to becoming a quarantined area to prevent a full-scale global outbreak. Millions of refugees would pour into Asia and Australia, causing a humanitarian disaster. An exclusion zone akin to Chernoybl (plus naval blockade) is bound to follow. The country would literally become a "Monster Island", and as bad as that sounds, it's merely delaying the inevitable.
• The fact that this Godzilla is shown to be actually trying to reproduce and populate the earth with more like him, with one scene asking if he was trying to grow wings, which will allow him to spread destruction on a worldwide scale.
• So, turns out that the horrifying monstrosity in the final film is one of the tamer versions conceived. Behold... versions shaped like shambling mountains of molten flesh, indiscernible lattice amalgamations of ''dozens'' of half-formed Godzilla heads like a cancerous coral reef that's the size of a city and horror that Dark Souls or even Berserk would shit its pants at.
  • And that's not even the half of it. Some of the deleted scenes and concepts get much worse. And to be frank, it's a bit of a blessing that most of these ideas were never fully realized because if they were, we probably wouldn't sleep for days from pure shock. But just for the sake of it, we almost got things like;
    • Kamata-Kun actively noticing and chasing someone down. We've already talked about how nightmarish that form is, so imagine it chasing you.
    • Godzilla emerging from the water suddenly and flopping on the ground like a dying fish. And just so we're clear, the test footage implies this was supposed to be him evolving from his first form to his second form.
    • Godzilla pulling a very, very dark reference to Godzilla vs. Megalon by skating around on his tail like a snake. It sounds goofy, and it sort of is, but it just looks incredibly wrong to see Godzilla do that.
    • Godzilla's third form vomiting enough blood to form a small lake, with said blood being hot enough to burst car tires.
• Think about it for a second. Godzilla was frozen at the end of the movie, and while the possibility of him coming back is horrifying, at least he is stopped for now. What about those independent chunks of flesh blown off of Godzilla that are growing into new ones?
• The entire existence of Goro Maki. He was an unseen scientist who studied Godzilla when it was a larvae, and that's all we know. When they find his yacht at the beginning of the film, he's just... gone.
  • It's all but directly stated that he committed suicide by leaping into the ocean (where Godzilla was), based on him leaving his shoes behind, which in Japan is a telltale sign, and judging on the human characteristics of Godzilla, and this Godzilla's ability to assimilate things...
• In past installments, Godzilla's atomic breath would impact its nearest target and either burn it or blow it up. Here, it cuts right through them and just keeps going. He decapitates half of Tokyo's skyline with a single attack.
  • Nobody imagined that Godzilla can dice American B-2 Spirit strategic bombers flying at high altitude in half, nor that it had its own missile defense system.
• For that matter, the fact that the B-2s were in the air before the Japanese government requested any kind of American assistance.
  • This lessens, however, when Fridge Logic kicks in - it is likely that nearby US bases under the command of United States Forces Japan would have been informed of some kind of "monster attack" on Japan, and responded to it by scrambling aircraft to assist the JSDF. That said, it does call into question the fact that they came too late to assist during the main attack.