"Go! Go! Go! Gojiban!"
Monster Puppet Show Godziban (怪獣人形劇 ゴジばん Kaijū Ningyōgeki Gojiban), or simply Godziban (ゴジばん Gojiban) is a Puppet Show web series based on the Godzilla franchise co-produced by Toho, AlphaBoat, and Studio Koganemushi for the official Godzilla YouTube channel that premiered on August 9, 2019, with an official subtitled version being uploaded to the English Godzilla YouTube channel starting on August 20, 2021.Godziban is divided into several recurring segments and stars chibi and child versions of the Toho kaiju stable. These include:
- Go! Go! Godzilla-kun!: The main focus, chronicling the Godzi Godzi Island misadventures of the Three Godzilla Brothers; Godzilla-kun, Minilla, and Little.
- Moshi Moth: A segment following the Moshu Moshu Mothra larva siblings and Battra.
- Little and Gigan: The Dangerous Duo: A segment where Little keeps trying to befriend Gigan after their initial encounter in Season 1.
- Young Serizawa: The Season 2 finale, where a young Dr. Serizawa finds himself marooned on Monster Island.
- Attention! Godzilla: A secondary main segment of the first season, this segment follows Kamachi (Shin Godzilla's Kamata-kun) and his misadventures in the human world.
- Grandpa Hedo: The end segment to the first season, an elderly Hedorah travels across vast landscapes with his curious grandson and offers kernels of wisdom to answer his questions. Replaced by Grandpa Hedo's Travels in later seasons with the two visiting Japanese landmarks and taking viewer questions.
- Go! Jet Jaguar: A 2D segment by artist Onigiri where Jet Jaguar is an inept superhero bot.
Tropes
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Uncle Zilla is a friendly, though still terrifying in the context of the show, version of Shin Godzilla.
- Amateur Film-Making Plot: The Bandai Movie Monster Series special, accessible via QR codes on Godziban toy tags, has the Three Godzilla Brothers making a movie with their action figures, with the process of making homemade effects presented in a way easy for kids to try at home.
- The Bus Came Back: Season 4 marks Bagan's first on-screen appearance 29 years after appearing in Super Godzilla.
- Christmas Special: The Godzilla Who Came on Christmas Eve, where the Godzilla family delivers presents to all the monster loving kids in Japan and helps a little girl that befriended Kamachi save the young Godzilla's life.
- Cool Old Guy: Grandpa Zilla is the 1954 Godzilla with a wizard staff that can transform into a giant and works for Santa Claus.
- Decomposite Character: Erika and Biollante are separate characters in this universe.
- Gender Flip: The version of Godzilla from Godzilla 2000 appears as Godzilla-kun's mother Mirei-san.
- Greek Chorus: After joining the other monsters on the island, Grandpa Hedo and Little Hedo generally just start making comments on various episode's plots.
- Hostile Show Takeover: The Three Dorat Brothers attempt this in the Season 3 finale before they have to fight Monster Zero.
- How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys?: The Christmas special has Grandpa Zilla explain that there's more then one Santa Claus delivering gifts, with his route covering the kaiju lovers.
- Mental Picture Projector: Serizawa invents one in "Grandiose Memories", used to explore Godzilla-kun's backstory.
- Mythology Gag:
- Godzilla-kun and Anguirus often have speech bubble conversations with each other like in Godzilla vs. Gigan
- Godzilla-kun's lessons for his brothers include the sliding kick from Godzilla vs. Megalon and an atomic breath lesson like Son of Godzilla.
- Godzilla-kun once comments to Little that Godzillas aren't meant to fly. A later episode has Godzilla-kun daydreaming about flying in the style of Godzilla vs. Hedorah, before becoming the focus of the episode "Fly, Godzilla, Fly" where Grandpa Hedo reveals the secret, but Godzilla-kun cannot take to the air because of his own doubts.
- Miyarabi takes her name from the song used to awaken King Caesar in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.
- Sporting equipment used by the kaiju is constructed out of "red bamboo", named for the terrorist organization from Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.
- "Fly! Toward the Future" ends on Godzilla leading all the Earth kaiju seen in Destroy All Monsters in a charge against Ghidorah.
- In the special episodes "Film the Dream!" and "Bring Them to Life! Let's Play with the Three Godzilla Brothers", Godzilla-kun wears Eiji Tsuburaya's signature hat and shades as a director outfit.
- Plant Person: Erika, Biollante's dryad daughter.
- Promotion to Parent: Godzilla-kun has been looking after Minilla and Little for years after their parents left the island and never returned.
- Sexy Dimorphism:
- While Prince Caesar is just a smaller version of his father, his older sister Miyarabi is a human with shisa ears and a tail in a furkini.
- Mother Gigarian in Season 4 is the Godzilla: Final Wars Gigan design with Non-Mammal Mammaries and Hartman Hips.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Gigan defends Little from King Ghidorah, claiming that the Godzilla Brothers are his to deal with.
- Shout-Out: A giant shark in Season 4 rides a waterspout ala Sharknado
- The Smart Guy: Little often explains the various scientific phenomena he and his brothers encounter.
- Spin-Off Babies: Besides the Three Godzilla Brothers and Mothra larva, the island is home to King Caesar's children Miyarabi and Prince Caesar, and Rodan's little brother Radon.
- Teen Genius: Dr. Serizawa is depicted as a tormented one that ran away from home to hide the Oxygen Destroyer from the world.
- Tickle Torture: Little uses this as a means of testing Gigan's willpower.
- You Wake Up on a Beach: How the Young Serizawa storyline starts.
- You Wanna Get Sued?: The Tortoise and the Hare episode has Godzilla-kun commenting on his brothers' turtle shell costumes as being too close to a certain turtle and being stopped as he says the name with a "Don't worry about it!". The ending has Godzilla-kun freak out when Little and Minilla start spinning in the air.
