I've talked about MechaGodzilla in the past, but with a franchise as old and long as Godzilla's, it's inevitable that the character has changed over the years. He's gone from a tool of conquest to a defender of humanity to a raging mech turned against its masters.
But if I had to highlight my favorite iteration of the character, I have to go with the Millenium version that debuted in Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla and appeared one last time in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. Aside from having arguably the coolest design, this MechaGodzilla (also known as Kiryu), actually does have something that the others don't: he has a character arc and isn't either a threat to be conquered or a tank.
The only problem with Kiryu is that talking about him runs the risk of sounding like a mad man. So disclaimer: everything down below is real. I am NOT making this stuff up. At all.
So our story starts in 1954 with the original Godzilla.
By now you should know the story. Baptized in the fires of the hydrogen bomb, the original Godzilla went on a rampage in Tokyo and completely leveled the city, killing countless. He was only stopped when the brilliant scientist Dr. Serizawa reduced him to a skeleton with the Oxygen Destroyer. Anyone who's familiar with Godzilla lore knows the story.
Well, in the continuity of the Kiryu duology, that skeleton becomes extremely important.
When a second Godzilla appears in 1999, the Japanese government knows they did some kind of superweapon to defend themselves (especially since conventional weaponry won't do jack). Taking a page out of Pacific Rim's book, they decide their best chance is a gigantic mech to fight the monster. But even then, Godzilla's vicious enough that even a conventional robot might not enough.
And here's where things get...interesting.
Thanks to recent developments in robotics and bioengineering, they're able to use the bones of the original Godzilla to build MechaGodzilla. The reason being that a robot that uses organic DNA will be able to react faster than a completely automated one. Plus, thanks to those aforementioned advancements, Kiryu would be able to fight as effectively and viciously as when it was Godzilla while remaining under the JDSF's control. Think of it more as a cyborg than a true robot.
So to reiterate, they built a mech out of the bones of the original Godzilla. It's also able to fight just as well as its organic counterpart. Something like an EVA from Evangelion.
...everyone still with me? Good. Cause it gets stranger.
Kiryu does turn out to be as good of a fighter as they needed. While he isn't as powerful as some of his other iterations, he's able to fight the new Godzilla on equal footing. He's able to fight Godzilla to a draw in the first film inflicting grievous wounds and even defeated him in the second with the help of Mothra.
There's just one problem. Remember how I said Kiryu was a cyborg brought to life by the original bones of Godzilla?
During his first scuffle with Godzilla...Kiryu remembered who he was when he heard Godzilla's roar. And when a monster realizes he's been brought back to life by those that gave him painful mutations, turned him into a living weapon, and made to fight one of his own...
Yeah, once the reality of Kiryu's state comes to mind, there's some serious questions on whether or not creating him was a good idea in the first place. For one, how exactly can anybody rely on a machine that thinks like a monster? For another, what are the moral implications of even creating such a thing and forcing him to fight what is essentially another of his kind? Or even bringing him back to life and thus playing God? These are actually given a ton of weight in the film as the ethical lines behind Kiryu's creation are blurred. Especially when MechaGodzilla being brought online is what's triggering Godzilla's rampages in the first place.
But the interesting thing here is Kiryu himself. There's a lot of hints that he's a lot more self-aware and in control than most people give him credit for. For one, he seems to have an affinity for his first pilot Akane and one of his technicians, Yoshido. His eyes almost seem to glow when Akane is in danger and flat out says farewell to Yoshido on a computer in Tokyo SOS. The implications are that he seems to sympathize with Akane's feelings of worthlessness and appreciates Yoshido treating him like he was an actual being despite essentially being a robot.
And then there's his relationship with Godzilla. Thing is...he doesn't want to fight one of his own. While he runs out of power in the first film before he can kill Godzilla, Akane speculates that Kiryu genuinely didn't want to fight anymore. While he'll certainly fight Godzilla to stop the monster's rampage (all the more impressive since this is technically the original Godzilla we're talking about), killing him is another matter entirely. Which creates a bit of conflict since his purpose is to kill Godzilla.
And he gets his chance in Tokyo SOS when he grievously wounds Godzilla...but then stops dead in his tracks when his "brother/son" cries out in pain. He then lets the Mothra Larvae to wrap Godzilla in silk and effectively bring the exhausted dinosaur to the earth, giving him an opportunity to finish the job. Hell, the pilots and mission control are basically ordering Godzilla's execution at this point.
He gives off a roar that sounds like the original Godzilla, disobeys every command to finish the fight, and gently embraces his organic counterpart before taking them both out to sea where no one can reach them. Godzilla is able to live, and Kiryu (and by extension the original Godzilla) is finally able to rest in peace.
This is why this version of MechaGodzilla is my favorite. His whole arc to me was about choosing for himself and wrangling with his relationship to both mankind and Godzilla. About whether he should kill his own or let innocents get hurt. Or even just learning to move on past his grudge against people. Those are things you don't typically associate with kaiju movies. Cause in the end, Kiryu isn't just another mech or monster. He's got character to him as well. Something I think the Godzilla movies do well.
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