Hey kaiju fans, it's Titanollante, and today we're talking about the Perfect Lifeform:
Destoroyah!
Destoroyah is a Precambrian crustacean kaiju that debuted in 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah,"
the last entry in the Heisei Godzilla series.
Standing 120 meters tall in his Perfect Form and weighing in at 80,000 metric tons,
Destoroyah is often considered one of Godzilla's most merciless, intelligent and evil foes,
along with the Showa King Ghidorah and SpaceGodzilla.
Unlike monsters that kill and destroy unintentionally and act only out of instinct or while under
mind control, Destoroyah seems fully aware of the death and destruction he causes,
and takes pleasure in causing it.
Destoroyah's strategies seem to revolve around causing as much pain to his opponents as possible,
as his aggregate form is shown repeatedly stabbing Godzilla Junior with his limbs and
administering extremely painful doses of Micro-Oxygen directly into his chest.
Destoroyah takes his name from the Oxygen Destroyer weapon that spawned him.
A possible reason that the name "Destroyer" isn't commonly used for the monster in various
markets is because the word itself could not be trademarked by Toho.
However, he is often referred to as "Destroyer" in dubbed versions of the film,
while "Destoroyah" is Toho's official name for the character.
Also yes, it's spelled like that.
The monster has 6 distinct forms, which are denoted as
While Destoroyah's forms vary drastically in overall appearance,
they all have numerous common features.
All of Destoroyah's forms have bright red exoskeletons and numerous crest-like protrusions.
The Micro and Crawl forms of Destoroyah resemble the extinct Trilobite and modern horseshoe crabs.
After combining, the Crawl Forms of Destoroyah become Juvenile Forms, six-legged creatures
with long necks and extendable jaws.
Aggregate Forms appear to be much larger versions of the Juvenile, but with two additional appendages
arising from their backs.
Destoroyah's Flying Form has a set of four wings, a well-developed frill-like crest and
a single reptilian-esque jaw.
Dez can freely change Form between Aggregate and Flying without having to divide or recombine.
Destoroyah's Perfect Form is the only form of Destoroyah to be bipedal.
His chest is dominated by a beige-coloured floral pattern, and has numerous red and beige
spines on his shoulders, knees and neck.
The monster's arms are tipped by three-clawed hands, and his tail has a set of two scythe-like
pincers on the end, used for grappling with or lifting opponents.
Finally, he possesses two large bat-like wings on his back with two smaller wings underneath them.
When Dr. Serizawa detonated the Oxygen Destroyer in Tokyo Bay to kill the first Godzilla in 1954,
the resulting anaerobic conditions and exposure to the chemical weapon revived and
mutated a colony of Precambrian crustaceans, which had thrived under these conditions.
The creatures were trapped in the strata under the bay for 2.5 billion years, and after being revived,
evolved abnormally over the course of 40 years, incorporating Micro-Oxygen
into their biological processes.
In 1996, the construction of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line in the same spot where the Oxygen Destroyer
was used drew the attention of the Precambrian crustaceans,
who destroyed an elevator and then traveled to the surface.
The creatures went to the Shinagawa Aquarium, where they used Micro-Oxygen to disintegrate
and feed on the fish located there.
Growing larger and stronger, the crustaceans began combining with each other,
eventually evolving into larger human-sized, Juvenile forms.
The creatures traveled further inland and infested the Tokyo Telecom Center.
A SWAT team was sent in to exterminate the beasts, but were brutally attacked by the kaiju,
which proved immune to conventional weaponry.
The SWAT team eventually discovered that explosives and flamethrowers were effective against the creatures,
and were able to kill several of them.
One of the creatures escaped the building and tried to kill reporter Yukari Yamane,
but she was saved by Kensaku Ijuin and a SWAT team, who incinerated the beast with flamethrowers.
After further analyzing the creatures, Ijuin determined that extreme temperatures destroyed
the Micro-Oxygen in their bodies, meaning they could theoretically be killed using
the JSDF's arsenal of freezer weapons.
A fleet of tanks and helicopters confronted the remaining creatures in the outskirts of Tokyo.
The Maser Cannons opened fire on the creatures with their ultra-low temperature (ULT) cryolasers,
while the tanks bombarded them with cadmium shells.
Several of the creatures were killed, but they then converged and merged together
into a single Aggregate Form.
The giant beast quickly turned the tables on the JSDF, eradicating their vehicles
with a ray of concentrated Micro-Oxygen fired from its mouth.
Dr. Ijuin remarked that Micro-Oxygen did not possess this kind of power, but the Oxygen Destroyer did,
and proceeded to name the monster "Destoroyah."
Destoroyah changed into its Flying Form and flew into downtown Tokyo.
Meanwhile, Godzilla was about to undergo a catastrophic nuclear meltdown that would destroy
the world, leaving G-Force with one desperate option: lure him to Tokyo so he would fight
and hopefully be killed by Destoroyah.
G-Force's psychics Miki Saegusa and Meru Ozawa used their telepathy to bring Godzilla's adopted son,
Godzilla Junior, to Tokyo, knowing Godzilla would follow.
When Destoroyah saw Junior, he immediately attacked the young monster,
transforming into his Aggregate Form and pinning Junior to the ground.
Destoroyah bit down into Junior's chest with his secondary jaw,
injecting Micro-Oxygen directly into his bloodstream.
Junior managed to recover and fired his atomic breath twice, forcing Dez off of him
and sending him flying into a nearby refinery, which exploded.
His enemy seemingly defeated, Junior reunited with his father outside of Haneda Airport.
But Destoroyah was not dead, and used DNA he had absorbed from Junior's blood to mutate further.
Another explosion rocked the refinery, and from it emerged Destoroyah in his Perfect Form,
who proceeded to fly to Haneda Airport, knocking Godzilla to the ground
and grabbing Junior in his clutches.
Destoroyah flew high into the sky and dropped Junior onto Ariake Coliseum
from hundreds of meters in the air.
Destoroyah then blasted the young monster with his Oxygen Destroyer Ray.
After this, the creature immediately attacked Godzilla, dragging him by the neck down the
runway before throwing him into Tokyo Bay with his tail pincer.
Godzilla walked back onto land and engaged Destoroyah in combat near the airport,
where he managed to nearly fatally damage his son's killer.
However, Destoroyah split apart into several Aggregates and swarmed the King of the Monsters,
breathing Micro-Oxygen into his face and dragging him to the ground.
Godzilla got back on his feet and obliterated the creatures with his nuclear pulse, then
walked to his fallen son, attempting to revive him.
As Godzilla tried and failed to breathe life back into Junior, a healed Destoroyah returned
in his Perfect Form to attack the King of the Monsters and the two monsters engaged
in combat once again as Godzilla's temperature climbed to critical levels.
Godzilla weakened Destoroyah with his Infinite Heat Ray, then began emitting powerful
nuclear pulses which set the surrounding area ablaze.
Realizing he wouldn't be able to survive Godzilla's meltdown, Destoroyah tried to escape.
The JSDF fired their cryolasers at Destoroyah's wings,
shredding and freezing them solid and sending the monster plummeting to the superheated
ground below, where he exploded and died for good.
Destoroyah's numerous forms all have the ability to combine with one another
to create progressively larger forms, reducing in number but increasing in size
until eventually becoming one Perfect Form.
If badly injured, Destoroyah's Perfect Form can split apart into numerous smaller Aggregates,
then recombine to recover and regenerate from injuries sustained.
While split apart, Destoroyah is extremely vulnerable, and to defend himself while divided
the Aggregates must swarm larger opponents and attempt to suffocate them by exhaling
large quantities of Micro Oxygen to stand a chance of survival.
Micro-Oxygen Beam: Destoroyah's Juvenile, Aggregate, Flying and Perfect Forms can all
fire a concentrated blast of Micro-Oxygen from their mouths.
The juvenile's beam was white in color, while the larger forms' version of the attack took
the form of a purple helix.
This ray's power gradually increases with each new form, with Perfect Form Destoroyah
being able to kill a critically-wounded Godzilla Junior with just one shot.
Alongside his Micro-Oxygen Ray, the Variable Slicer is one of Destoroyah's signature attacks,
and is used exclusively in his Perfect Form.
Destoroyah's horn can temporarily enter an energetic state where it becomes incredibly sharp,
being able to cleave straight through objects and other monsters.
While Godzilla's regeneration helped him survive, Destoroyah's Laser Horn was strong enough
to slice straight through his body multiple times.
Destoroyah battled Godzilla at the peak of his power,
& could survive multiple hits from his red spiral atomic ray
(although he was shown vomiting large amounts of blood and losing part of his head crest to the ray),
an attack which either instantly killed or crippled most enemies in one shot.
As for physical attacks, Destoroyah's forms have spikes, sharp teeth and bones, pincers & claws,
and a tail with pincers.
The Aggregate Form is equipped with spiked claws like a praying mantis,
while the Perfect Form was shown easily carrying Godzilla into the air using only the pincers on his tail.
While Destoroyah himself was shown to be vulnerable to extreme temperatures, the fact that Destoroyah
was able to fight the overheating Godzilla many times is a testament to his immense durability.
Destoroyah's Aggregate Form can inject Micro-Oxygen directly into his
opponent's wounds through his jaws.
This technique drains the victim's energy and is incredibly painful to experience.
Destoroyah's Perfect Form can drain energy through his tail, an ability he used against Godzilla.
According to the 1996 book "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah Super Complete Works" and the video game
"Godzilla Movie Studio Tour," Destoroyah can absorb the DNA of his opponents by dissolving
their cells with Micro-Oxygen and obtaining the DNA from them.
Destoroyah was able to create his Perfect Form after obtaining DNA from Godzilla Junior's
body during their battle in Tokyo, generating an endoskeleton that allowed him to stand upright.
Destoroyah's main weakness is his inability to handle extreme temperatures.
His Juvenile Forms, while near-impervious to most of the firearms used by the SWAT Team,
were easily killed by flamethrowers and AH-64 Apache helicopters.
The JSDF's maser tanks were very effective at eradicating the Juvenile Forms as well.
Also, Destoroyah was nearly killed by Burning Godzilla following Junior's death,
and only managed to escape obliteration by splitting into Aggregate Forms and taking time to regenerate.
Once Godzilla's internal temperatures reached critical levels and he began using his
Infinite Heat Ray, Destoroyah's armored exoskeleton quickly became useless against the beam's
constantly-increasing power, and Destoroyah lost a substantial portion of his head crest
and shoulder to a single shot.
In addition, the flaps of skin on Destoroyah's wings can be damaged by concentrated fire
from the Freezer Units, making him unable to fly.
Not able to cope with the sheer contrast between the shots from the Freezer Tanks and the heat
being given off by Godzilla's body, Destoroyah exploded upon hitting the ground.
Destoroyah is easily the oldest monster in the entire Godzilla franchise, its originating
Precambrian crustacean colony being 2.5 billion years old, or around the same time that
multicellular life arose (during the Proterozoic eon).
Of course, in real life, crustaceans only first originated starting 511 million years ago,
well into the Cambrian period.
While the Perfect Form of Destoroyah is regarded as his final form, the "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah"
theater program apparently states that "there is no guarantee that Destoroyah's evolution ended with that form."
Now, this doesn't mean that a sequel to the movie was planned or anything,
but it's still an interesting bit nonetheless.
When Toho was planning the final film of the Heisei series, it initially considered having
Godzilla's final enemy be the restless spirit of the original 1954 Godzilla,
under the name Ghost Godzilla.
According to Takao Okawara, this idea was discarded because Godzilla's last two enemies,
Mechagodzilla and SpaceGodzilla, were also doppelgangers of him.
The next enemy considered was called Barubaroi, a name that applied to both a continuously-evolving
creature that would have defeated an Anguirus Hound and taken on its form, and almost-final
Destoroyah concepts that incorporated the Oxygen Destroyer.
However, Toho worried that the name "Barubaroi" sounded too similar to "Berber,"
a term used to describe an ethnic group from North Africa with apparently derogatory origins,
and that it could be considered insensitive.
So the name was changed to DESTOROYAH.
Destoroyah was originally planned to have another attack:
a beam fired from the 'floral pattern' on his chest, simply called the "Stomach Beam."
While a lot of concept art exists for this attack, it was cut from the final film.
Deleted scenes from the film show Destoroyah opening his floral pattern and using the beam
(which was not yet edited into the scene, instead being shown only by flashes of light
and pyrotechnics used on set), which easily knocks Godzilla off his feet.
The manga adaptation actually shows Destoroyah using the Stomach Beam,
where it breaks off one of Godzilla's dorsal plates, and also severs the tip of his tail.
In addition to this, there is also an alternate ending to "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah."
A deleted scene at the end of the film shows that after Destoroyah is brought to the ground
when trying to escape from Godzilla's meltdown, he rises again as opposed to dissolving.
With his wings torn up from the ULT lasers, he can no longer escape Godzilla's fury.
Godzilla quickly overpowers Destoroyah, grabbing him by his horn and pummeling him repeatedly.
As Godzilla melts down, the JSDF rain their ULT weapons upon him, as well as Destoroyah.
Unable to stand against the immense heat of Godzilla's meltdown and the freezing cold
of the ULT lasers, Destoroyah falls and evaporates.
However, it was thought that having Godzilla fight Destoroyah while he went through meltdown
took away the focus from Godzilla's death, which was to be the main point of the movie.
So the scene was re-edited to have Destoroyah die after the JSDF shoots him down,
and allow Godzilla to have center stage as he finally dies...
the manga kept the original ending though.
That's all we have for Destoroyah.
Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.