Is Godzilla male or female?

■ゴジラ解読
Decoding Godzilla

ゴジラはオスかメスか
Is Godzilla male or female?

ゴジラはお父さんなの、お母さんなの? オフィシャルに「親子関係はない」とされる平成のゴジラジュニアやベビーゴジラはさておき、ミニラのためにも白黒つけましょう。

Is Godzilla a father or a mother? Aside from Heisei’s Godzilla Junior and Baby Godzilla, who are officially said to have no parent-child relationship, let’s settle the matter for Minya.

同じ爬虫類として、生殖器官が収納されているオスのしっぽが太いというトカゲの区別にならうと……、あっ! ゴジラ には比較対象になる同族の成体がいないよ!

As the same reptile, if you follow the distinction of a lizard that has a thick tail in a male that houses reproductive organs … Oh! Godzilla has no adult relatives to compare with!

『ゴジラの息子』が公開された当時も、性別は議論になりかけたものの、ミニラを特訓するシンで、「ゴジラの教育ママ･･････ じゃない教育パパか」というセリフあり。ゴジラの鑑定士でもない素人の見立てとはいえ、宣 伝でも「パパゴジラ」(今では「子育てする松井秀喜」の意味になってしまうかもしれない)といわれていたし、福田純監督もこれに「ゴジラはオスです」とコメ ントしてダメ押ししている。

Even when “Son of Godzilla” was released, gender was becoming a debate, but in the scene where Minya was specially trained, there was a line saying “Godzilla’s educational mama … isn’t it an educational dad?” Even though I am like an amateur who is not a Godzilla appraiser, he was said to be “PapaGodzilla” (now it may mean “Hideki Matsui raising children”), and Director Jun Fukuda also said, “Godzilla is a male.”

Hideki Matsui, nicknamed “Godzilla,” is a Japanese former professional baseball outfielder and designated hitter who played baseball in Nippon Professional Baseball and Major League Baseball.

ミニラを尻尾につかまらせる姿には母性も感じられるが、「モスラ対ゴジラ』で幼虫に尻尾を食いつかれたのがクセになっただけという気もする。

The appearance of holding Minya on the tail seems to be motherhood, but I also feel that it was just a habit that the larvae bit his tail in “Mothra vs. Godzilla.”

しかし、だ。卵を生んだのが別の個体として、本来は海棲爬虫類の性質を持つゴジラの同族が、わざわざ陸地のゾルゲル島に卵を生むのだろうか?

But. Would Godzilla’s family, which originally had the properties of marine reptiles, bother to lay eggs on the land of Solgel Island, as another individual that laid eggs?

それに、放射熱線も水爆による後天的な獲得形質であり、ミニラの放つリング状放射熱線をママゴジラ説を裏づける証拠としてあげておきたい。

In addition, radiant heat rays are also acquired traits by hydrogen bombs, and I would like to give the ring-shaped radiant heat rays emitted by Minya as evidence to support the Mama Godzilla theory.

………と思ったけれど、あの島には「放射能ゾンデ」 がばら撒かれているから、やりなおしですね。

I thought, but that island has “radioactive sondes” scattered around, so it is going to start over.

A sonde is an instrument probe that automatically transmits information about its surroundings from an inaccessible location, such as underground or underwater.

(文/多根清史)
(Composition / Kiyoshi Tane)

Source: ゴジラ完全解読 (宝島社, p 70)