31 Favourite Monsters: Anguirus
Anguirus and Rodan constantly switch places on my favourite monster list depending on how I’m feeling about them. Anguirus, for me, has much the same appeal as Rodan-he’s the least fancy monster in Godzilla’s rogues/allies gallery, with no laser beams or anything, just teeth and claws and spikes. There’s also something of the underdog in Anguirus that I like-he keeps going even when a bigger monster casually crushes him underfoot.
Unlike Rodan, Anguirus did not have his own film to begin with, instead co-starring with Godzilla in Godzilla Raids Again (1955), the first sequel. His species (which appears to be some kind of giant ankylosaur) was apparently very aggressive towards other creatures, explaining his feud with Godzilla. While Godzilla won in the film (and completely incinerated Anguirus), Anguirus reappeared in the later Destroy All Monsters (1968) as an ally of Godzilla. He remained in this capacity for the rest of the ‘Showa’ series of films (the original 1954 Godzilla to 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla), sometimes being used as the punching bag for whatever new monster appeared.
Anguirus never appeared in the ‘Heisei’ era films (1984-1995), and was scheduled to appear in 2001’s Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, but was removed due to not being thought popular enough to guarantee a hit. Finally, Anguirus managed to appear in Final Wars (2004), in a new design (see above image). Like most of the monsters in that film, he was under the control of a bunch of aliens. Under their command, he smashed Shanghai and destroyed a UN battleship before teaming up with Rodan and King Caesar to take on Godzilla. After a game of monster soccer (with Anguirus as the ball), the trio were defeated and left in a heap. Though this may appear pathetic, Godzilla incinerated every other monster in the film, so it was not such a bad ending after all.