Godzilla Was One of Pokemon’s First-Ever Designs

The Pokemon franchise now sports over 900 different creatures, and that’s not even counting the various potentially variations across the regions. With so many Pokemon to catch across the various games, there are just as many left on the cutting room floor over the years. Fans have managed to spot a few of these online such as ones perfect for Halloween, a smaller version of Blastoise, and even different takes on various insects that didn’t quite make the final releases. But did you know that one of the first designs ever drafted was a take on the famous Toho Kaiju Godzilla?

As noted by @DrLavaYT on Twitter, one of the first designs before the release of Pokemon’s first generation of games crafted by Ken Sugimori, Godzillante, which didn’t quite make it through all the steps in the design process necessary.

@DrLavaYT notes that “Godzillante” was most likely drawn by Sugimori to illustrate how the game would work, and not actually a design meant to be turned into a new Pokemon. But as many other fans have pointed out, this design wasn’t quite lost forever as it seems like the inspiration behind the doll used for the Substitute attack in the series. When Pokemon use it, they are replaced by a small dinosaur doll that looks exactly like this!

So it seems like Godzilla made its way into Pokemon eventually, and even later with the evolution Tyranitar — which often gets noted by fans as one inspired by Godzilla. While there’s no official Godzilla Pokemon just yet, there’s still time for one to show up as the newest anime, Pokemon: The Series, is now airing new episodes weekly in Japan, but unfortunately is still not officially licensed for an English language release as of this writing.

Staff confirmed for the new series include Daiki Tomiyasu serving as chief director for OLM, Maki Odaira as series director, Kunihiko Yuyama as creative supervisor, Shoji Yonemura overseeing series construction, Shuhei Yasuda serving as character designer, Masafumi Mima as sound director, Yuki Hayashi as series composer. Voice cast members include Daiki Yamashita as Go, Yuichi Nakamura as Professor Sakuragi, Kana Hanazawa as Koharu, Megumi Hayashibara as Jessie, Shinichiro Miki as James, and Inuko Inuyama as Meowth.