Anguiras!!!
Anguiras is a monster after Pooke’s own sad blackened heart. Not particularly gifted, clumsy and generally just shitty when it comes to every day life, Anguiras always made up for his shortcomings with will and little else.
The little fellow actually battled Godzilla in his first appearance and set precedent right off the bat: His ass was severely beaten. However, in future adventures, Anguiras would show himself to not only be a monster of pride, but one willing to suck up to someone bigger who had previously beat the ever loving Christ out of him. He would forever be known as Godzilla’s right hand man. Even that is sort of sad, because you just know Big G hated letting the little guy come into battle with him because inevitably, Anguiras would be knocked unconscious and Godzilla would have to rush to save him. Also, in Godzilla vs. Gigan, The Japs inexplicably translated a few of the monsters conversations. I am not making this up. It gave a truly insightful look at Anguiras and Godzilla’s relationship. Here:
Godzilla: Hey. Anguirus!
Anguirus: What do you want? (crawls to Godzilla)
Godzilla: Somethin’ funny going on. You better check. (Motions his left arm forward)
Anguirus: Oh, yeah! (crawls away)
Godzilla: Hurry.
Scene Two (Godzilla and Anguirus swimming towards Japan.)
Godzilla: Hey, Anguirus, come on! There’s a lot of trouble ahead. (Points his hand forward in a straight direction) That way!
Anguirus: Okay.
Poor Anguiras. Luckily, unlike Pooke, his sad efforts were not ignored. He regularly comes in within the top 5 of “Favorite Kaiju’s of All Time” (Who keeps doing these polls?!) and has played a part in many a big angle in the Kaiju world. He also may be the most consistently stupid monster of the era as he routinely will go one on one with everyone from Mechagodzilla to King Ghidrah with god damned awful results.
Anguiras will never main event, always a bridesmaid, never a bride. He is however a beacon of hope to all of us and teaches a life lesson worth learning: If you get beat up enough, people will like you.
And I like Anguiras.
