Please Vote for my Garbage Son

Everyone has a favorite Godzilla monster. The franchise, in both its Japanese and Western forms, has given us plenty of iconic creatures over the decades, and some absolute freaks in their shadows.

I am here to tell you that today, there could be a new freak among them.

This week Toho announced that it would run a "New Monster Election," a special round of elimination community vote that would see eight brand-new kaiju designs square off against each other over the next couple of months to decide who would go up against Godzilla in the next short made for the annual Godzilla Fest con.

The Godzilla Fest shorts up to this point have all championed classic tokusatsu filming techniques to evoke bygone eras of Godzilla films—model cities, practical effects, people plodding around in giant monster suits, and smashing into other people plodding around in giant monster suits. Getting stuff like Godzilla Minus One is fantastic, of course, but these shorts are just as fun, ways to see what classic TV and movie toku styles can be rendered as with contemporary budget and filming techniques.

Suffice to say, that means every one of the eight new Kaiju in this competition looks absolutely incredible. Their suits push the boundaries of what monster suit design can look like from a practical standpoint and are packed with tons and tons of detail. They're horrifying and epic in the sense you'd want them to be, all fitting potential candidates to enter the great Godzilla canon.

And then there's my boy Candyroy, who is made of garbage. And I love it to bits.