Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

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Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Rhedosaurus »

In both his debut movie and Final Wars. Manda basically served as something to be hit with a giant ice beam. Considering how he is a Far Eastern dragon, which have a lot of powers (causing storms and floods), will we ever see Manda as a respectable kaiju and not as a throwaway monster?

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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Arbok »

In a movie? Probably nothing that will top what he did in Destroy All Monsters in any near future.

If you mean any medium, he had a decent use in the Rulers of Earth comic run from IDW Publishing.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by _JNavs_ »

He could have a cool arc in an animation of some sort
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by GojiDog »

I actually always had the idea for a Mothra movie set in ancient times with Manda as the antagonist. Both monsters would be the respective gods of their civilizations that are at war with each other. Mu Vs. Cosmos! Lets go!

It'll probably never happen, but in my youth, I always tried to imagine ways to get weird kaiju pairings and that was one of my ideas.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by edgaguirus »

I don't see Manda getting more than small parts in movies. While a good kaiju, general audiences would see him as a sea serpent that isn't as interesting as other kaiju.

In books and comics, Manda is better treated.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by MechaGoji Bro7503 »

_JNavs_ wrote:He could have a cool arc in an animation of some sort
DID YOU JUST SAY "ARC", JNVAS? :P
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by UltramanGoji »

Manda's entire purpose was nothing more than filler thrown in by Tomoyuki Tanaka to make the movie more attractive to audiences. As neat as he is, I doubt he'll ever ascend beyond that role.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by _JNavs_ »

MechaGoji Bro7503 wrote:
_JNavs_ wrote:He could have a cool arc in an animation of some sort
DID YOU JUST SAY "ARC", JNVAS? :P
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by BlankAccount »

Final Wars pissed me off, with CGI you can do things that would be too hard with puppets and they wasted Manda. Godzilla is a sea monster, give him and Manda a proper sea battle, and by sea battle I don't mean a fight a the surface or at the bottom sea/lake bottom, have them swimming and fighting. Think Gamera vs Iris but in the ocean/lake instead of in the air.

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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by JAGzilla »

We can't know what to expect from the upcoming Toho series, so who knows? Maybe Hell will freeze over and some of these C-List kaiju will finally get some attention again. I really don't see him getting main character status, though, barring an overhaul to make him more impressive. He could easily pull off a supporting role, though.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

I actually feel like Manda has a better chance of reappearing then a lot of other monsters, like Orga, Destroyah or even Biollante, because there isn’t a lot of baggage with him. Like you could just throw him in a movie, and you wouldn’t need some long or complicated build up or backstory. But having something devoted to him? Probably not.

Manda is cool, but again he sortve falls into those weird categories of obscure Kaiju, that had a few brief moments in the series and has just been built up/loved by fans. It was cool in the IDW comics where he destroyed an air craft carrier, and then later fought Godzilla underwater.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Tyrant_Lizard_King »

Manda is one of the few deity kaiju in the franchise and its hard to believe he hasn't really been treated as such. Manda is an actual sea monster but for some odd reason Toho always wants to use non water themed kaiju as water gods. I mean Mothra as the God of Water! Seriously!? I've always loved the idea of Manda being one of the three elemental kaiju gods as the God of Water, with King Caesar being the God of Earth and Mothra being the God of Air. Hate shoehorning a character into a role that they have no business of having.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Ivo-goji »

It was a huge missed opportunity that Super Atragon didn't feature him.

I can easily see a new Gotengo centric project putting him to use.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Rhedosaurus »

Tyrant_Lizard_King wrote:Manda is one of the few deity kaiju in the franchise and its hard to believe he hasn't really been treated as such. Manda is an actual sea monster but for some odd reason Toho always wants to use non water themed kaiju as water gods. I mean Mothra as the God of Water! Seriously!? I've always loved the idea of Manda being one of the three elemental kaiju gods as the God of Water, with King Caesar being the God of Earth and Mothra being the God of Air. Hate shoehorning a character into a role that they have no business of having.
edgaguirus wrote:I don't see Manda getting more than small parts in movies. While a good kaiju, general audiences would see him as a sea serpent that isn't as interesting as other kaiju.

In books and comics, Manda is better treated.
We can always give him some much needed new powers. Traditional fire breath, the ability to perfectly blend in with the ocean like octopus can camo themselves, etc.

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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Gerdzerl »

Probably not, unfortunately. I'd certainly be all for Manda getting to do more, though. Manda is great.

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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

You could easily take it further and make Manda have be able to fly and serpentine. Or at least some form of levitation. Maybe Manda could cause earthquakes or something. The more I thought about it, they could give Manda the Megaguirus treatment, where the meganulon were sortve a minor thing and then they took the concept and elaborated it into a full movie. Godzilla vs Mu would totally work btw.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Arbok »

Ivo-goji wrote:It was a huge missed opportunity that Super Atragon didn't feature him.

I can easily see a new Gotengo centric project putting him to use.
I feel that, beyond its amazing score, Super Atragon was such a dud that really any changes to it would probably turn out for the better. They would certainly have to develop Manda quite a bit if they were to use him, and easily could have done so by removing some of the unneeded characters in the movie, but it sure would have led to a more interesting climax than Ra vs Liberty.
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Re: Will Manda ever be more then a 'plot point' kaiju?

Post by Ivo-goji »

Arbok wrote:it sure would have led to a more interesting climax than Ra vs Liberty.
They would have had so much freedom in animation to do a ship-vs-kaiju battle, it hurts that we only got two versions of the Gotengo fighting each other.
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