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Monsters are a hallmark of all forms of genre fiction, but when sci-fi gets involved, there's an even wider variance that fans can expect. When the monsters grow above the treetops and the ground quakes with their every step, the controversial term Kaiju gets thrown around and a few specific references come up.

The term kaiju comes from Japan, and it literally means "strange beast." The popularization and codification come from Japan, but other cultures have made changes to the genre. The subgenre has become enduringly popular, despite a variety of interesting debates surrounding just what falls into its broad clutches.

RELATED: Godzilla Vs. Kong: Most Powerful Kaiju Godzilla Has Fought Other Than Kong

Everyone knows that the inflection point for the kaiju movement in cinema is Ishiro Honda's 1954 classic Godzilla. This central archetypal figure in the genre still stands as the go-to example when someone imagines the term. The great strange beast who walked out of the sea in that iconic original horror film wanders back to shore every few years, even into the modern day. Godzilla remains popular almost seventy years after his origin story, settling the King of the Monsters among the most successful media properties in cinematic history. Despite 1954's Godzilla being the codified apotheosis of the term and the origin of its biggest franchise, he is neither the first use of the term kaiju, nor is he the first giant monster story.

Screenshot from Godzilla (1954)

Before the cinematic examples, the term kaiju was used to describe mythical creatures of ancient Chinese and Japanese folklore. Often, the term would be used much in the same way modern English-speaking people would use the word "cryptid." When the 1908 story The Monster of Partridge Creek told of a living dinosaur in the Yukon territory, Japanese observers adorned it with the kaiju designation. Though the term is better codified today, it has existed for generations. Giant Monsters on the big screen were much the same way.

Before Godzilla, King Kong was released to theaters around the world. The tale of the giant ape and the beauty that killed the beast hit the screen in 1933. The debate over whether Kong is a kaiju rages among film buffs to this day, but it's almost unquestionable that RKO Pictures' film had some influence on Honda's opus — so much so that the iconic filmmaker crafted the first duel between the two in 1962. This means that Godzilla was neither the origin of the term, nor the first outing of giant monsters, but it did bring something new to the table that helped codify the genre.

One year before the release of Godzilla, Ray Harryhausen's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms hit the big screen. It tells the tale of a dinosaur who was preserved in ice, only to be awoken by an American atomic bomb test. In Japan, the film was known as Genshi Kaijū Arawaru, which means "An Atomic Kaiju Appears." This marks the first use of the word kaiju in a film title. One who hadn't seen Beast From 20,000 Fathoms might accuse Honda of ripping it off. The plot description sure sounds eerily similar. But, the key difference is in presentation. Harryhausen's beast may have been awakened by the dreaded atom bomb, but the real giant horror behind Honda's opus was the atomic bomb itself.

A Jaeger facing off against a Kaiju in waters near a city

The true key behind kaiju cinema is the ability to use the giant beast as a living allegory. Honda's Godzilla is a haunting nightmare from the perspective of a man who understood the true horror of the bomb firsthand. Kaiju media asks the same question that Lovecraft liked to build stories around: what does mankind do when faced with something beyond its comprehension? In the original Godzilla, that something was the inconceivable devastation of our own weaponry. Future films would replace that something with alien horrors, mystical nightmares, or manmade machines, but the key was in its meaning. Other creators took the torch and made thoughtful giant monster movies that continued to innovate on the symbolism.

Guillermo del Toro's 2013 action blockbuster Pacific Rim takes a lot of notes from the ongoing Godzilla franchise, but it also remembers to take a few from the 1954 original. In the latter film, the monsters are an allegory for a different manmade horror: the destruction mankind has wrought onto planet Earth. Much like Honda's original film, characters make direct comparisons between the two and mention climate change as a specific reason the kaiju can attack. Where del Toro differs from Honda in his storytelling is the place of weaponry in the narrative. Where the bomb created Godzilla and the new bomb created to destroy him was treated like a curse, Pacific Rim's anti-kaiju weapons are portrayed as the greatest invention ever crafted by man. Del Toro takes the central question — what would mankind do against an unthinkable threat — and imagines a reality in which we endure by banding together. By putting aside our differences, mankind can defeat the invading armies and can even use the weapon that created Godzilla as a force for good.

Shin Godzilla as Pokemon

Perhaps the strangest permutation of the kaiju format is the more recent take on Godzilla, which portrays him as a hero and a savior. This is partially a side effect of the main character syndrome. When a character becomes popular, studios demand creators capitalize on that, and when that character is centered, the natural decision is to make them a hero. It also has a darker side, however, when one considers that many of Godzilla's more recent outings are made by Americans. Casting a walking metaphor for the atomic bomb as the savior of mankind suggests a reality in which the weapons that could easily still end all life on Earth are actually a force for good. This less-thoughtful take on the genre fails to understand what made original kaiju stories so powerful, but the modern day is not bereft of the original message. Of course, the one to recapture the point would be the one who established it in the first place.

2016 saw the release of Shin Godzilla, directed by Hideaki Anno of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Shinji Higuchi of the Gamera franchise. For the first and only time since 1954, Godzilla appeared as the nightmare Honda designed him to be. Through the use of the same allegory, which is still tragically just as meaningful in the modern-day, Anno and Higuchi brought kaiju media back to its original meaning.

Shin Godzilla should stand as a living monument to what the genre could still be today, but Pacific Rim and the Monsterverse remain important parts of the genre. Kaiju media blends cosmic horror with monster action and meaningful allegory to create something special.

MORE: Awesome Kaiju Movies That Have Nothing To Do With Godzilla