Kiryu is a perfect example of a great thing ruined by (some) fans. Debaters on Tiktok and Quora say that he beats the Showa Mechagodzilla, in which He Does Not — among other misconceptions. However, with the help of video games and comics, I will shed light on how powerful and how great Kiryu truly is. It’s time to find the freshness in the rot, with some help from our dead friend, Sir Isaac Newton (and the physics teacher, Mr. Monegan).
Absolute MG
Kiryu is nowhere near the strongest Mechagodzilla, at least not in his live action form, but he certainly is a threat. He can do serious damage to Kaiju his level, and holds many powerful weapons, including the mentioned Absolute Zero Cannon, the Type-99 Double Maser Cannons, Type-0/Type 4 railguns, back unit (which I call battle gear), an Anti-Beast Drilling Device, and more.
But what is his level?
In his movies, he’s been consistently scaled to multi-continental with his absolute zero cannon across both websites that powerscalers normally use. But if you know, I don’t want to just do that. I want to try to do one myself.
Kiryu can move at light speed without his battle gear, as he can catch up with Godzilla and even dodge his breath; the same breath that can shoot down an AC-3 White Heron. The Herons are able to dodge Kiryu’s Double Maser Cannon (Masers move at light speed). Godzilla’s breath is also stated to be pure radiation, which is also light speed.
So we now need to find how fast Kiryu moves with the battle gear. This is where Mr. Monegan comes in.
Kiryu can move at light speed without his battle gear, and it’s shown he is slower with his battle gear on. Monegan explained how, with the battle gear, Kiryu would’ve moved only 90% of the un-geared Kiryu’s speed.
For a low end, we convert 1 SoL to m/s, using 90% of the sum (0.900022641664 SoL), and use the Rela KE Calculator, we get around 1.11 petatons of TNT (continent level), a middle end (same formula but 1.1 SoL to m/s, then 90% of which, which is 0.990084947367 SoL) would be 5.25 petatons of TNT (multi-continental) and a high end would be a simple estimate of 0.999 SoL, which would be 18.35 petatons of TNT (still multi-continental)
Low-Mid end are the ones that should be put into consideration, with the last one being a simple “What If”.
But there is his Type-99 Double Maser Cannons to consider.
Godzilla responds similarly to both the ram and the maser cannons. Though the ram launches him, he doesn’t have much physical damage and little reaction to the ram itself and just goes back up like nothing happened. This is similar to his reaction and lack of visible physical damage when he is hit with the Type-99 Maser Cannons, in which Kiryu’s Type-99 Double Maser Cannons are 240% the power of the regular masers. Using this, we can get the cannons to 5.2794709e+25 joules, or 12.61 petatons of TNT (multi-continent level)
Now for his ultimate weapon, the Absolute Zero Cannon.
Not only does this give this Mechagodzilla Durability Negation, Kiryu is able to create a huge ice formation in the finale of “Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla” with this cannon.
For this calc, Godzilla’s height must be halved, since only half of his body is out of the water. Half of 55 M = 27.5 M, which means for every pixel, there is around 2.43636363636 meters.
The ice formation is around 1522.72727272 M tall…
And 1634.8 M wide.
Using a calculator that finds the volume of a cylinder, we can get a volume of 12785015444163388.17 cubic centimeters, now we can get the Water Subatomic Destruction Value. Monegan stated that the subatomic destruction value is 5e+11 J/cc, though the source states that it is 8.9363E+12 J/cc, and in this we will use both for a low and high end of this part of the calc (there’s a second part). With these, we get around 6.3925077e+27 joules/1.5 exatons of TNT (multi-continent) to 1.1425073e+29 joules/27.3 exatons of TNT (multi-continent+)
From a basic calculation, it’s closer to 5 x10^11 J/cc of energy to obliterate water into the it’s relevant quarks, gluons and other sub-atomic particles.
Mr. Monegan when I had reassured what the Subatomic Water Destruction value was, exactly.
There is another object to consider, the ice that is underwater. Before the Absolute Zero Cannon freezes the surface of the water, it freezes a good portion of the ocean, that of which is barely visible to the screen, though still visible.
The width of the underwater ice is 3635.05454545 meters. We can find the depth of the water that Godzilla and Kiryu were in, using the map below. With the circle being around the 500-1000 meters depth range (thanks to Patrick Wondra finding an estimate). Doing the low and high ends for the WSD value, we get 20755908191879440.25 cm cubed, with a low end of 1.0377954e+28 joules, or 2.4 exatons of TNT to 3.7096204e+29 joules/44.33 exatons (moon level). Using the 1000 meter height, we get 41511816383758880.51 cm cubed, or 2.0755908e+28 joules/4.96 exatons of TNT to 3.7096204e+29 joules/88.66 exatons of TNT.
Now we must add the two together since both formations occur when the absolute zero cannon is fired. Here I will use the lowest and highest ends only, which are 3.9 exatons of TNT (multi-continent level+) to 115.96 exatons of TNT (moon level)
So it seems at best moon level, with FTL speed without battle gear and [this] close to light speed (.99 SoL) with battle gear. He also has durability negation and resistance to such, surviving his own Absolute Zero cannon, as well as the Godzilla’s bones inside surviving the Oxygen Destroyer.
There are other versions of Kiryu that are either far stronger or far weaker, but this only covers the main Kiryu Saga one; so you’ll have to wait for a miscellaneous Mechagodzilla blog post.
2,000 Revisions Later…
Though not the most creative concept designs for a Mechagodzilla (we’ll get to that one), it is definitely one of the most broad. With over 20 revisions before they got even close to the final design, they didn’t even think of anything similar to the battle gear until the 5th rendition. (I think the orange orbs are trying to be battle gear.) They also considered giving him the Showa MG’s head for a bit. Once, they decided on something similar to what we got, it was instead a bone-colored MG as opposed to the silver one, along with another with red lines running down it, and blue glowing eyes instead of the yellow. When they finally landed the design, they made a large figure to use to sculpt; this sculpt was in “Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla” on a desk. Kiryu’s design has been brought back many, many times before; but we’ll get to that in the end. Kiryu’s navy blue battle gear was replaced with new, more silver battle gear, with a more detailed and in-place design.
Kiryu’s design is one of the most used Mechagodzilla designs in almost every genre. Almost all of the comic ones are this version of the character, with notable exceptions; but we’ll get to that later.
The reason why Kiryu is such a good version of Mechagodzilla is not all because of his design. It’s more about how he came to be in his own universe and that he is the true copy of the king of the kaiju; that is all thanks to Ghost Godzilla.
Well, not exactly the character of Ghost Godzilla, who was considered for “Godzilla Vs Destoroyah”, but the literal spirit of the original Godzilla. What makes Kiryu so unique in this case is solely based on his relations with Godzilla. Kiryu is built around the bones of the original Godzilla, whose bones were able to survive the Oxygen Destroyer, which was built into Kiryu in 2003 (GXMG takes place in 2003). How this affects him is a level unseen in movies: Godzilla possesses Kiryu and starts to destroy the city they were supposed to protect. Though this has happened to Mechagodzilla before, it’s never happened on the big screen, a part of Godzilla where new/casual eyes of the franchise usually see Godzilla. It was a new and shocking experience, something that can even shock people when brought back nearly 20 years later in “Godzilla Vs Kong”, something that was so new that it’s good after being used three times in a row.
THAT is what makes this Mechagodzilla the true copy of Godzilla.
Not the best design, not the strongest Mechagodzilla, but a memorable one. (To be fair, a lot of Mechagodzilla’s designs are memorable.)
Of Pages and Pixels
When I said Kiryu was one of the MGs with the most game and comic appearances, I was not joking. His design is used by one of the most powerful Mechagodzillas ever: Kiryu Eva-01/SRW Mechagodzilla, and the weakest ones, like the Kiryu arm in Godzilla in Hell or the many Mini-Mechagodzillas from Godzilla: Oblivion.
He’s in:
- Monster Strike
- Godzilla: Unleashed (pretty much all the Atari Pipeworks Godzilla games)
- Godzilla: Battle Line (as the 2002, 2003, and Kiryu Eva-01 designs)
- Super Robot Wars X-Omega
- Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash (though it shows him in the gallery as the Showa)
- Godzilla: Kaiju Collection
- Godzilla (PS3-PS4)
- City Shrouded in Shadow
- Godzilla Defense Force
- Godzilla Destruction (only in the game’s files)
- Gigabash (as DLC)
And many, many more.
His comic book appearances are even more absurd, as he is not only a part of the IDW multiverse. He has more prominent roles in Rulers of Earth, The Half-Century War, and Godzilla, with less important ones in Godzilla: Oblivion, Godzilla: Cataclysm, and Godzilla in Hell, two of which he is nothing but a burning memory.
Though the Showa Mechagodzilla is in some of these games/comics, he is portrayed as inferior (unfortunately) and does not play nearly as much of an important role.
Epilogue
Well, that’s it, Kiryu may not be the best, nor the strongest, nor the fastest, nor the smartest, but he is one of the most unique Mechagodzillas of the movies and has his own special thing that will never grow old.
Special thanks to James Monegan for the physics of this post, and Patrick Wondra for the map estimate.
