Welcome to Godzilland!

"NOTE: As said above, this is a fictional extension to the real life Japanese franchise 'Godzilland'. This should not be taken literally."Welcome to Godzilland (Japanese: へようこそ！ゴジランド Hepburn: Heyōkoso! Gojirando) is a Japanese animated series that originally aired on TV Tokyo. It is the third and final entry in the televised Godzilland franchise. The series is a parody of the Monsterverse, and is about a cartoonified versions of the kaijus from there going on adventures, as well as being set on Monster Island, also dubbed "The Kaiju's Paradise". It debuted on November 6th, 1994 on TV Tokyo and two OVAs devoted towards younger audiences were released seperately on the same day, and it aired for 4 seasons before ending on December 21st, 1998, thus marking the end of the 14-year long Godzilland franchise. A reboot of the show was announced in 2004 but was stuck in development hell for 16 years before announcing genuine progress devoted towards it in 2020, and is set to release some time around January - February 2023.

Premise
The show revolves around a younger interperation of a famous kaiju, Godzilla, going on adventures with his friends, Anguirus, Baragon and Mothra, also including Godzilly, a genderswapped version of Godzilla, who is also a titular character. Other kaijus, such as King Ghidorah, a three-headed dragon, and Rodan, a bird, also sometimes appear in the adventures. All of these characters are friends in some way or another. There are two villains, Destroyah, the main villain who is a red dragon-like reptile with four wings, a horn and claws, who likes to disrupt the protagonist's adventures and cause trouble on the island, and Mechagodzilla, a robotic clone of the protagonist, a loyal servant to Destroyah, but due to his robotic form, he can easily be manipulated into betraying him, but always ends up reverting back to evil (such as in one episode in Season 3 where Anguirus is kidnapped by him, but he is saved by the protagonists winning a game show hosted by him, which after forces Mechagodzilla into apologizing to them.). Some of the protagonist's adventures are devoted towards stopping Destroyah.

History
The first series of Godzilland aired on TV Tokyo in 1992, titled Adventure! Godzilland (冒険！ゴジランド, Hepburn: Bōken! Gojirando). The series was first aired to promote Godzilla vs. Mothra. It was a trivia show, and had live action and animated segments. The show also aired in Neon District on NRTN's KNRTN block, as well as on other networks in different countries. The show had good enough ratings so they made a sequel in 1993, called Adventure! Godzilland 2 (冒険！ゴジランド２, Hepburn: Bōken! Gojirando Tsū), originally made to promote Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II.

The series planned to go into dormancy afterwards, but Seinosuke Tanaka and Osamu Nakayama of Toho made concepts of what would be an animated sequel in around mid - late 1993, alongside with other minor Toho executives Sebastià Godayol and Akhmetzhan Baltabek, both immigrants from Catalonia and Kazakhstan. Production of the show then started in January 1994, and a pilot, Adventure! Godzilland 3 (冒険！ゴジランド３, Hepburn: Bōken! Gojirando Tsuri) was shown to Toho executives on April 19th, 1994, and it was approved, but had to go through some changes. Throughout May - October 1994, the show went through many changes, such as a definite theme song being added, an improvement on animation quality and introduction of new characters. The first episode was finally finished on November 2nd, 1994 and was first premiered on TV Tokyo on November 6th at 7:35PM. Alongside it were the first two episodes of Get Going! Godzilland (すすめ！ゴジランド, Hepburn: Susume! Gojirando), the educational OVAs, which were later dubbed and released internationally in 1995. The show also had a bid for which foregin networks to air it first (between late November - early December 1994), with TV3 of Catalonia in Spain, Radio Televisión Peruana of Peru (although the show ended up airing on América TV in 1997 - 1998) and Qazaqstan-1 of Kazakhstan

Ratings were slightly lower than expected at first, but after a few episodes the show became a success, mostly due to it airing around prime time. It also started to be dubbed in many languages and was aired in many networks around the world, even on heavily censored state-owned networks in authoritarian countries, such as IRIB TV2 and TV3 in Iran, and ARTK in Azaristan. The shows popularity was at its peak around 1996 - 1998.

The animation style was traditional ink and paint from the first episodes, although coloring became predominately acrylic instead of regular paint when Season 2 began, and was transitioned into digital ink and paint at the beginning of Season 3, which during the first 30 episodes was criticized due to the animation not being as fluid or varied as the previous episodes, but this eventually became prominent afterwards. Shading was only used for backgrounds up until Season 3 when it was dropped, but it returned in Season 4 and eventually ended up also being used (in slight amounts) for the characters.

The show finally came to an end on December 21st, 1998, although episodes of it were still rerun in many countries until the mid 2000s. The show has become a part of cult following in Aritonesia (such as in Neon District and El Kadrse), Catalonia and its surrounding regions and East and Central Asia (examples are Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan).

Episodes
Main article: List of Welcome To Godzilland! Episodes

Characters
(i'll do this later lol)

Protagonists
Godzilla - The main protagonist of the show, the most well-known kaiju cartoonified and turned into a green reptile. Like in the movies, he is very aggressive and can be dangerous when angry, but other than that, he is friendly and sometimes funny. His mother is a cook and his father a military general, and he has one little brother.

Godzilly - A genderswap of Godzilla, she is very less aggressive unlike Godzilla, and is mostly kind. She also likes things like fashion and other stuff. Her family is not shown throughout the series due to her being a recolor/genderswap of Godzilla as mentioned earlier.

Anguirus - Godzilla's best friend, a blue kaiju with an orange shell with yellow spikes. He spends a lot of time with Godzilla, and he likes to go on adventures with him, although sometimes they can argue. He is also very sensitive, but very empathetic. He has a very annoying little brother who likes to torment him and his friends, and his father is a miner.

Baragon - An orange reptile with large ears and a yellow horn, aswell as stitching on his belly. He is very friendly and caring, but also not that smart as his other friends and clumsy. He likes to dig holes to get around, and it is revealed he has made a network of tunnels throughout Monster Island. He is an only child, and his father is a police officer and his mother is elderly.

Mothra - A moth kaiju with orange/yellow wings with black spots. She is just as kind as Baragon, but is very smart instead. She cares for an extended family of around 2 - 100+ small larvae that are said to grow into other moths when older, but they stay as larvae for the entire series. She lives with a large family of other moths.

Residents of Monster Island
King Ghidorah - A three headed yellow dragon, who is also a kaiju. His three heads both have a mind of their own, but follow the middle head mainly. The middle head is the main leader of is body, with the other two heads being the ones that follow him. Sometimes, they end up annoying the main head, thus making himself get into a lot of arguments with himself, often ending violently.

Rodan - A red bird (hmmm i'm trying to think of description for this character).

Reception
The show received high ratings in its initial runs, and was deemed "another classic childhood cartoon that brings back nostalgia for the classic fans of the Godzilla franchise and the children who grew up in the early - late 1990s". This show is nowadays deemed as a cult classic and is memorized amongst many people in Japan, Aritonesia, Catalonia and Eastern European and Central Asian countries, and was also mainly praised due to its higher quality around the mid point to end of the show's lifespan, aswell as for its humor (which was more western-influenced unlike most children's shows in Japan at the time) and other stuff. The show also received a large number of merchandise, including toys, clothing and even a video game released for the Super Famicom in 1995. 8 books describing two halfs of all four seasons in greater detail that were around 200 - 300 pages long were released from 1997 - 2001.

International broadcast
"NOTE: Dates are in DD/MM/YYYY."

Trivia

 * The characters ages are never mentioned in the show, but they are most likely around the age of 8 - 11 as they attend elementary school. (An exception is some of the characters who are deemed "older", such as King Ghidorah, who is speculated to be most likely 14 - 17.)
 * In international dubbing, the jokes and references from the original Japanese series are still kept and are not changed to apply to the culture of the country or removed.
 * In Catalonia on TV3's Club Super3 (now SX3) block, it also probably (ironically) also aired alongside another series also devoted to the Monsterverse franchise, Godzilla, la sèrie.