This is the first time we’ve seen Godzilla charged up with pink energy in the MonsterVerse, but the wider Godzilla canon has been flirting with pink for a while. 2016’s “Shin Godzilla” featured a unique new Godzilla, created by the dumping of nuclear waste, who has a red glow under his scales. When Shin Godzilla is attacked, he charges up his atomic energy and the red transitions to pink and then violet as Godzilla expresses his displeasure by blasting a pink-purple beam that destroys a significant portion of Tokyo and kills the Japanese prime minister.
From a creative standpoint, the pink energy beam probably has something to do with “Shin Godzilla” being co-directed by “Neon Genesis Evangelion” creator Hideaki Anno and art director Shinji Higuchi. Pink and purple energy beams were a prominent feature of “Evangelion,” and Anno and Higuchi brought that aesthetic influence to the “Godzilla” franchise. The Toho Animation/Netflix anime series “Godzilla: Singular Point” (pictured above) featured a new Godzilla design by Studio Ghibli animator Eiji Yamamori, and also showed Godzilla unleashing a pink energy blast, along with other powers.
Visually, pink doesn’t exist on the visible light spectrum (hence the “pink isn’t real” debate); it’s the color we see in combinations of violet and red light, which are at opposite ends of the visible light spectrum. There may well be a scientific explanation for Godzilla’s new hot pink energy in “Godzilla x Kong.” Perhaps it’s something to do with being frozen in the ice. Perhaps this is actually the MonsterVerse’s take on Shin Godzilla, and is an entirely different creature from the one that Kong battled in “Godzilla vs. Kong.” Or perhaps Godzilla simply chose to go pink because it looks cool. That’s a good enough reason for me.
“Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” releases on April 12, 2024.