Influence Spotlight #3 Godzilla

How childhood monsters shaped the way I build stories today

The VHS That Started Everything

I love Godzilla!

I hope that has been clear by now. There’s something about that sentence that still feels simple, almost childish, but in the best way. Because that’s exactly where it started for me. Not in a film class or a deep creative study, but in the early years of my life when imagination was louder than logic and VHS tapes were basically treasure chests.

When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I stumbled across a VHS tape my stepdad owned. It had multiple Godzilla movies recorded onto it, stacked back to back in that chaotic way old recordings used to be.

The ones I remember most clearly were Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. I didn’t even fully understand the plots. But I understood the important parts: giant monsters, cities getting destroyed, and Godzilla standing like a force of nature.

That was enough.

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Watching It Together

My youngest brother loved them too. That’s one of the parts I think about a lot now. We didn’t care about dubbing issues, awkward voice acting, or slow scenes. We just watched.

We would sit there completely locked in, like we were studying something important instead of just two kids watching giant monsters wrestle on a screen that was probably too small for what it was showing.

Looking back now, those weren’t just movies. They were shared moments. Brotherhood moments. The kind you don’t realize are forming memories while they’re happening.

Just kids. Watching chaos.

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The Godzilla Card Game in Microsoft Paint

At some point, I stopped just watching Godzilla and started trying to build my own version of that world.

I even made a fan Godzilla card game using Microsoft Paint.

It was rough.

Extremely rough.

But I loved it.

It had health & different attacks. It was basically Pokémon cards but filtered through Godzilla logic.

But I couldn’t help myself.

Godzilla was just that cool.

That version of creativity wasn’t about polish. It was about extension. I didn’t want the world to end when the VHS stopped. So I kept it going myself.

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The 1998 Godzilla Reaction

The American Godzilla movie dropped, and like a lot of fans at the time, I didn’t know what to do with it.

It didn’t feel like Godzilla. It felt like a misunderstanding. Like someone had taken the name and attached it to something else entirely.

At the time, it felt like a joke. A mockery of what Godzilla was supposed to be.

That’s a strong statement, but that’s honestly how it felt as a kid. If it says Godzilla, you expect Godzilla.

And that wasn’t it.

What’s interesting is how time changes things.

Almost 30 years later, I actually find that version kind of fascinating. Not as “true Godzilla,” but as its own interpretation. And seeing it referenced in other media, like Godzilla Final Wars, gives it a strange kind of nostalgia.

I didn’t have the perspective back then that I have now.

We don’t just grow out of things—we grow around them.

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Why Kaiju Fit Monster Lynk Naturally

So when I started building Monster Lynk, naming the creatures Kaiju felt natural.

Not because I was copying Godzilla, but because the word already carried the weight I needed. Kaiju aren’t just monsters. They’re forces. They represent scale, impact, and presence.

But I ran into a problem.

Classic Kaiju stories usually treat these beings as rare, mythic events. In early development, I struggled with the idea of multiple Kaiju existing in the same space. How can all these large creatures not destroy the city with every step?

I was reminded that the term Kaiju does not always refer to a monster as large as a sky scraper. It actually just mean strange beast.

So I camped there.

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Kaiju vs. Dai Kaiju

In Monster Lynk, Kaiju exist—but not all Kaiju are equal.

There is a higher tier: the Dai Kaiju.

This distinction is important because it preserves scale.

The Dai Kaiju is the only Sky Scrapper scaled monster. The one that feel closer to natural disasters than creatures. The one that change the story just by appearing in it.

And yes, he is heavily inspired by Godzilla.

A large green lizard-like monster. Ancient in feeling. Heavy in presence. Something that doesn’t just exist in the world but feels like it has always existed beneath it.

But even that isn’t about copying.

It’s about translating a feeling.

Because what Godzilla gave me wasn’t just design inspiration.

It was presence.

That sense that something is too big to fully understand—but you still have to face it anyway.

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What Godzilla Really Taught Me

Godzilla wasn’t just entertainment for me. It was one of the first times I experienced storytelling that existed on a different scale than my life.

It made the world feel bigger.

It made imagination feel physical.

And as I’ve gotten older, I realize I’ve been chasing that feeling in different ways ever since.

In drawings. In games. In stories. In Monster Lynk.

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Closing Thoughts

I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving Godzilla.

But more importantly, I don’t think I’ll ever stop being shaped by what he represented to me as a kid. It wasn’t just about the movies, or the designs, or even the destruction. It was about scale. About presence. About the feeling that something could exist in a story that was bigger than your understanding of it—and still feel real enough to matter.

That’s what stuck with me.

And honestly, I think that’s why I keep returning to it in my own work. Monster Lynk, Kaiju, the Dai Kaiju—it’s all me trying to capture that same feeling in a different form. Not to copy it, but to translate it. To take that childhood sense of awe and see if it can still exist in something I’m building today.

Because once you’ve experienced that kind of creative impact, you don’t really forget it. You just keep finding new ways to chase it.

So I guess I want to turn this back on you:

What was the first story, movie, or character that made you feel that sense of scale for the first time?

Was it something like Godzilla for you, or something completely different?

And do you think those early “awe” moments still influence what you create, even if you didn’t realize it at the time?

I’d genuinely love to hear your answers in the comments.