Life-sized Godzilla theme park attraction coming to Japan

NY Post ^ | November 1, 2019 | Hannah Frishberg

[Olog-hai]

Gojira is a portmanteau of the Japanese words: gorira ( “gorilla”) and kujira ( “whale”), owing to the fact that in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as “a cross between a gorilla and a whale”, Godzilla’s name was written in ateji as Gojira , where the kanji are used for phonetic value and not for meaning. …

Ateji?

There is no kanji (Chinese character) that’s used in Japanese for “gorilla” AFAIK; it's all in katakana (ゴリラ), just as the name Gojira is written in katakana (ゴジラ).

Ateji refers to writing everything in Chinese characters and applying a reading to them that has nothing to do with the customary readings but instead indicates the suggested meaning, such as with “Yamato” (大和, which by sight should be read “Dai-wa”). There sure is no phonetic reading there.

But this is Wikipedia after all.

[Godzilla]

[Verbosus]

Gamera?!
With Mothra out there?
Really? ;^)

[Pilgrim's Progress]

Don’t you mean, “Godzirra?”

[Skooz]

Original G, not the one in those execrable remakes!

Agreed. Watching those old B&W Godzilla flicks was one of my favorites hings about my childhood.

[Olog-hai]

Well, I was thinking Tōhō versus Daiei in general.

[RandallFlagg]

Well, they DID make Godzilla VS Gigan.
Considered one of the worst of the original Godzilla movies.

The monsters actually talked.