Monster World (franchise) (Johnsonverse)

Monster World is an American multimedia franchise produced by WBC. It is a crossover of Godzilla (predating the Johnson Aligned Universe by fourteen years), the works of H. P. Lovecraft (specifically the Cthulhu Mythos deities), and even Neon Genesis Evangelion, serving as a sequel for both NGE and the Godzilla Heisei series.

The television series premiered in 1998 and ended in 2004 after a seven-season run, with a movie in 2006, and another following in 2015 followed by a revival of the television series.

The franchise has been universally acclaimed, and has won many awards since its creation.

Plot
God (voiced by and modeled after Patrick Stewart) intervenes just before Third Impact, redeems all of the Angels, casts SEELE into Hell, and restores the Earth to before the Angels appeared. Quite mysteriously, though, the Evas are still extent, and the Geofront is all that remains of Tokyo-3.

God reveals that all of the Angels had gone rogue, believing humanity had learned nothing in the 2,000 years since the Crucifixion of Christ, and thus were mistakes that needed to be eliminated. God and Satan, viewing this as a gross overreaction to human nature, spent the last 15 years hunting them down.

Three months later, things are looking up for humanity. The economy is booming, the term "third-world country" becomes extinct, peace reigns among the nations, and three moonbases are under construction (one by NASA, another by Roscosmos, and the third by ESA).

NERV still exists as the weapons research division and peacekeeping army of the United Nations. Their researchers have developed laser-based weaponry once thought only possible in science-fiction, and have also improved the Eva designs, installing ankle-mounted jets allowing flight, chest-mounted missile tubes allowing N2 Missiles to be launched, and Anti-Berserk Restraining Bolts, preventing Units-01 and 02 from going berserk. The development of next-gen Evas has also started, with designs for Units-04 and 05 on the table.

What's more, all NERV staff have undergone drastic therapy. Gendo is now a better father who would never force Shinji to pilot Unit-01 against his will. Not that this would be a problem, since Shinji is now an upfront, brave, more confrontational person who willingly pilots his Eva into battle. Rei has stopped being drugged to suppress her emotions, and it has been revealed there never were any clones in the first place. The cloning explanation was a cover-up for NERV's advanced medical technologies. As a result of the druggings ceasing, she is slowly but surely showing more and more emotion, revealing some nasty habits and eventually, an eccentric-yet-loyal trickster. Asuka is now a kind, sensitive, selfless girl and also Shinji's best friend and love interest. Misato is no longer a drunkard, and Ritsuko is something of a mad scientist.

Life is great...until a new threat shows up. A giant monster named Cthulhu appears in Tokyo while Shinji and Asuka are heading from school to catch their train to NERV HQ. The Evas fight a losing battle until a band of kaiju led by the legendary Godzilla appears and send Cthulhu packing, causing him great physical injury, and ushering in the Third Kaiju Age. Cthulhu raises a hell army to destroy the Earth and accomplish what the Angels couldn't.

Later, a monster named Gigan appears. Initially thought to be one of Cthulhu's minions, detective work by Shinji reveals the difference in genetic make-up between one of Cthulhu's minions and Gigan, revealing Gigan to be an alien monster. This is followed closely by the invasion of an alien race known as the Invadors.

Fighting a two-front war won't be easy. With aliens above and Cthulhu below, not to mention an army of kaiju collectively known as the Mutant Horde and led by a resurrected SpaceGodzilla, NERV has its work cut out. But Godzilla (the son of the Heisei Godzilla) is humanity's champion, and with his allies, the Earth Defenders, both Cthulhu and the Invadors won't have it so easy.

NERV isn't alone. The UN's anti-kaiju division, the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasure Center (UNGCC), is reactivated and renamed the Earth Defense Force (EDF), with MOGUERA, MechaGodzilla 2, and Mecha-King Ghidorah rebuilt, as well as a new anti-kaiju robot, Jet Jaguar, is built based on the Jet Alone design. Later, they build a new mech named Kiryu (codename MechaGodzilla 3).

Characters
See List of characters in Monster World (Johnsonverse).

Production
The original concept that evolved into the final product was first conceived in 1996, shortly after production on Neon Genesis Evangelion wrapped up. Hideaki Anno, questioning his own sanity and mental state when writing the ending, began writing End of Evangelion as the full version of the final two episodes, which were infamously made using stock footage, limited animation, and voice-overs because the budget had been blown on the Eva fights. He did not, however, intend for EoE to be the canon ending. Instead, Anno wrote up a sequel series with the working title Evangelion R. The series was intended to take place after Third Impact, with the entire cast being resurrected and fighting an alien invasion. This series was to be much more light-hearted than the first, involving quite a bit of comedy, including topics such as school, relationships, and especially politics. During brainstorming sessions, there is an urban legend that there were loud arguments over whether Shinji should end up with Rei or Asuka, as well as how much torture Gendo should be subjected to, and whether or not Asuka should continue being a tsundere. Ultimately, these would be the only topics discussed during most of these sessions.

Eventually, though, after the release of EoE, Gainax stated they wanted no more to do with Evangelion, and moved on to FLCL, which was used as an anti-depressant due to the madcap nature of the latter. Anno was then told they would not go through with Evangelion R. Disappointed but undeterred, Anno took his business elsewhere.

Immediately, Anno began rethinking the series. In October 1996, Anno was approached by Toho to write a new tokusatsu series tentatively titled Monster Nation. Originally intended to contain all-original monsters, Godzilla was eventually added when it became clear the Roland Emmerich-directed remake by Tristar was taking too many liberties with the character for it to be considered Godzilla; just a year prior, Toho had killed Godzilla in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, and even held a funeral. Anno saw the series as a chance to rebound after Gainax rejected Evangelion R.

Anno created an outline combining Evangelion R and Monster Nation, calling it Evangelion x Godzilla, but it was only for fun. However, when a Toho executive saw the premise, he was extremely impressed and presented it to director Takao Okawara.

Several days later, Toho announced it would be retooling Monster Nation into a new series called Monster World, a crossover between Neon Genesis Evangelion and Godzilla. However, the creative team was torn as to which method to use: whether to have use live-actors and suitmation, or full animation.

In December 1996, Toho approached two other studios to assist: Toei Animation and Johnson Studios. Toho had decided to use a hybrid approach, with animation for the human cast and indoor scenes, and suitmation and miniature sets for the monsters, a method first used by Tsuburaya Productions for Dinosaur Great War Izenborg in 1977 and perfected by Johnson's own Detective Jenny (from which Monster World culled quite a bit of stock footage from in its first season) in 1994. The original set-up was as so: Three suits (MogeGoji, SoshingekiAngira, and HeiseiGhido) were sent to Johnson Studios in October 1996 for the Godzilla sequence in the 1997 blockbuster adaptation of EarthBound, and were retained after filming for Monster World.
 * Toho would provide suits and effects consulting
 * Toei Animation would do the human characters and interior scenes
 * Johnson Studios would do all the monster scenes
 * Hideaki Anno would do episode outlines

Upon the success of EarthBound, the set-up was changed. Anno's role was reduced to consultant when Johnson brought in its own writers; by this point, Monster World was now considered a Johnson production, as Takao Okawara was replaced as director by Timothy Hill, and the animators Toei had assigned to the series moved to California full-time to consolidate all production at Johnson Studios in San Jose, CA (this was also done to streamline production of the Toei-animated episodes of Detective Jenny, as episodes could now be produced much quicker; TMS also sent its animation team for Detective Jenny to California in 1999, again to streamline production for their episodes). The premise of Monster World was expanded in June 1997, replacing the aliens as the main antagonist. Instead, Cthulhu was made the new main antagonist, voiced by British voice actor Tony Jay.

Filming for the series began in earnest in August 1997. Large, elaborate sets of multiple cities, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Seattle, Beijing, Cape Town, Osaka, and Fukuoka were built, many of which were so large, the soundstages couldn't fit them, and they had to be taken to decommissioned hangars at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, California. The Tokyo set was the largest, and could not fit into a hangar; instead, it was put in an outdoor environment near Fresno, California, which allowed for natural lighting and weather.

Toho began sending over more suits in this timeframe, including the SpaceGodzilla, Destoroyah, MechaGodzilla, MOGUERA, Mothra, Battra, Biollante, and Mecha-King Ghidorah. Since HeiseiRado (the Heisei Rodan design) wasn't a suit, but rather, a puppet, Johnson created a larger, wearable version of HeiseiRado. Johnson also created new suits for the monsters also slated to appear, oftentimes replicas of older suits and puppets, such as King Caesar, Gigan, Megalon, Jet Jaguar, the original MechaGodzilla and Mogera, Kamacuras, Kumonga, Ebirah, King Kong, Gorosaurus, Kamoebas, Gezora, Ganimes, and Gabara. At least 25 suits each for Ebirah, Kumonga, Kamacurus, and Titanosaurus were built, as the character was to be portrayed as a species numbering in the thousands. Baragon and Varan both received brand-new designs that were eventually adopted by Toho. And finally, suits for the Evangelions themselves were built, as well; designing the Evangelion suits was a challenge, as the animation in Neon Genesis Evangelion portrayed them with arms higher up on the body than a normal human, as well as having long, slender arms. Many options were considered, from having the suits be on stilts to using camera angles to fudge the proportions, but ultimately, it was decided to drop the arms down and explain why in-series. The actor's head is in the neck, with the head above being an animatronic (all of the monster heads in the series are animatronics controlled via waldo manipulator developed by the Jim Henson Creature Shop).

Casting
For the voice cast, much of the original voice actors returned for the English version. Among the returnees were Spike Spencer as Shinji, Tiffany Grant as Asuka, Amanda Winn-Lee as Rei, Allison Keith as Misato, Kurt Stoll as Kensuke, Carol Amerson as Hikari, Kendra Benham as Maya, Sue Ulu as Ritsuko, Matt Greenfield as Makoto, and Jason C. Lee as Shigeru; when Touji was reintroduced in Season 9, Brett Weaver returned to reprise the role. Several actors were replaced, though; for example, voice-acting veteran Tom Kane replaced Tristan MacAvery as Gendo, Fuyutsuki was voiced by John Cleese of Monty Python, and Kaji by Michael McConnohie.

After a royalties dispute in 2005, Winn-Lee left the franchise, and Michelle Ruff was hired to replace her, also redubbing all prior episodes; old VHS tapes and recordings of the episodes when they originally aired, as well as Season 0 (Neon Genesis Evangelion) are now the only ways to hear Rei's original voice. Winn-Lee's departure was reportedly the prime factor in the decision to cast Brina Palencia as Rei in the Rebuild of Evangelion films. In 2021, Winn-Lee voiced Rei for the first time since 2005 in Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, which was co-produced by Johnson due to the ending recreating the final moments of "The Last Stand"; Tim Johnson mended fences with her, and she returned to voicing Rei in Monster World for its fourteenth season, with Ruff staying on as her understudy. All prior episodes originally recorded by Ruff retained her voice, while episodes from Seasons 1-7 were officially re-released on Netflix with Winn-Lee's voice, as well as the original versions being put back into rerun rotation.

When the series was revived in 2015, several cast members were replaced. Amerson was replaced by Caitlin Glass, Benham by Bridgette Hoffman, Ulu by Colleen Clinkenbeard (who also voiced Ritsuko in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies), and Cleese by John Hurt. After Hurt's death in 2017, Cleese returned to the role, and Ulu also returned partway through Season 8 after revelations about Cyber-Ritsuko came to light in-series. After the #KickVic controversy in 2019, Monica Rial was fired as the voice of Yui Ikari, and replaced by her Rebuild of Evangelion voice actress, Stephanie Young.

On December 30, 2020, it was reported that Kane had suffered a major stroke two months before, and doctors warned that he may never do voiceover work again, even after therapy; he was eventually forced to retire in September 2021. Minutes after receiving the news, Hill "drafted" Tristan MacAvery, Gendo's original voice actor from Neon Genesis Evangelion, to become the full-time voice for Gendo going forward.

Music
The series makes use of music made both by the Johnson Philharmonic Orchestra, and for the Godzilla films (composed mainly by Akira Ifukube, with other pieces by Michiru Oshima, Riichiro Manabe, Masaru Sato, Reijiro Koroku, Takayuki Hattori, Kow Otani, David Arnold, Keith Emerson, and Alexandre Desplat). There is also music from other, non-Godzilla sources (including the theme for Magnificent Seven, as well as music composed by John Williams, Johnny Douglas, Barry Grey, Shunsuke Kukuchi, Kenji Yamamoto, Shiro Sagisu, Alan Menkin, Jerry Goldsmith, and Elmer Bernstein).