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Photos show just how much the capital of Japan and the King of the Monsters have grown in 60 years.

When Legendary Pictures gave Godzilla an American reboot in 2014, it also made him bigger than ever, as he stood 108 meters (354 feet) tall in that film. Then, when original owners Toho announced they were bringing the King of the Monsters back to Japan for the just-released Shin Godzilla (also known as Godzilla Resurgence), he grew yet again, with the world-famous creature being 118.5 meters tall in his latest outing.

This might seem like a bit of a friendly rivalry between production companies as they try to one-up each another in creating kaiju on the grandest scale, but the truth is that Godzilla has been growing progressively larger for decades. See, while Tokyo has been a large, bustling city since Japan’s feudal era of the 17th century, architectural and economic limits meant that it wasn’t always as studded with skyscrapers as it is now. When Godzilla made his screen debut in 1954, the capital’s skyline was far lower and less dense than it is today, and as such the movie’s star was smaller in stature as well, with a modest (by modern kaiju standards) height of 50 meters.

Granted, that’s still pretty huge, as far as atomic fire-breathing lizards go. But while that height would have enabled him to peer over the buildings of 1950s Tokyo, Godzilla would find his lines of sight severely impaired by the city’s present-day urban jungle, as demonstrated in this tweet from @FUKUBLOG.

Superimposed in red, Godzilla is looking pretty tiny next to some of taller landmarks of the Tokyo Station, Shinjuku, and Shiodome neighborhoods, such as the dual spires of the 242.9-meter Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and the 204-meter Cocoon Tower.

▼ Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (circled in yellow) and Cocoon Tower (circled in red)

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So while Original Godzilla would still be pretty terrifying for us puny humans to look up at from street-level, he’s not so big that you couldn’t hide from him by ducking behind the corner of an office building.

Source: Twitter/@FUKUBLOG via Hachima Kiko
Images: Twitter/@FUKUBLOG (edited by RocketNews24)

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