Because really, when was the last time you heard Godzilla complain about being tired?
Godzilla is showing up all over the place these days. He’s on the big screen in Godzilla vs. Kong, and on smaller screens in the Godzilla Singular Point TV anime.
But Godzilla’s dominion now extends to a new area: energy drinks.
While out and about our Japanese-language reporter and resident Godzilla fan K. Masami spotted the new Godzilla Energy, which went on sale at the end of April and is now appearing in vending machines. Beverage maker Cheerio says the drink is “Godzilla-class,” and as such it’s only available in a 500-milliliter (16.9-oounce) size, not the smaller 350-milliliter one that’s the normal standard for canned drinks in Japan.
Masami tossed her 200 yen (US$1.90) into the machine, hit the button, and retrieved her Godzilla Energy from the slot after it dropped down with a weighty clunk. To her surprise, the monstrous motif in the can’s artwork isn’t based on the versions of Godzilla seen in Godzilla vs. Kong or Singular Point, but instead on the one from the last Japanese-produced live-action film in the franchise, Shin Godzilla.
Speaking of the packaging, Masami loves the way Godzilla is destroying part of the skyscraper-like barcode with his atomic breath, and sure enough…
…the drink itself is the same color, a captivating shade of purple, not blue like the Legendary Pictures Godzilla’s breath. It’s actually a beautiful enough hue that they could probably have called it “unicorn tea” or something equally flowery if they hadn’t wanted to go with the giant monster angle.
Godzilla Energy has the sweet, faintly chemical smell often associated with energy drinks, and when Masami took a sip, it hit her taste buds with all the sweetness the color had led her to expect. Surprisingly, though, while the flavor remains on the tongue, it doesn’t coat the inside of your mouth, giving it a pleasingly clean finish.
OK, so it looks good and tastes good. But this is an energy drink, and its active ingredients are 630 milligrams of arginine amino acid and 210 of caffeine for the 500-mililiter can.
That works out to 42 milligrams of caffeine per 100 milliliters, which is five percent more what Red Bull delivers. Because of that, you probably don’t want to be chugging down too many cans of Godzilla Energy in the course of a day, but we guess it makes sense that the King of the Monsters would also want to be the King of Caffeine.
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[ Read in Japanese ]