Maguma (マグマ?) is a giant walrus like kaiju created by Toho that first appeared in the 1962 Toho film, Gorath.
Name
Maguma's name means "magma" in Japanese, which could be a reference to how Maguma is weak to high temperatures.
Design
Appearance
Maguma resembles a giant brown walrus with green eyes, pale tusks, smooth skin with no visible hair, and the lack of a tail.
Roar
Maguma's roar was an elephant trumpeting sound, but was deepened and slowed down. Maguma's roar was later used for the Ultraman 80 kaiju, Salamandora.
History
Gorath
Maguma first appeared when it was awakened by missile fire at the North Pole. Maguma attacked the base and it went home to its valley. A VTOL aircraft was sent to kill Maguma, and it buried it under a pile of rocks. Maguma broke out of the rocks and attacked again. The aircraft attacked Maguma with energy beams, killing it.
Abilities
Maguma uses his large flipper-like forelimbs to damage jet pipe power station. He is also seen freeing himself from the rumble. Maguma was never seen using his tusks in the film in combat, but he does use these weapons to damage GSDF in Godzilla: Defence Force.
Video games
Trivia
featured in Episode 27 of Ultra Q “The Disappearance of Flight 206
- According to an interview with Ishiro Honda, an early draft for the 1968 film Destroy All Monsters called for "all monsters" of the Toho library to appear; early art shows that Maguma was planned to appear and was to guard the Kilaaks' base along with Ebirah. However, they were replaced by Baragon and Varan, even though the two couldn't take the role due to the overuse of their suits and could only make brief appearances.
- In this draft, Maguma and Ebirah were also supposed to be Godzilla's two main allies, but they were replaced by Anguirus, Gorosaurus, and Minilla.
- Maguma was removed from the Brenco Pictures' American version of Gorath. The producers of the U.S. version reportedly thought Maguma was too funny-looking, even mockingly calling him "Wally the Walrus," and believed he would ruin the serious tone of the film. Only a shot of Maguma's corpse buried in rubble remains in the American release.
- Originally, Gorath was not going to feature any giant monster, but the executives at Toho demanded that there be a giant monster in the film, which Ishiro Honda was not fond of.
- Despite having evident mammalian physiology, Maguma is erroneously identified as a reptilian kaiju in the film. The reason for this is due to how originally Maguma was meant to be a reptilian monster, but Tomoyuki Tanaka objected to having yet another reptilian monster like Godzilla being in the film. Maguma was subsequently altered, however, the script was not updated to reflect this. Thus, while Maguma does appear as a giant walrus, he is inaccurately identified as a reptilian monster in the film.
