MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism)
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General and MUTO 1 and 2/Hokmuto and Femuto
"MUTO: Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. It is, however, no longer terrestrial; it is airborne."
Portrayed By: N/A
Appear In: Godzilla | Godzilla: Aftershock (tie-in comic) | Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted (cameo)
Species: Prehistoric parasitoid arthropod-like vertebrate | "Titanus Jinshin-Mushi"
The remnants of a millions-of-years-old parasitic superspecies which once fed on Godzilla's kind before both species disappeared from the surface world. In the present day, two of their spores remained dormant in the fossilized bones of the Titanus Gojira specimen known as Adam/Dagon/Raijin before being accidentally disturbed in 1999. They subsequently matured into a terrestrial female and a smaller, winged male in 2014. They feed off of nuclear radiation and their sole goals beyond feeding are to unite, reproduce, and repopulate their species.
- Action Dad: Downplayed and possibly subverted by Hokmuto. Whilst he fights Godzilla to his dying breath in defence of his nest, he's less attentive than Femuto when their nest is destroyed, only flying off when his distressed mate charges in a panic towards the ruined nest, implying that his parental instinct isn't as strong as Femuto's and he's defending his mate more than his offspring.
- Action Mom: Femuto is prepared to fight anything to protect her unborn offspring, even Godzilla himself. She also goes completely berserk on the HALO team after realizing they caused the destruction of all her unborn young.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Highly downplayed with the male MUTO, but in the film's novelization, he doesn't follow the female at all when they notice their nest blowing up.
- Alas, Poor Villain: It's hard not to feel a bit sorry for Femuto when she dies. She (and her mate) just wanted to have children, but she helplessly watches their unborn children perish in a fire, and she brutally dies when she's in the midst of an anguish-fuelled Unstoppable Rage against the humans (whom the MUTOs were originally just apathetic toward) for taking everything from her. Her anguished vocalizations upon seeing her nest's destruction convey the message perfectly.
- Alien Blood: They bleed thick, dark-looking blood, described in the novelization as being like sticky ichor.
- All There in the Script: The script allegedly refers to the male as "Hokmuto" and the female as "Femuto." Hokmuto gets his name from Janjira being located in Hokkaido in an earlier draft, and Femuto gets hers from being a lady monster.
- Alternate Animal Affection: When they meet up for the first time, the MUTO pair nuzzle each other and touch noses, making beeping noises as their eyes flash towards each other. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Sam Coleman's Titan reproduction video "with the genitals blurred out" implies this act was actually the MUTOs engaging in coitus.
- Ancient Evil: Emma Russell believes (albeit with gross Artistic License – Paleontology) that their species' population booms have caused at least two of Earth's past mass extinctions (an average mass extinction, for the record, is the extinction of roughly 75% of all species on Earth at the time) — at the very least, the MUTOs were implicitly the cause of a global dark age circa the 11th century BCE, before the entire species disappeared from the Earth's surface. Hokmuto and Femuto's eggs have been lying dormant in a subterranean Titan grave for 13,000 years, before a mining accident catalyzes Hokmuto's egg and sets off a series of events which puts the whole world at risk of another MUTO resurgence.
- Animal Jingoism: They're physiologically very evocative of insects, and the reptilian-looking Godzilla who hunts them down and seeks to destroy them is considered by Monarch to be the MUTOs' predator, in reference to the predator-prey relationship between most reptiles and insects in real-life. On the other hand, unlike real-life insects, the MUTOs paradoxically also prey on Godzilla's species by using them as incubators for their offspring, giving a reason for why the MUTOs stand a serious chance at killing Godzilla when they happily fight back against him. As of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), this relationship has been downplayed — whilst Godzilla also kills the MUTO Prime in self-defence and defence of his global territory's balance the same way he killed the first two MUTOs, he has no problem with letting Barb/the MUTO Queen live as part of his global territory after she submits to him, possibly because she has no way of reproducing (with the MUTOs' reproduction being the main reason they're a threat to Godzilla).
- Anti-Villain: Not exactly apparent until near the end of the film. Their goal is merely to unite with one-another and have offspring while following their natural instincts. Even with the amount of destruction they cause, they mostly only do so because they're so large, acting like actual animals throughout the movie.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Godzilla uses his tail to kill Hokmuto, Hokmuto's right front leg falls away, possibly due to the smaller spikes on Godzilla's tail.
- Artifact Title: The MUTO anagram used to be a catch-all term for kaiju in general, as explicitly shown in the 2014 movie's prequel graphic novel Godzilla: Awakening (which is no longer canon to the MonsterVerse after the release of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). As of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the giant monsters are referred to as "Titans", and "MUTO" is now a designation for denoting this particular species.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The female MUTO is too heavily armored to kill through brute force. Godzilla gets around this by forcing her jaws open and firing a torrent of atomic breath down her throat, disintegrating her from the inside out.
- Attack the Mouth: How Godzilla gets past the female's heavy armor and kills her.
- Battle Couple: Hokmuto and Femuto are a mated pair, and they manage to put up a real fight against Godzilla when they work together. One-on-one, they are severely outmatched, although Hokmuto has the advantage of being able to fly. According to the creator's commentary, this was an integral part of their design process when making them.
- Been There, Shaped History: Godzilla: Aftershock states that the species may have caused one or two of the planet's past mass extinctions while acting out their natural life cycle. Emma notes that Jinshin-Mushi's recorded appearance in the 11th century BC coincided with "a global Dark Age that spanned all the way from Cambodia to Egypt": the range and dating of this Dark Age line up with the Late Bronze Age collapse
, although Emma also misquotes it as a "mass extinction"note . - Behind the Black: A couple of particularly egregious instances occur with them. First when the male is eating a submarine in the Hawaiian jungle, and the squad on the ground don't seem to notice the male until several moments after they arrive. Then when the 300-foot female tears its way out of Yucca Mountain's southeast side and marches across the relatively flat desert land towards Las Vegas, the military don't notice a thing when they're advancing on the mountain, only noticing the gaping hole Femuto left and the MUTO itself on the Las Vegas Valley once they navigate to the aforementioned hole on the facility's inside.
- Berserk Button: Godzilla's presence drives both MUTOs to get up and move to fight him off, due to him being a natural enemy of their kind who seeks to kill them both.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: They are more or less this as a Battle Couple, though the female is arguably the bigger threat (and literally the bigger monster), as she is the most fiercely protective of their young which will threaten the whole world if they hatch.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: These giants measuring hundreds of feet in height have an insectoid-looking anatomy, and Femuto laying hundreds of eggs arranged in symmetrical patterns within their nest likewise brings insectoid reproduction to mind. Heck, the conflict between the MUTOs and the military is even framed somewhat like a Bug War. However, the visual effects supervisor purports that they're actually (somehow) mammals.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: The male and female have this dynamic with the male being small and airborne and the female being large and landbound. On their own, the male can avoid and harass Godzilla but not actually injure him while the female is strong enough to hurt Godzilla but isn't quite strong enough to beat him one-on-one before he overpowers her, so they tag team him.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: They are black with glowing red markings, which pulse rhythmically with light when they're mating or when Femuto is disrupting Sergeant Morales' radio. Hokmuto's cocoon and the eggs in their nest likewise flash with bioluminescent light.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The MUTOs are stated to be mammalian, though they are insectoid in morphology and many of their features resemble those of reptiles and dinosaurs, making their overall look a strange mixture of vertebrate, arthropod, and even biomechanical traits. The most bizarre part has to be them being terrestrial organisms, as they resemble no other creature on Earth (even Ghidorah, an actual alien, looks closer to a terrestrial vertebrate than them).
- Bizarre Alien Limbs: They each have a total of eight limbs. Hokmuto has one pair of front legs, one pair of wings, a pair of smaller arms in his abdominal region, and a pair of digitigrade hind legs. Femuto has a similar arrangement, though instead of wings she has a second pair of forelegs.
- Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism: Hokmuto has wings, smaller manipulator arms, and is relatively small in size compared to Godzilla. Femuto has an extra pair of forelegs in place of wings, large manipulator arms, and is nearly Godzilla's size. Otherwise, the two are pretty much identical in appearance. This exists in some real-life animals, like spiders.
- Brother–Sister Incest: The mated MUTO pair's "spores" both came from the same skeleton, implying they were planted by the same parent. Godzilla: Aftershock confirms this, their eggs having been implanted by MUTO Prime in Adam / Dagon's corpse.
- Bug War: Downplayed. The MUTOs are not actively malicious and are merely following their natural instincts, but they present a massive threat to humanity due to their sheer size and civilization-crippling EMP capabilities (making up for low numbers at only two adults with how massive and powerful they are), their desire to reproduce, and their complete callousness to the harm they can cause to humanity and the ecosphere. For most of the movie, the military are completely out of their depth in their efforts to combat the MUTOs, and it's ultimately up to Godzilla to save humanity from the MUTO threat; although Ford manages to get a major hit in by destroying the creatures' nest, which in turn distracts the adults and turns the tide of their battle against Godzilla in the latter's favor.
- Canon Foreigner: Although Toho's Godzilla franchise features plenty of giant mutant insectoid monsters, the makers of this film decided to introduce the MUTOs as an original set of this sort of creature for Godzilla to fight, for the sake of narrative freedom.
- Combat Pragmatist: They're not averse to double-teaming Godzilla, which gives them a significant advantage in the Final Battle.
- Conceive and Kill: Discussed in Godzilla: Aftershock. Emma Russell mentions that she suspected the MUTO pair's courtship would've ended in Femuto killing Hokmuto not unlike how praying mantis courtships end, although she notes this theory seems unlikely based on analysis of Femuto's reproductive organs. However, even in Emma's alternative postulation, she suspects a repopulated MUTO family would've eventually turned on each-other until only the very strongest was left alive, implying the mated pairing would've probably eventually ended in this anyway.
- Continuity Nod: In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), the female's head is being held at Castle Bravo, Monarch's Godzilla monitoring station.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The male MUTO gets impaled on a broken building by Godzilla's Tail Slap. The larger female dies when Godzilla forces her mouth open and fires his atomic breath down her throat, melting her neck from the inside-out until she's completely beheaded.
- Dark Action Girl: The female MUTO is a fierce, villainous Mama Bear, who goes from indifferent towards humans to apeshit-violent when her eggs are destroyed by the HALO team, and she puts up a good fight against Godzilla before that.
- Dark Is Evil: They're a very dark gray color to the point that they're practically well-camouflaged at night. And unlike Godzilla, they're an actual threat to the world at large and are notably more callous than Godzilla to the infrastructural damage they cause.
- Dead Guy on Display: The For Science! type, close to Human Head on the Wall if not for the fact that MUTOs, well, aren't human. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Femuto's decapitated and preserved head is mounted on one of Castle Bravo's upper levels, with the novelization confirming that Monarch are dissecting and studying the MUTOs' remains.
- Death from Above: The male MUTO employs a hit and run strategy using his wings, and he dive-bombs the boat carrying the nuclear bomb the military intended to use to kill him, the female, and Godzilla.
- Determinator: After realizing Ford destroyed her eggs, an angry mama MUTO doesn't stop trying to kill every last one of the HALO team so long as there's even one still alive. She doesn't even seem to notice the death of her mate whilst she's focusing on killing the humans in rage.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: Their deaths in the 2014 film's novelization are somewhat different from in the film. Godzilla cripples Hokmuto by ripping off part of his wing with his jaws, then he crushes the disoriented male to death by using his full body rather than just his tail to ram him into a building. When killing Femuto, Godzilla first disorients her by blasting her point-blank with his Atomic Breath, then decapitates her with but a swipe of his claws (you can probably see why the film portrays Femuto's death differently, since the novel version makes you have to wonder why Godzilla didn't do that sooner if a claw swipe was all it took to finish Femuto off).
- The Dreaded: Their reveal to the modern world sends humanity into a mass panic.
- Dug Too Deep: They were awakened after thousands of years when a mining operation unwittingly dug into the cavern where their eggs were lying dormant. Boyd's remark indicates it was contact with the outside world's air after so long that catalyzed the male MUTO egg's awakening.
- Eat the Bomb: They feed on radiation and radioactive materials, so to them, a nuke is more of a tasty snack than a legitimate threat.
- Elemental Punch: The male MUTO usually activates his EMP ability by lighting up his segmented forearm's bioluminescence and then slamming it to the ground, unlike the female who is constantly surrounded by an EMP "sphere of influence".
- EMP: They can emit natural electromagnetic pulses. Indeed, the lights suddenly going out in the area serves as a sign they're nearby. It also makes it difficult to use many modern weapons against them, exemplified when Hokmuto's EMP twice causes fighter jets that were sent specifically to watch out for the MUTOs to suddenly shut down mid-flight and helplessly crash.note Femuto is constantly producing an EMP sphere of influence around herself, whilst Hokmuto gives off EMP blasts, and he furthermore seems to have learned how to weaponize the blast against humans' aircraft by the time he uses it on Oahu. In the novelization, the actual purpose of the EMP is to disrupt Godzilla's ability, which here uses a bio-electric spark to ignitenote ; which makes sense given that the two species are natural enemies.
- Energy Absorption: Of the nuclear kind, with the MUTOs seeing nukes as more of a pastry than a weapon of mass destruction. Serizawa notes that Hokmuto is looking for nuclear fuel sources specifically as food to grow. This becomes a problem later when the MUTOs snag a live and ticking nuke under everyone's noses to feed their young.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Hokmuto and Femuto are quite affectionate when they meet up, and they seem genuinely protective of each-other during their battle against Godzilla. Then there's Femuto's reaction to the deaths of all their unborn young.
- Evil Takes a Nap: They were dormant spores attached to Adam's buried fossil for thousands of years, until a mining company unwittingly disturbed the cavern and catalyzed Hokmuto's hatching. Years later, the grown Hokmuto's bio-acoustics catalyzed Femuto's egg.
- Evil Virtues: Determination, Loyalty (They will cross oceans and fight Godzilla for each other and their offspring), Teamwork (When working together, they put up a credible fight against Godzilla himself), Love (They’re genuinely affectionate towards each other and Femuto grieves for her unborn offspring when her eggs are destroyed).
- Extreme Omnivore: Crossed with Metal Muncher, as they consume radioactive material including nuclear warheads (casing and all) during the movie.
- Eye Lights Out: When the male MUTO dies, we get a close-up of his eyes as the light in them fades entirely, emphasizing that he's dead.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Besides MUTO Prime's method of reproducing the species (see her folder for details), the artbook Godzilla: The Art of Destruction indicates the MUTOs generally can reproduce by killing a Titanus Gojira and laying their eggs inside the fresh carcass.
- Feed It a Bomb: The military's plan for killing the MUTOs is a variation on this: they know the MUTOs will be attracted to a nuke while seeking to feed on it (note that both MUTOs demonstrated during the movie that they'll eat nuclear warheads whole), but they're hoping the pure concussive force of the explosion will be enough to kill them, rendering their ability to eat radiation irrelevant.
- Fragile Flyer: The male MUTO, thanks to flight and his relatively small size, can employ Hit-and-Run Tactics with Godzilla but goes down instantly when Godzilla manages to get a direct hit in. This complements the MUTOs' separate fighting styles, allowing the two to work together well enough to gain the advantage against Godzilla: while the male distracts Godzilla, it allows the much bigger, stronger and flightless female to attack Godzilla from behind. When Godzilla reacts to this and begins to overpower the female, the male flies around and attacks Godzilla again from behind, distracting him and repeating the cycle.
- Full Moon Silhouette: A blink-and-you'll-miss-it case occurs when a silhouetted mountain in front of the full moon starts shifting, revealing that it's actually Femuto hiding in plain sight.
- Fun with Acronyms: Even if the MUTOs and the Kaiju generally aren't technically mutants in the MonsterVerse continuity, it's still an appropriate homage to the Godzilla franchise's roots that the acronym this species is known by spells out "Muto".
- Giant Equals Invincible: They shrug off all bullets, tank rounds, and sea-to-ground missiles, though massed rifle fire and rockets to their faces successfully grab their attention more than once.
- Giant Eye of Doom: When Ford and Sergeant Morales are trying to remain still and unnoticed on the train tracks as Femuto is passing underneath, we get a clear shot of Femuto's eye-sensor thing on one side of her head looming underneath their heads, and getting ever closer to Sergeant Morales as his radio begins to fizzle in sync with the eye-sensor's flickering.
- Giant Flyer: The male MUTO has a pair of enormous wings in place of one set of legs, enabling him to fly.
- Glass Cannon: Hokmuto's wings make him swift, elusive, and insanely difficult for Godzilla to intercept, and he uses this to his advantage, managing to deal painful blows to Godzilla; but he's also much more fragile than his land-bound mate (who can tank many blows from Godzilla due to being almost as large as he is), often distancing himself when Godzilla goes on the offensive against him to escape any physical contact. One brutal and well-timed Tail Slap from Godzilla (which also crushes Hokmuto against a building and impales him on rebar) is all it takes to kill the male MUTO.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The MUTOs have red-glowing slits for eyes, which lack any kind of pupils, and they're decidedly the real threat to mankind rather than Godzilla (note that it wasn't until the next movie that Godzilla displayed glowing eyes while using his atomic breath). These eye-slits may be heat sensors or compound eyes.
- Good Lips, Evil Jaws: In contrast to their natural enemy Godzilla's expressive lipped mouth, the MUTOs have beaked, lipless mouths which occasionally drool and contain sharp teeth, and they're decidedly the real threat to humanity in Godzilla (2014).
- Ground Punch / Shockwave Stomp: The male MUTO activates his EMP blasts by slamming his forelimb into the ground, although he at one point lets loose a blast while he's airborne.
- Headbutt of Love: Between the male and female MUTOs when they meet up. It's surprisingly adorable. Funnily enough, a glimpse of Sam Coleman's documentary in the sequel implies this is actually how MUTOs have sex.
- Hit-and-Run Tactics: The male MUTO uses his aerial agility to get in quick and significant strikes against Godzilla, then fly away before Godzilla can do major damage to him.
- Hook Hand: Played With. The male and female both have forelimbs ending in curved, meat hook-like appendages.
- The Horseshoe Effect: It's speculated in Godzilla: Aftershock that the species will wipe out or reshape entire ecosystems to their liking, and likely create an extinction event, if they succeed in enacting their life cycle — does this remind you of anyone else? It's almost as if the MUTOs are foreshadowing Ghidorah. The differences are that the MUTOs are native to Earth whereas Ghidorah is an invasive extraterrestrial; and whereas the MUTOs are ultimately just living out their natural life cycle (albeit a highly destructive one) and tend to act like Non-Malicious Monsters unless provoked, Ghidorah is a straight-up Omnicidal Maniac who is truly malevolent and actively seeks the Earth's destruction for his own desires.
- Hostile Terraforming: Discussed in Godzilla: Aftershock. It's theorized by Emma that if the MUTO pair had successfully reproduced, their brood would've been a subspecies which would've reshaped or eradicated entire ecosystems to fit their own needs whilst carving out a niche for themselves. In the 2014 movie, just two of the creatures trash San Francisco whilst moulding Chinatown's buildings into a giant underground nest for themselves; and in Aftershock, Monarch's geological findings have strongly indicated that the MUTO species caused a global dark age where cultures across the ancient world disappeared practically overnight, and Emma goes several steps further by claiming that the MUTOs likely caused at least two of Earth's previous mass extinctions each time they successfully reproduced (though it should be noted that Emma invokes massive Artistic License – Paleontology by claiming the aforementioned dark age in the 11th century BCE was one such "mass extinction", when the last such extinction event happened 63 million years before humans had even evolved).
- Howl of Sorrow: Femuto lets out a series of panicked keening sounds near the movie's end when her nest has been consumed by an explosion, followed by an anguished wail once she's confirmed the death of her offspring.
- Humanizing Tears: The MUTOs aren't very pretty to look at and they're completely callous to the damage they cause to human cities, but it's hard not to feel for Femuto, when her eggs are destroyed and she lets out anguished cries while desperately rushing towards the nest.
- Humans Are Insects: They are mostly indifferent to humans, although they will brush them away if they start stinging them with gunfire. The female quickly changes her opinion on humans from this to Humans Are the Real Monsters once the HALO team roast her eggs, killing her unborn children in the process.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Hokmuto dies. Godzilla hits him with a Tail Slap, smashing him into a building and impaling him on rebar.
- Informed Species: They're described by the MPC visual effects supervisor in Godzilla: The Art of Destruction as probably being mammals based on the fact they possess skin, bones, and muscle. But he also admitted they do look more insectoid than mammalian. To say nothing of the MUTOs' reproductive cycle, which in light of this information makes the platypus look like nothing to gawk about.
- Introduced Species Calamity: In Godzilla: Aftershock, the MUTOs are compared by Emma Russell to an invasive species. They are would-be explosive breeders which are perfectly willing to trample over the modern world in pursuit of their own species' proliferation, and it's hinted that Godzilla might be hunting the MUTO pair because he considers them and their brood as much a threat to the world's ecosphere as they are to himself. New evidence uncovered by Monarch in Godzilla: Aftershock suggests that MUTOs have the potential to cause mass extinction whenever the species spawns a new brood and have done so at least once in our planet's past.
- Irony: The male MUTO does all the things Godzilla does in Blue Öyster Cult's song "Godzilla": he pulls some spitting high-tension wires down as he escapes from Janjira, helpless people on a subway train scream as he looks in on them, and he picks up a bus and throws it back down as he obtains a nuke from the military to present to his mate.
- It Can Think: It becomes pretty clear as the movie goes on that the MUTOs are quite intelligent and have good problem-solving.
- Hokmuto's second usage of his EMP blast at Oahu, which disables oncoming jets headed towards him, was clearly deliberate on his part comparative to the first usage during his hatching at Janjira, showing he's learned to weaponize his EMP against humans who give him trouble.
- Femuto seems to actively wait for the train carrying the nuclear weapons and ambush them, making use of her natural camouflage. She is also utterly and unmistakably distraught at the destruction of all her unborn young in a gas explosion, and when she spies Ford Brody amidst the remains of the nest, it apparently gives the 300-foot beast a clear idea of what caused the explosion. Although a distraction by Godzilla enables Ford to slip away, Femuto thereafter flies into a full-blown Unstoppable Rage wherein she actively chases down and begins slaughtering the HALO team.
- Kaiju: A species of gigantic prehistoric megafauna like Godzilla's species, though more insectoid in appearance, and emerging from underground instead of underwater. The MUTOs are a natural enemy of Godzilla's kind, with whom they have a parasitic relationship, and they clash with the Big G himself whilst they're rampaging across the Pacific and trashing multiple cities in their path. The MUTOs are just as immune to the military's conventional weaponry as Godzilla is, whilst their EMP abilities additionally allow them to cripple the military's technology and cause fighter jets to drop like flies.
- Last of Its Kind: Subverted. The mated MUTO pair are described in the 2014 movie as the last of a species that lived when the Earth's surface was still being heavily bombarded by radiation. Since the pair's deaths, at least two other living specimens – the MUTO Prime and MUTO Queen – have emerged, with Word of God on Godzilla: King of the Monsters further supporting the notion that there might be more of the species still alive.
- Lightning Bruiser: Femuto is larger and stronger than Hokmuto, fast on her feet, and she can tank numerous hits from Godzilla.
- Male Might, Female Finesse: Inverted. The male is an agile Giant Flyer, while the female is larger, land-based, and relatively slower-moving. This is Truth in Television for many insect species that inspired these creatures.
- Mama Bear: When Femuto realizes her nest has been blown up, she immediately ditches the fight with Godzilla in order to rush to her nest, screaming in maternal panic. After confirming her unborn young's deaths and after seeing a human (Ford) at the site of the destruction, Femuto puts two and two together, and she flies into an Unstoppable Rage against the military for the short remainder of her life.
- Man Bites Man: Right Godzilla as is getting double-teamed and overpowered by the mated pair, Femuto takes her opportunity by lunging towards him and embeds her beaked jaws right into Godzilla's neck/gills as she's shoving his enormous 90,000 ton mass by using nothing but her mouth until she knocks him into a building. At one point, Hokmuto tears into the top of Godzilla's shoulder by biting until the latter responds by doing the exact same thing to him. In seconds after Godzilla performs a Stealth Hi/Bye sneak attack on the female, she quickly crunches down on one of Godzilla's hands, which forces him to open her jaws all the way and unleashes his Atomic Breath right into her gullet.
- Metamorphosis Monster: After hatching from his spore, Hokmuto (and probably also Femuto offscreen) start off in an unseen larval form, which goes into a cocoon to feed on radiation before hatching into the adult form. Word of God indicates the Queen MUTO/Barb is what a female MUTO develops into with age; furthermore, it's theorized in Godzilla: Aftershock that one way or another, Jinshin-Mushi is an even later metamorphic stage in the MUTO's life cycle beyond the standard adult form.
- Mighty Glacier: Downplayed. The terrestrial female is a Lightning Bruiser who's bigger than the male and almost as strong as Godzilla, but she lacks the male's aerial agility. This compliments the MUTO separate fighting styles, allowing the two to work together well enough to gain the advantage against Godzilla: while the male distracts Godzilla, it allows the much bigger and stronger female to attack the Big G from behind. When Godzilla reacts to this and begins to overpower the female, the male flies around and attacks Godzilla again from behind, distracting him and repeating the cycle.
- Mistaken Death Confirmation: The unhatched second MUTO spore was officially declared dormant by Serizawa himself after Monarch vivisected it and ran every test on it for years. Then fifteen years after the spore was originally unearthed, it hears its pupating male counterpart calling out and it becomes active, birthing a female MUTO, to Dr. Graham's horrified disbelief.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Critics have most commonly characterized them as a mix between a praying mantis and a pterosaur, and Godzilla: The Art of Destruction alleges that they're actually mammalian.
- More Deadly Than the Male: Downplayed. The two are for the most part portrayed as equally dangerous, in different ways. While the female is larger and more powerful, the male can fly and is far more agile, and it takes the two of them to work together to challenge Godzilla. That being said, the female is notably more pissed off than the male when their eggs are destroyed by the humans.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Both MUTOs possess eight limbs total: the female has four forelegs, two hind legs and a set of smaller arms, while the male MUTO has two forelegs, two hind legs, a pair of enormous wings and a set of smaller arms.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The male MUTO, by feeding on the nuclear radiation sources it plunders as soon as it gets his claws on them (the Janjira power plant's core, the stolen Akula submarine's nuclear arsenal), actually saves many humans in the vicinity from having to worry about radiation poisoning and contamination among the many other problems the MUTOs cause them. This is explicitly pointed out in the novelization.
- No Mere Windmill: Straight type in the novelization: there's a humorous extension of the casino scene where a casino-goer sees Femuto on the TV before the power goes out and immediately assumes the monster is a hoax like, in his own words, "global warming". Cue Femuto's leg smashing into the building where the Acceptable Target is currently located.
- No Name Given: The MUTOs aren't given specific names, but are just referred to as "the male" and "the female" of their species. The designation of "MUTO" was initially one for all kaiju in this universe, not just this species specifically. In merchandise, the female MUTO was called "Femuto".
- Non-Indicative Name: The source of a brief joke. MUTO stands for "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism," but as Stenz points out, "it is no longer terrestrial, it is airborne."note
- Non-Malicious Monster: They aren't really evil, most of the destruction they cause is just due to them being so large, and throughout the film, they act like real animals following animal instincts (to seize territory and mate). There are even sympathetic moments, such as the loving moment the couple has sharing a nuke, and the mother crying at the destruction of her nest.
- No-Sell: They are only mildly annoyed by even the heaviest ordnance the military can bring to bear.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We never see what their larval form looks like at all; with the presence of Hokmuto's larval form being felt through the giant Worm Sign his escape from the Philippines cavern to the sea has left, and through the tremors caused by his approach on the Janjira power plant and his attack on its reactor.
- Not Quite Dead: Twice. Hokmuto seemingly dies in his cocoon when Monarch attempt to electrocute him to death, with the glow and tremors ceasing and Monarch's vital readings on the cocoon flatlining – then a worker sent in to take a closer look notices that something is moving inside the broken-off section of the cocoon, before the now-adult MUTO emerges none worse for wear. In-Universe, Femuto's egg was assumed by Monarch to be completely "dormant" after excessive study and testing, but they realize it's awakened and hatched many years later.
- Off with His Head!: The female MUTO's fate when Godzilla fries her from the inside out with his Atomic Breath, causing her neck to melt.
- One-Hit Kill: The male suffers this during the MUTOs' fight with Godzilla, when after enduring quite a bit of punishment due to the male's flighty tactics, Godzilla catches him off-guard and brutally ends him with a surprise Tail Slap, breaking the Fragile Speedster's body.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Ford Brody manages to destroy their nest of unhatched eggs in San Francisco (much to Femuto's anguish and fury), and Godzilla kills the two MUTOs shortly after.
- Papa Wolf: The male MUTO is far smaller than Godzilla yet is willing to dive-bomb the great lizard when he approaches the nest.
- Parasites Are Evil: Played With. They have a parasitic life cycle which involves laying eggs inside other, live Titans and letting them feed on the Titan host's blood until the Titan dies – and unlike Godzilla, the MUTOs are a real threat to humanity at large and to the world's biosphere if they ever succeed in reproducing. That being said, the MUTOs are characterized as Non-Malicious Monsters in their own right whom are largely just doing what their nature commands them to - it's just that unlike Godzilla, the MUTOs' drives and instincts are to humanity's and other species' complete detriment instead of their benefit.
- Personal Space Invader: The male MUTO's battle tactic against Godzilla consists of repeatedly swooping in and grabbing onto his upper-body, allowing the female to get an easier hit.
- Pet the Dog: Despite their brutality when fighting Godzilla and their total apathy for humans, the MUTOs have a surprisingly touching scene when they unite in San Francisco to mate, with Hokmuto courting Femuto using a live nuclear warhead as a nuptial gift, and the two sharing a Headbutt of Love before promptly starting to build a nest.
- Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Emma states in Godzilla: Aftershock that geological dating of the ancient MUTO egg chamber in Siberia corresponds with the timing of a past mass extinction, strongly suggesting that the MUTOs were the cause when their species successfully repopulated; although Emma also erroneously states in the same instance that another "mass extinction" occurred when Jinshin-Mushi was last active in the 11th century BCE, so it's unsure how accurate this really is.
- Pregnant Badass: Femuto is heavy with unfertilized eggs in her adult form, yet this doesn't make her any less destructive and unstoppable against the U.S. military before she mates with Hokmuto. After laying her eggs, Femuto is a badass taking on Godzilla in defence of her nest.
- Proportionately Ponderous Parasites: Their life cycle apparently involves multiple larvae infesting a Titanus Gojira and pupating inside his body, similar to a Tarantula Hawk and related kinds of wasp. This gives them and Godzilla a pretty good justification for fighting beyond the fact that beating each other senseless while knocking over skyscrapers is just what kaijus do.
- Pupating Peril: Hokmuto hatches from a huge, glowing, crescent-shaped chrysalis after feeding on the radiation of a nuclear reactor from within for fifteen years. While his larval form is never seen, the imago is a winged insectoid which immediately begins a trail of destruction across the Pacific.
- Radiation-Immune Mutants: Technically averted. They are immune to radiation (and feed on it), but they are actually creatures which evolved during a time when Earth was much more naturally radioactive.
- Really 700 Years Old: The eggs which Hokmuto and Femuto hatched from laid dormant in a massive skeleton for thousands to millions of years. In Godzilla: Aftershock, it's revealed those eggs were down there for 31,000 years to be precise.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Downplayed. The MUTOs are black with glowing red markings and they're the real threat to the world in Godzilla (2014); but they're ultimately Non-Malicious Monsters who just want to reproduce, until Femuto is fully provoked to hostility against humans by the destruction of their nest.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: They have red glowing slits for eyes, which lack any kind of pupils. They may be heat sensors or compound eyes.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Upon witnessing her babies erupt into flames and deducing that a nearby Ford Brody did it, the female MUTO gets pissed off, to say the least. She even starts directly attacking soldiers instead of doing so accidentally, managing to eradicate the entire HALO team sans Ford; and once she sees the human who was at her burned nest again, she is clearly filled with rage.
- Sculpted Physique: They're organic but have a carapace resembling black metal. Gareth Edwards has said that their appearance was in part a Shout-Out to the Xenomorphs.
- Shock and Awe: To an extent. The MUTOs can emit EMPs thanks to their absorption of radiation. It doesn't directly harm organic creatures, but the force of their footsteps still creates a powerful shockwave of its own that can send humans flying.
- Shout-Out: The male MUTO looks like Mothra or Battra and fights like Megaguirus.
- The Silent Bob: Although the MUTOs are animals with alien-like, less-than-expressive faces, the message is clear when they meet up and have a Headbutt of Love. Femuto in particular manages to communicate a lot with nothing but her body language and actions during the climax, when she charges in a panic back towards her blown-up nest, when she spies the destroyed remains of her eggs before Ford Brody draws her attention, and when she charges straight towards the HALO team and begins slaughtering them in a mad rage.
- Sinister Scythe: The MUTOs have curved scythe-like legs.◊ However, interestingly, they never use the spiked end, instead of resting the leg over the angulation when stepping or clubbing down.
- Slaying Mantis: They're somewhat mantis-like prehistoric parasitoids that are a natural enemy of Godzilla's species. They have a pair of large, hooked forelimbs (which they use to stab Godzilla's vulnerable gills) and a smaller pair of manipulator arms. Femuto is twice Hokmuto's size but lacks wings.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Hokmuto and Femuto are the Starter Villain of the MonsterVerse and they die in the first movie, but without them, the events of the subsequent movies would never have happened in the form that they did at all. Without their rampage causing The Unmasqued World and causing Andrew Russell's death, the plot of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) wouldn't have kicked off without the government and the public pushing for Titan extermination and without Emma Russell going mad from her grief; and without all of that, the plot of Godzilla vs. Kong wouldn't have kicked off at all, as Apex Cybernetics would have remained unaware alongside the rest of the world of Godzilla's existence, there never would have been a telepathic Ghidorah skull for Apex to attempt weaponizing, and Skull Island would still be alive without Ghidorah's awakening by Emma which in turn led Ghidorah to awaken Camazotz and leave a Perpetual Storm for Camazotz to use.
- Spaghetti Kiss: An inversion and variation. While the MUTOs are performing their mating ritual, Hokmuto passes a nuclear warhead as a nuptial gift from his mouth to Femuto's.
- Sphere of Destruction: Unlike Hokmuto's triggered EMP bursts, Femuto's EMP is spherical and constant with a broad sphere of influence according to a news broadcast.
- Starter Villain: They're the first monster antagonists of the MonsterVerse, and whilst they're no weaklings by any means, individually they're not in the same weight class as Ghidorah or Mechagodzilla are relative to Godzilla; and temperament-wise, the MUTOs are the least nasty of the MonsterVerse movies' Big Bad monsters, compared to those that come after them.
- Stealthy Colossus: Femuto is the size of a small mountain, yet she displays a remarkable talent for stealth during the train attack when she's camouflaged by darkness, with a group of soldiers failing to notice that a tree trunk/support beam behind them is actually her leg until she moves. Hokmuto is likewise able to sneak-attack Godzilla when he's distracted during the Final Battle.
- The Stormbringer: Downplayed, but it's hinted in the movie that the thunderstorm which encroaches on San Francisco during the final act is being caused by the MUTOs' electromagnetic powers influencing the weather. More explicitly, Ford inwardly speculates as much in the novelization.
- Super-Strength: The male MUTO is able to drag Godzilla roughly 600 feet across San Francisco despite being only 3/5 Godzilla's size.
- The female is a dominant being herself and is way physically stronger than her tiny mate. While it was shown offscreen, she left behind a gigantic shredded gaping hole from Mount Yucca's nuclear waste repository and has trudged and bulldozed her way through the city of Las Vegas after hearing Hokmuto's echolocation. She's also shown to be brutal opponent to Godzilla as one powerful slash from her foreleg caused him to howl in anguish as trickles of blood are gushed out of his gills, rams into his throat with a shoving bite, and had him floored with repeated attacks of her hammering into him with the curved sections of her frontal legs.
- That's No Moon: A Freeze-Frame Bonus blink-and-you'll-miss-it example, but in one shot before the female MUTO makes her presence known in the train attack scene, you can see a mountain behind Ford and Morales start moving, revealing it's actually the female hiding in plain sight.
- There Can Be Only One: In Godzilla: Aftershock, one of Emma's theories about the MUTOs' life cycle post-reproduction is that once the parents and the new brood have finished destructively terraforming the environment for themselves, they'll turn on each-other until only the strongest is left standing.
- Tranquil Fury: While Femuto is engaging military forces in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, some of her actions come across as surprisingly subdued at times, such as when she quietly yet murderously stalks towards Ford after she finds him in the remains of her nest, and later as she corners him on one of the boats.
- Time Abyss: The MUTO species have apparently lived through at least one prehistoric mass extinction (which they were implied to be the cause of). The 2014 movie states that the MUTOs have likely been around since the Permian period alongside Godzilla's species, although later MonsterVerse installments have since turned the 2014 movie's Titan origin into one out of a Multiple-Choice Past for the Titans generally.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Relatively speaking. The male MUTO is 2/3 the size of the female he mates with. Given that many arthropods, arachnids, and insects display sexual dimorphism in favor of the female (read: the female of the species is normally larger than the male), this is a case of Shown Their Work.
- Token Flyer: Type 1. Hokmuto is the only one of the Kaiju in Godzilla (2014) that's capable of flight, whereas his mate Femuto, their rival Godzilla, and the deceased Adam/Dagon if you count him too, are all land-dwellers.
- To Serve Man: While the MUTOs' primary food source is radioactive material, Femuto kills a squadron of soldier by devouring them in one gulp when she's enraged at them. Based on the way she was leaning her open jaws towards Ford Brody, she was likely going to kill Ford the same way before Godzilla's timely intervention stopped her.
- Tragic Villain: The MUTOs' are nothing more than Non Malicious Monsters who only want to reproduce. Their tragedy consists in unknowingly be capable of mass extinction the moment they have off-springs.
- Unblockable Attack: Hokmuto's EMP blasts, once triggered, can't be stopped by any kind of barriers – thick walls, the mountains of Oahu; the blast will surpass them all and shut down anything electronic within a few miles. Even military craft, which normally have specialized EMP shielding to prevent these kinds of blasts from taking them down in Real Life, are completely helpless when Hokmuto's blasts go off.
- Unholy Matrimony: They're not quite evil, but they're still the story's deadly main antagonists who don't care how their reproduction negatively affects the world, and they're a mated pair who are quite affectionate with each-other when they unite.
- Unstoppable Rage: When the female MUTO finds out that humans have destroyed her eggs, she goes berserk; rampaging through the city hunting the HALO team down and slaughtering them in revenge. To emphasize it a little more, before this point, the MUTOs were simply attacking the humans to get the sustenance and territory they needed for their growth and their nest, and otherwise they ignored humans. But when the female MUTO gets pissed, she actively attacks every living human she sees with murderous intent. One hell of a Mama Bear she is.
- Villainous Incest: Inverted. They're implied in the movie to be brother and sister, having both hatched from spores laid inside the same dead Kaiju, and Godzilla: Aftershock more or less confirms this is the case. Regardless, their Headbutt of Love when they meet up to mate and Femuto's devotion to their resulting babies are two of the sweetest things about these otherwise-destructive creatures throughout their screentime.
- Villainous Legacy:
- Although the MUTOs are killed at the end of the 2014 movie, The Unmasqued World is permanent in all MonsterVerse installments chronologically set afterwards. This forms a major plot point in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), where the source of the conflict that leads to Ghidorah's emergence and exacerbates the other Titans' awakening is the worldwide government and public debate about how humanity should be responding to the Titans' existence.
- In Godzilla: Aftershock, Monarch's research on Hokmuto and Femuto — their egg chamber and their bio-acoustics — contributes a long way to their understanding of Jinshin-Mushi, giving Emma the idea to use sonic pulses against the new creature and save Godzilla's life.
- Femuto unwittingly set off the entire plot of Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted which occurs a decade or so after her death. During her rampage, she trashed an RM Construction building that Raymond Martin and his entire family were residing inside, leading to Raymond's rampage which causes almost all the comic's conflict.
- Walking Techbane: They make their presence known with an EMP field they emit, causing all electronic devices to fail within their radius. In the novelization, the EMP also causes guidance system errors, which make it impossible for electronic targeting systems to lock onto them even before being fried.
- Worm Sign: After the male MUTO's larval form escapes, it leaves a large trail of destroyed earth that clearly indicates his path from the cavern that held his egg towards the sea.
- Xenomorph Xerox: They're a Kaiju insectoid take on the concept. Sleek, black creatures from prehistoric times, the first glimpse we get of them is of two eggs that were gestating in the ribcage of a long-dead Godzilla to absorb radiation (we later find out that they can absorb radiation from any source, but the gut of another radioactive monster happens to be a good one). They're also Explosive Breeders, and the second half of the film involves the military helping Godzilla to destroy them and their massive nest in order to prevent them overwhelming the world.
- Your Size May Vary: Relative to each-other at least. The shot where the two MUTOs first meet has the female towering over the smaller male, looking roughly three times. Later, when they team up against Godzilla to defend their nest, the male now appears to be just slightly smaller than the female (though it's difficult to tell in some shots because of his wings, which the female lacks).
MUTO 3/Queen MUTO/"Barb"
Portrayed By: N/A
Appears In: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Species: Prehistoric parasitic arthropod-like vertebrate | "Titanus Jinshin-Mushi"
A specimen of the MUTO species which emerged from hibernation beneath a strip mall in Hoboken, New Jersey (confirmed by the director) to follow King Ghidorah's command, before peacefully bowing down to Godzilla as the new King of the Monsters following his triumph over Ghidorah. She resembles the female which emerged in 2014, except she has spiky dorsal protrusions along her body to signify her increased age and is covered with scars. Unlike the original female MUTO, Barb is specifically a 'Queen MUTO', though exactly how her behaviour and physiology differ from her predecessor with this title has yet to be elaborated on.
- Continuity Cameo: She's essentially a cameo for her species in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, inserted by the director out of liking for the creatures. She can be briefly glimpsed on a news report when the Titans are rampaging under King Ghidorah's command, and she makes a clearer appearance in the end scene alongside the other awakened Titans.
- Crown of Horns: She has a similar appearance to Femuto, but her form is more distinct by having multiple spiky crests sprouting out of her back just like MUTO Prime. Michael Dougherty stated that her crowned protrusions emphasize that she's "different and older" than Hokmuto and Femuto.
- Covered with Scars: It's difficult to look at them with her appearing around the last few minutes of the film and with the hazy aftermath of Boston's destruction, Michael Dougherty has stated that parts of her body has numerous scars from previously engaging with other Titans in battle and from past mating activities.
- Degraded Boss: The previous MUTOs were all the main antagonists of their respective stories and were presented as a major threat to Godzilla, who ultimately required human intervention before he could defeat them. Barb, however, is just one of the rank-and-file minions in King Ghidorah's enthralled Titan army, and after Ghidorah's death, she almost-immediately submits to Godzilla as her new alpha without picking a fight.
- Good Lips, Evil Jaws: Subverted, in contrast to the 2014 pair which preceded her. She has lipless, beaked jaws just like them, and she initially serves King Ghidorah alongside the other Titans when his Alpha Call awakens her, but she submits to Godzilla as the reigning Alpha Titan after Ghidorah's death (which is especially noteworthy since Godzilla's species and the MUTO species are usually natural enemies).
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Unlike the other known MUTOs, Barb is Covered with Scars, although they're practically invisible except in a certain light. This is a trait she has in common with Kong, and with her post-Ghidorah alpha Godzilla, befitting how she's the only one of her kind so far who hasn't been a non-negotiable threat to the world.
- Last of Her Kind: With Hokmuto, Femuto and Jinshin-Mushi dead, she's the last living specimen of her species that we know of. However, King of the Monsters director Mike Dougherty has entertained the notion that this trope might be subverted yet again if more living MUTOs turn up.
- Reused Character Design: Visually downplayed. While she looks and sounds identical to Femuto, the Queen MUTO has a darker gray color scheme and rows of spiky dorsal ridges.
- Token Heroic Orc: While the other specimens all opposed Godzilla because of their parasitic relationship with his kind, the Queen MUTO shows no aggression towards him after Ghidorah's death, bowing along with the other Titans in acceptance of her new dominant ruler. Godzilla in turn accepts her submission and demonstrably sees no more reason to seek a fight with her than with the other subordinate Titans.
- The Worf Effect: A mature female slightly larger than the ones in the 2014 film, submits to Ghidorah, and later Godzilla, as her Alpha.
MUTO Prime/Jinshin-Mushi
Appears In: Godzilla: Aftershock (tie-in comic)
Species: Prehistoric parasitic arthropod-like vertebrate | "Titanus Jinshin-Mushi"
The monster that serves as the antagonist of the Godzilla: Aftershock graphic novel prequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Known in myth as the "Earthquake Beetle" or "Dragon Beetle", it is the "parent" of the MUTO caste Godzilla battled in 2014, fighting Godzilla and looking to lay new eggs in his body which will emerge as a planet-ravaging subspecies.
- Alien Blood: Has teal-colored blood come out of its mouth.
- Ancient Evil: This creature, or at the very least another MUTO of the same caste, surfaced in 1000 B.C. to duel with Dagon and lay its eggs inside him, indirectly killing him, plus its appearance coincided with what's implied to be the societal collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age. In the present, Jinshin-Mushi emerges after Hokmuto and Femuto's deaths to do what they could not: kill Godzilla and trigger a new MUTO population boom, which will surely spell the collapse human civilization and potentially the end of over half of all life on Earth.
- Anti-Villain: Just like the MUTOs in the film, the creature may be destructive and antagonistic to Godzilla, but it's simply following its genetic programming in propagating its species the way it does.
- Arch-Enemy: To Godzilla's species as a whole, as Aftershock shows this creature (or at the very least members of this creature's caste) previously killed two Titanus Gojira via implanting their young inside them. It's implied events like this are why Godzilla is the Last of His Kind.
- Arc Villain: Of the Godzilla: Aftershock tie-in comic.
- Artistic License – Biology: Assuming the theories about Prime's evolution are true - Prime is somehow an evolution of a standard MUTO, but also the predecessor of modern MUTOs, and produces them as its offspring when it reproduces, meaning that it is a species that both created and came from its own descendant, in a setup that goes against the forward motion of evolution by forcing the species' existence into a closed circle. Somewhere, a taxonomist is probably crying.
- Civilization Destroyer: Emma notes that Jinshin-Mushi's appearance in the 11th century BCE when it fought Dagon coincides with a "global Dark Age that spanned all the way from Cambodia to Egypt". The geographical range and timing of this corresponds to the Late Bronze Age collapse in Real Life.
- Dishing Out Dirt: It creates earthquakes while burrowing through the earth.
- The Dreaded: It left an apocalyptic impression on the Ancient Phoenicians and the Ancient Japanese in the past, and on Monarch in the present day.
- Earthquakes Cause Fissures: The tremors caused when it first surfaces in Guam open a gigantic sinkhole from which it afterward emerges.
- Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Injects eggs into unfortunate Titans with ovipositor stingers.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: It keeps hitting Godzilla and then running away to try and wear him down in the repeated battles.
- Giant Flyer: According to its character sheet concept art, it actually has wings folded up on its back and can fly. This never comes up or is even slightly alluded to in its actual story, however.
- Good Lips, Evil Jaws: Although its face looks different from the other MUTOs', Jinshin-Mushi does retain the trait of having exposed teeth and fangs with no visible lips, in contrast to Godzilla, and it's just as much of a threat as Hokmuto and Femuto were if not more.
- Greater-Scope Villain: This MUTO caste is responsible for implanting the eggs of the MUTO pair, making it indirectly responsible for the events of the entire 2014 film.
- Ground Punch: It performs this whilst it's battling Godzilla in France, producing a shockwave so powerful that it throws Godzilla off his feet.
- Hero Killer: This type of MUTO has killed Dagon and at least one other member of Godzilla's species in the past.
- Intimidation Demonstration: Every time Jinshin-Mushi turns up in its quest to wear Godzilla down, it effortlessly chomps and devours a nearby manmade source of nuclear power, like a submarine or a power plant, demonstrating both its immense physical power and also its intent to defeat and kill the cinematic allegory for nuclear power.
- Legend Fades to Myth: Ancient accounts of Jinshin-Mushi became inaccurate over the centuries, eventually turning into Namazu, a catfish that causes earthquakes.
- Magma Man: The orange color of her enormous forelimbs is actually filled with lava-like fluid, while the red veins around them are said to be even hotter according to one of the artists of Godzilla: Aftershock. Heating up her arms allows Jinshin-Mushi to inflict more damage from her strengthened blows.
- Meaningful Name: Jinshin-Mushi means "Earthquake Beetle", and most of its abilities rely on this.
- Mighty Roar: It can emit shrieks that are powerful enough to shatter Godzilla's dorsal plates.
- Mole Monster: Compared to the MUTO pair, who travelled by land or air once they reached their adult forms; MUTO Prime is shown to mainly travel by digging and burrowing underground, only emerging to feed, fight and/or reproduce.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Emma Russell proposes two distinct theories about where Jinshin-Mushi fits in the MUTO life cycle – her first theory is that it's what Femuto would have metamorphosed into had she lived longer and killed her mate, the second theory is that Jinshin-Mushi is what the strongest among MUTOs' brood would have metamorphosed into after turning on and killing its siblings (analysis of Femuto's reproductive organs makes Emma think this theory is more likely) – but Emma observes that Monarch can never know which theory, if either, is true.
- Near-Villain Victory: It has one at the climax of Godzilla: Aftershock. Jinshin-Mushi has Godzilla injured and down on the ground, and is just seconds away from impregnating him with its offspring when the ORCA prototype's activation distracts it and gives Godzilla a chance to get back up.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Implied. Assuming the MUTO Prime which emerges in the present is the same one which sired the MUTO pair featured in Godzilla (2014) after fighting Dagon in ancient times, then that means it outlived its offspring by a matter of months. Whilst it's unknown if Jinshin-Mushi knows or cares that Godzilla is responsible for killing its two offspring, in any case, its mission is to defeat him and forcibly implant a new batch of offspring inside him.
- Red Baron: The Phoenician tablets refer to Jinshin-Mushi as the Abomination and "progeny of the Unclean Thing That Lurks in the Shadows Beyond the Light of Creation". The people of Ancient Japan, who gave it the name Jinshin-Mushi, also called it the Earthquake Beetle or the Dragon Beetle.
- Shockwave Stomp: Besides the Ground Punch, its profile notes that its mere footsteps have the force of a salvo of cannons.
- Spikes of Villainy: Where Hokmuto and Femuto have spiked tips at the top of their legs, MUTO Prime has several spiked crests behind her back. Godzilla: Aftershock illustrator Drew E. Johnson notes these spikes act as natural weapons as well as helping to move underground.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Its battles with Godzilla in Guam and France end with it retreating and Godzilla giving pursuit when it's unable to implant its eggs in him, which is all part of its "Get Back Here!" Boss gambit.
- Xenomorph Xerox: Apart from the points listed under the MUTOs' general folder above; it's revealed in Godzilla: Aftershock that Jinshin-Mushi will forcibly beat down and subdue a Titan, implant its eggs in them while they're down, then it will retreat and leave the impregnated host alive and seemingly none the wiser until the eggs feeding on their uranium-rich blood eventually kill them. It's also theorized that this creature's origin is it's the next stage of a regular MUTO's life cycle beyond what we see in the 2014 film. With this trope in mind, one could even argue that Emma Russell ends up filling a Ripley-esque role as the Monarch operative most concerned with aiding Godzilla in defeating Jinshin-Mushi before it can finish what the regular MUTOs started.
- Your Head A-Splode: Godzilla eventually kills it by brutally stomping its head in.
