6. Dagarah (17.5-.5) vs. Guilala (16-2)

[Raptor]

Dagarah took on the Brown Gargantua (Sanda) in Round One while Guilala faced Mothra (Showa).

[anguirus55]

Dude!

The Berem consume life energy, or something like it.

Could Dagarah actually...win? I mean, I doubt Guilala would take him down before he can fire off Berem salvos. And Guilala has a physical form to at least some extent. Mothra couldn't break out of them despite his ability to blast energy through his wings or split into small Mothras. (Pyras reminded me of this last round)

[SuperXAsh]

Whoa... dude...

I'm stumped as of right now on this match. I shall withhold my vote till later.

Man this would be an interesting fight.

[Husnock]

Uhm... Wow.

I mean, there's the whole Berum thing, and if Guilala's pure energy, what would they do to him? And would Dagarah be considered mystical in any sense? Too confusing, I'm gonna withhold my vote until someone can convince me otherwise.

[Cole Deschain]

... Wow. Go Dagarah! The berem! Of course!

BOO-YAH! Take Guilala off the "unkillable" list!

[Solar_Behemoth]

I don't know who would win.... but I sure as hell hope this Dagarah can kill Guillala for this tournament! Hell, I think he may actually win this! YES! Wahoo!

[Aragorn_Strider22]

If I ever get the chance to vote, I'm voting for Dagarah.

His Berem wouldn't be effective if they get overloaded-what kind of pollution fixers would they be if they can only take so much energy? So I am going to hazard a guess and say that the berem WOULD be effective.

And yes, I am fairly sure Dagarah is mystical in nature, didn't it say so in the movie? I haven't seen his movie for a while, and I am in no position to rent it right now.

Winner: Dagarah

[Black16]

The Berem consume life-force...?

Where on earth did that come from?

They make acid and eat pollution, that's all.

In short, the garbage disposle is very dead. The Berem will be turned to cinders once they hit Guilala, as it was shown in film that he can greatly raise his body temp at will. (Melted through a container and proceeded to leave melted foot prints in a concreat floor). He also displayed the ability to draw off the Strong Nuclear force for power. That means if he decided to snack on Dagarah he would come apart on the sub-atomic level. The moment he gets a hold on Dagarah he's dead. End of story.

And the msytic excuse still doesn't wash. Just because a wepon uses some sort of magic based energy to power it doesn't mean the the summoned energy is any less physical. For example, when a laser is fired it is more often than not power by elecricity, but does that mean the laser beam itself gains electrical properties?

No.

If mana is used as a power source to create a plasma ball, does that make the plasma ball different somehow?

But here's the rub. We know Guilala can absorb energy in pretty much every form. Heat, light, nuclear, how do we know that he would have such an adverse reaction to mana? It is, after all, just life energy. Which is what he would have to be converting all these other type into, being that he's a creature of pure energy and all.

I see people making a claim, but I don't see anyone backing it up with film evidence. Let's see it.

[Husnock]

^Uhm... Black? Weren't you the one who first hypothesized that mystical energies might be able to defeat Guilala?

[anguirus55]

The Berem consume life-force...?

Where on earth did that come from?

They make acid and eat pollution, that's all.

That was the speculation, since they kept Mothra from using any of her powers, including her "energy wings" that should have been able to fry them all.

It seems as if they can prevent a kaiju's use of energy in an eventually fatal way.

[Cole Deschain]

Uhm, yeah Black, if all they did was eat trash, they wouldn't have been a problem, now would they?

[HolyGoji777]

i think dagarah ACTUALLY has a chance to pull this one off. its a hard fought battle but i think he can actually win...but once again i cant vote here...

[Gorjirus]

Hm. Dagarah wins this.

From what I remember, the berum were unaffected by energy. Which means, from what I remember from classes at school, the berum must have absorbed/deflected it (but if it was deflected, there would have been damage somewhere). So, if Guilala was surrounded/covered in berum, it would most likely KO him, if not kill him. And Dagarah seemed very beam/attack happy, while Guilala is not. No, Dagarah gets first hit, and victory.

PS: Is it berem or berum?

[Draco Starcloud]

I'll abstain, but didn't the Cosmos shoot off a Berum or two from Leo's hide with their little beam?

[Cole Deschain]

^ I don't think any of us are saying that the Berem are invincible... but there are an awful lot of 'em, and they're hard to get rid of in numbers.

[Draco Starcloud]

My point is that if Berum absorb energy, how could they be shot off by little fairy beams?

I think they just make wicked acid that burns! BURNS!

[anguirus55]

If the Berum don't absorb energy then Leo could have fried them off in seconds.

Likely, the "business end" absorbs energy, leaving their "back" relatively unprotected.

[Tomzilla]

Damn, very good points brought up on Dagarah's part. The berum thing is a possibility and well, if nobody really can give a strong defense against it--we have found one of the few kaiju who [i]isn't[i] an untouchable but can abolish Guilala.

I'll wait for Black's response. Plus, I'll need to rewatch the movie again. If the berum thing doesn't hold ground, however, then Guilala easily takes it. But if it holds up, then Dagarah receives my vote to proceed.

Damn, if given more time and research, Dagarah can gain a lot of recognition that he never had before. Hmmm.... I've already done almost every single possible thing on Space Godzilla. Maybe Dagarah can be the next?

[anguirus55]

I'm significantly proud of the fact that I was able to respond first and thus was the direct cause of the fact that Guilala's been screwed 8-0 by a "mere mortal."

I waited several days to vote for Dag, but eventually I just went ahead and did it...

[Husnock]

Originally Posted by Tomzilla

Damn, if given more time and research, Dagarah can gain a lot of recognition that he never had before. Hmmm.... I've already done almost every single possible thing on Space Godzilla. Maybe Dagarah can be the next?

That'd be awesome of you, Tom! After seeing what you've done for SG, I can't imagine the wealth of info you'd be able to cite and research for a deserving and overlooked powerhouse like Dagarah!

[Black16]

Sorry I didn’t respond sooner, I’ve been having computer woes.

It seems the first thing that needs to be addressed is the Berem question.

Lets look at the assumption itself and what it has as supporting evidence.

1) Leo doesn’t use his beams or fly about after being hit with the Berem.

And that’s it. No where else in the film is it hinted at directly or indirectly that these things somehow block energy conversion. Now I’ve said this before, I don’t think that it’s very responsible to grant a kaiju a new ability from a single dubious bit of data. Data that can be explained just as well without granting the new power. But I doubt this will be heeded, it hasn’t been before. So rather I’ll point out problems with it within the film itself.

1) Dagarah blasting the floating island: If the Berem are so good at halting energy flow, why didn’t Dagarah just Berem-afy the whole of the building and let them drain it rather than peck away while being shot?

2) The Berem got shot on numerous occasion: Every time a Berem was struck by an energy weapon it died. End of story. And if they only absorb energy from one side then why didn’t the Berem just float toward the Mini-Mothra’s the other way and thus absorb the beams rather than dieing?

3) The Berem obviously don’t absorb heat energy: We see them floating on the water and it doesn’t freeze. We see them stuck to Leo and no ice is forming, so they obviously don’t absorb heat energy.

4) The only worry raised about them is the polluting acid caused by the Berem will kill off all the sea life, no life-force draining is ever mentioned: If these things were an aquatic version of Death Ghidorah, don’t you think someone would have mentioned it?

And now, an alternate hypotheses. The Berem’s acid is toxic. This is mentioned repeatedly in film. Because of the toxic effect of the Berem, Leo was too sickly to do much of anything. Now, doesn’t that seem much more reasonable than giving Dagarah a power he was never hinted at having?

[anguirus55]

1) Dagarah blasting the floating island: If the Berem are so good at halting energy flow, why didn’t Dagarah just Berem-afy the whole of the building and let them drain it rather than peck away while being shot?

Because...the building isn't a living thing?

2) The Berem got shot on numerous occasion: Every time a Berem was struck by an energy weapon it died. End of story. And if they only absorb energy from one side then why didn’t the Berem just float toward the Mini-Mothra’s the other way and thus absorb the beams rather than dieing?

Because the Berem are about as smart as real starfish? (That attack is pretty fast, too).

3) The Berem obviously don’t absorb heat energy: We see them floating on the water and it doesn’t freeze. We see them stuck to Leo and no ice is forming, so they obviously don’t absorb heat energy.

This is an interesting point. They probably can't get nourishment from the water because it isn't alive, and they are already getting enough "mystical" energy from Leo.

4) The only worry raised about them is the polluting acid caused by the Berem will kill off all the sea life, no life-force draining is ever mentioned: If these things were an aquatic version of Death Ghidorah, don’t you think someone would have mentioned it?

You got me here, although I think very little of the intelligence of all characters in these films.

What clinches it for me is that I see no scenario in which Leo can't fry the Berem or split apart before they do him serious harm unless they are directly preventing him from doing so. It takes time for toxins to get in the system, maybe not very much time, but time nonetheless, especially since they are only coating the outside of a very large creature who repeatedly scorns the laws of physics.

But if this post had come 24 hours earlier I might've gone with "tie." Sorry about your computer troubles, Black.

[Black16]

Ang55 said:

Because...the building isn't a living thing?

It’s very possible that Guilala isn’t “a living thing” either. From descriptions from our wonky scientists and observation it seems most likely that Guilala is primarily a construct of plasmas and electro-magnetic energies contained within a physical shell of whatever is at hand. I’m not even sure if he could be considered “alive” in the normal sense of the word.

Because the Berem are about as smart as real starfish? (That attack is pretty fast, too).

It seems strange that every single one just randomly happened to be facing acid shooter first then.

This is an interesting point. They probably can't get nourishment from the water because it isn't alive, and they are already getting enough "mystical" energy from Leo.

There were many other instances where we see Berem simply floating in the water or clinging to other objects. I’m simply pointing out that even if they can absorb energy of some sort it isn’t physical, which is pretty much all Guilala is… well… maybe.

What clinches it for me is that I see no scenario in which Leo can't fry the Berem or split apart before they do him serious harm unless they are directly preventing him from doing so. It takes time for toxins to get in the system, maybe not very much time, but time nonetheless, especially since they are only coating the outside of a very large creature who repeatedly scorns the laws of physics.

They Berem were stuck to Leo several seconds while he was stuck in the cyclone, if the venom began making its way into him from that point forward it would have saturated his outer tissues pretty fast. And that isn’t considering any “super advanced civilization technology” involved.

But there still could be a little bit of time where Leo could have blasted them loose. But he didn’t, why? That’s what he tends to do when he gets hit hard, sit on the ground and do nothing. He did that same thing after getting floored by GKG, so it seems reasonable that Dagarah’s Berem Cyclone packed enough of a punch to stagger Leo, leaving enough time for the Berem to poison him.

[Cole Deschain]

^ Sorry Black, I don't buy it...now hear me out.

Dagarah is at least quasi-mystical, right? However, there are some basic physical realties he has to obey... and if the berem simply absorbed all forms of energy in the surrounding environment, they'd kill him just as swfitly as they kill anything else. Hence, they don't freeze water, or chill the air. No, the acid probably works on base material matter... But Mothra Leo was demonstratably hurt by them. Now yes, there was a lot of acid in that scenario- piles of it, to tell the truth. But why didn't Leo just fry the little buggers off immediately, before getting "sick"? As I recall, Leo didn't even seem to try the glowing wing schtick.

Clearly, the Berem do something to short out the opposition, and life, at least temporarily.

Now, as for Guilala- we know he's got a physical form, and we know that things can smack into him (generally just making him nastier). He is, however, as you pointed out, not "conventional" life.

However, I hold the opinion that he's as much "alive" to Dagarah's Berem as Mothra Leo. Leo (and all Mothras, while we're at it) is a decidely unnatural creature. The only even remotely natural things about Leo are the shapes it inhabits and the process of coccooning to change forms.

Guilala, as a matter of fact, seems more alive, since he eats to grow larger. Yes, his diet's a little odd, but so is Heisei Godzilla's, and we all more or less agree he's alive. What, exactly, do Mothras feed upon? Mana? The prayers of their faithful? Either way, their method of feeding is every bit as strange, just not as swift. Beyond the bizzarre diet, Guilala appears very much a typical giant biped, with some funny powers thrown in.

Not saying you're wrong, I'm saying you approach the situation differently than I did, which is why I disagree.

[Tomzilla]

Just to add:

Recall in the movie of where the Elias tried to blast the berum off of Mothra's body. Now the possibility of Leo being stunned and unable to muster enough energy to blast the parasites off his body is acceptable, but it never stopped Leo from firing rapid energy blasts before. From what I've seen, just delivering electric bolts from his wings or energy blasts from his forehead didn't take up so much power and concentration.

But while Mothra was flying, the Elias attempted to use their own energy blasts to get the berum off but failed (after a few blasts, just a 'few' berum were knocked off). There's something amidst here. Even when worn out and just sitting there, Mothra never had needed assistance in that way to have his fairies move in to pose some distraction or to heal him (was usually some outside force to heal him or something). But the Elias tried to get them off for a reason and that reason in my opinion was so Mothra could use his powers. All he could really do was fly around, land and take hits.

Though they could've just been trying to get them off because they sensed it was harming Leo and/or burning his flesh with their toxic acids. But the fact is, Leo didn't even try to blast the little pests off. He may have been stunned from Dagarah's tornado assault, but hey--he was able to fly around, right? That and I recall Leo being 'helped' by that ancient city (Nili Kanai, think that's how it is spelt) and literally being taken to the surface of the water. Whatever it was, it gave Leo more energy, but Leo never attempted to fire another attack. He did it only once with the berum on and that was it. And that one shot was from the forehead region, where the berum were not present.

I'll try to add more later.