The Gotengo (轟天号, Gōten-gō, "Roaring Heaven"), also known in the West as Atragon, is a fictional submarinebattleship that has appeared in several tokusatsufilms of Toho Company, Ltd., beginning with Atragon in 1963. It was first conceived by author Shunrō Oshikawa in his 1899 novelKaitei Gunkan ("Undersea Battleship"), of which Atragon was an adaptation produced by Toho Studios. The submarine is heavily armed and armored, but its trademark tactic is to ram and sink enemy ships. In cinema, the submarine is easily identifiable by the enormous drill on its bow; it is also notable for being able to burrow underground and fly. The Gotengo also makes an appearance in the film for Toho's The War in Space and Chousei Kantai Sazer-X, Chousei Kantai Sazer-X: Fight! Warriors of the Stars. While the name of the ship is recited as "Goten-gō" in Japanese, it should be rendered as "Goten" in English; as the suffix, 号 (gō), simply denotes the object as a ship.
The War in Space (1977) - Redesigned as a space battleship, but containing the basic design elements as well as new weapons (such as an unattachable drill which acts as a very destructive projectile weapon) to fight off an evil alien invasion force on Venus.
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) - The Gotengo is used mostly for battling monsters in the 2004 Millennium Godzilla film Godzilla: Final Wars. For instance, in the first sequence it is battling the monster Godzilla in the 1960s, resulting in Godzilla's burial under hundreds of feet of ice. Immediately after the opening credits, the Gotengo is locked in battle against the sea dragon Manda, which the ship defeats with an emergency maneuver through an underwater volcano and a combination of the Absolute Zero Cannon and drill. Later on, during the Xilien-induced monster attacks on major cities, the Gotengo is dispatched to destroy them. However, the only weapon that truly works to destroy the alien threat is Godzilla himself.
Video games
Godzilla: Monster of Monsters (NES - 1988) - In this game, one of the hyperspace areas that can be encountered is a battle against a giant alien spaceship that resembles the Gotengo. Smaller versions of the Gotengo can also be encountered as stage enemies. They fly at the top of the screen, but attack slowly by dropping bombs onto the player. They are near-impossible to defeat, because they are usually positioned out of the player's reach.
