Varan (1958)

Varan; Baran; Baradagi Mountain God; Baradagi; Baradagi-sama; Obake; Varan the Unbelievable

50 meters (164 feet)

90 meters (295 feet)

15,000 metric tons (16,535 short tons)

• Can fly at speeds up to Mach 1.5
• Extreme physical strength and durability; totally immune and impervious to damage from conventional weapons
• Can generate shockwaves and powerful gusts of wind just by flying over an area
• Triphibiousness

• Varan was killed by swallowing several powerful explosives

Varan is portrayed as a curious and introspective monster that closely observes its environment. He is shown to be easily distracted by flares and bright lights. However, Varan is also shown to be aggressive, being precise enough to target and kill individual humans and destroy individual vehicles. Varan is seemingly conscious of his actions and is aware of his habitat around the lake, but is shown to be out of his environment once he reaches Haneda, unfamiliar with the airport.

Varan is an ancient reptilian creature known as a Varanopode, which lived from the Triassic through the Cretaceous Periods. Varan escaped extinction and lived for millions of years at the bottom of a lake in the Japanese countryside. Villagers living near the lake saw Varan as a god, giving him the title of the "Baradagi Mountain God."

After a pair of rare Siberian butterflies were found in Japan by a young boy, two scientists were sent to investigate the area where they were found, near a secluded mountain village, known as Iwaya Village. The scientists were killed by an unknown force, and another team was sent to investigate. There, they encountered the local villagers, who worshiped a mountain god that they called "Baradagi." The team went out to find a boy who became lost in the forest after following his pet, but the villagers warned that they would anger Baradagi. One of the scientists persuaded the villagers to go out to find the boy, but Varan, the "Baradagi" that the villagers worshiped, emerged from the nearby lake and attacked them. Varan killed the village priest and destroyed the village before returning to the lake that he had come from. The J.S.D.F. arrived and surrounded the lake, and opened fire on Varan after luring him out with chemicals. The attack had no effect, and Varan chased two people into a cave. The J.S.D.F. fired flares to distract Varan, prompting him to climb to the top of a cliff. Varan opened large skin membranes under his arms and dove off the cliff, gliding across the sky and towards the ocean. The J.S.D.F. deployed countless destroyers and bombers to try and stop Varan before he could reach the Japanese mainland, but their attacks did little to slow the beast's advance. Eventually, Varan surfaced from Tokyo Bay and attacked Haneda Airport. The J.S.D.F. attacked Varan with all of their available artillery and jets, but still they were unable to harm him.

When Varan destroyed a truck containing experimental explosives, it triggered an explosion that seemed to visibly harm him. The J.S.D.F. quickly tied two of these explosives to flares and then dropped them from helicopters, knowing that Varan would eat the flares. After Varan swallowed the flares, the first bomb exploded inside Varan, causing him to become weak. Varan limped back into the ocean and disappeared beneath the waves before the second bomb exploded, producing a small mushroom cloud over the water. The J.S.D.F. then finally declared the creature dead.

Varan is a primarily quadrupedal reptilian creature with thin membranes between his arms and legs, which he uses for gliding in a manner akin to that of a flying squirrel or sugar glider. Varan's eyes are small with large pupils, his head is round, and he has a short-muzzled face with a lumpy nose and a prominent upper lip. His teeth vary in size, but all of them are more or less conical in shape. He has a barrel-shaped torso with a large sternum. His neck is fairly long and thick and his limbs are relatively long and thin. Varan also has a pair of spiky, fin-like structures on the sides of his face and a single row of large spines that run down from the top of his head to the end of his long, prehensile tail. His hands and feet have five digits each and they have a slender, bony look to them. His spines are clear and translucent, having little to no real color to them, and his hide can be divided into two notable sections: the lowermost sides of his skin are smooth with a slightly baggy or wrinkled feel to them and are a light cream or tan-like sandy brown, while the uppermost parts of his skin are covered with a multitude of bumpy, wart-like structures and are a much darker shade of brown. These two sections are separated by a series of wavy membranes on the sides of his torso, limbs, and tail that straighten to form Varan's gliding membranes.