Shin Godzilla 

In the 2016 film Shin Godzilla, this kaiju is often referred to as Gojira (呉爾羅), a name given to him by zoologist Goro Maki, which in his native Odo Island dialect of Japanese means "Incarnation of God" or "God Incarnate" (神の化身 Kami no Keshin), and also serves as the monster's subtitle. Maki also gave the monster the English name "Godzilla," which was adopted by the American Department of Energy (D.O.E.) to refer to him. Once the Japanese government learns of the creature's name, they change the kanji spelling of its name to katakana (ゴジラ), though it is still pronounced Gojira. Uniquely among all other incarnations of Godzilla, this version of the character is primarily referred to by his Japanese name Gojira in the film's English subtitles and dub rather than by his English name. Prior to learning of the name "Gojira," the Japanese government gives this Godzilla specimen the designation of "Giant Unidentified Life Form" (巨大不明生物 Kyodai Fumei Seibutsu).

Although this kaiju is never referred to as "Shin Godzilla" in the film, the name is reflected in official merchandise; the character is referred to by both the katakana "Gojira" and its English translation "Godzilla" interchangeably in the film.

Shin Godzilla's design was a new interpretation on the Godzilla character, as Anno and Higuchi chose have Shin Godzilla come in many forms. Anno and Higuchi wanted the kaiju to mutate throughout the film, even as far as demonstrating the creature shed its skin by tearing itself out of its old body, but Toho vetoed the idea. However, Anno and Higuchi could still get away with unusual designs, so long as they evolved into a more conventional form of the character.

Shin Godzilla's first form is ambiguous with only the tail and back of the first form being seen in the film. Though concept art behind the film depict it to be a tadpole-like creature with two legs that were primitive in looks.

Shin Godzilla second form stood horizontally, with its body held parallel to the ground, this form had small stubs in place of arms, and huge eyes with small black pupils. Unlike Shin Godzilla's later forms, the second form possesses a sickly-yellow complexion, with red exposed muscle on its back and shark-like gills that frequently bleed, indicating that it struggles to breathe outside the water, the form has the same long tail from the first form with a fluke at the end it similar to the first form.

The third form is much like traditional Godzilla incarnations in regards to appearance, the form is bipedal with more stronger and more developed hindlimbs and the ability to assume a stance much like a modern Godzilla possesses, smaller forelimbs and a long neck compared to its body. In this form, a red glow can be visibly seen from its fins, indicating that its mutation consumes much energy and produced a lot of heat. The creature's gills also have shrunk and closed up suggesting that this form has now adapted to breathe on land.

The fourth form of Shin Godzilla is very much akin to traditional designs, being fully bipedal, with a fully developed row of dorsal spines, and a much taller height compared to Shin's prior forms. The shade of skin for this form is a much darker black color with red glowing highlights around and those exposed parts of the body such as his neck, back and legs. His face has no cheeks, no lips, but has multiple rows of jagged and gnarled teeth that are irregularly shaped and jut out from everywhere. Shin's eyes didn't possess any eyelids, but a protective nictating membrane would cover the eyes in case if any explosions happen close to the eyes. It used the membrane again when releasing the thermal flame and the atomic breath. The most well-known alteration to Shin Godzilla was the tail, which was double the height of the entire body.

After being forcefully fed with a blood coagulant, Shin Godzilla went into a stage where his entire body freezes and shuts down, but to fight humans, it had to evolve to be like them, and his response was to spawn his own creatures on his tail, Shin Godzilla's fifth form takes on a humanoid appearance with Godzilla-like dorsal plates running up their spines, the models for the evolution show that the humanoids lack eyes, despite the concept art of the design originally having the humanoids possess them, with a large divide running down their cranium, these humanoid creatures were seen sprouting from the tail of the larger fourth form at the end of the film.

A deleted scene within the film showed the monster's ability could replicate through any matter separated from itself, in the scene where the JSDF investigate areas contaminated with radiation find a biomass, a mass of flesh, that was blown off from Shin Godzilla by the bunker-buster bombs, and this biomass had sprouted eyes and teeth.

• Self-mutation - Shin Godzilla has the ability to spontaneously modify and mutate his own genome to adapt to any situation, and counter whatever countered him.

• Atomic breath - In Shin Godzilla, his atomic breath was completely different as it started off as a black smoke that was fired from his vocal orifice. This was then ignited into an orange stream of fire nicknamed the Super Thermal Radiation Particle Belt Flame (short name: Thermal Flame), the flames were then condensed into a purple plasma beam dubbed as the Radiation Heat Beam.

• Photons - Shin Godzilla also releases several beams, known as "photons", from his dorsal plates, Though these don't emit much radiation as much as the atomic breath does.

• Tail beam - While Shin Godzilla was battling the JSDF during Operation Yashiori, Shin Godzilla redirect his atomic powers into his mouth and pushed it into his tail, and shot a beam out of the tail.

• Durability - Shin Godzilla is extremely durable and resistant to most conventional weaponry thanks to his armor in his fourth form. When assaulted by the JSDF's AH-64 Apache and AH-1 Cobra helicopters and Type 10 Tanks, he did not seem at all aware of their attacks and was completely unharmed. Even bombs dropped by fighter jets directly on him were unable to harm him.

• Anti-Flash Defensive Membrane - When the JSDF dropped bombs on his head, Shin Godzilla deployed a pair of nictitating membranes to cover his eyes, both from direct damage towards his eye and from bright light sources that could affect his eyesight, such as the explosions caused by the detonating weaponry. He used them again when he first unleashed his atomic breath.