Son of Godzilla (Japanese: 怪獣島の決戦 ゴジラの息子, Hepburn: Kaijū-tō no Kessen: Gojira no Musuko, lit.

Monster Island's Decisive Battle: Godzilla's Son) is a 1967 Japanese kaiju film directed by Jun Fukuda, with special effects by Sadamasa Arikawa, under the supervision of Eiji Tsuburaya.

It stars Tadao Takashima, Akira Kubo, Akihiko Hirata, and Beverly Maeda, with Hiroshi Sekita, Seiji Onaka, and Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla, and Marchan the Dwarf as Minilla.

A reporter, Maki Goro, arrives on the island to find the scientists somewhat stir-crazy from the events, and is allowed to stay as a maintenance worker.

Eventually finding the woman, Saeko Matsumiya, she is revealed to be the daughter of a previous researcher on the island who warned about a gigantic species of spider.

The balloon detonates prematurely, creating a radioactive storm that causes the giant mantises to grow to enormous sizes.

Investigating the mantises, which are named Kamacuras (Gimantis in the English-dubbed version), the scientists find the monstrous insects digging an egg out from under a pile of earth.

Shortly afterwards, Godzilla arrives on the island in response to the infant's cries, demolishing the scientists' base while rushing to defend the baby.

As the scientists are saved by an American submarine, Godzilla and Minilla embrace and begin to hibernate as they wait for the island to become tropical again.

This included Jun Fukuda (director), Sadamasa Arikawa (special effects), and Masaru Sato (composer).

[13] At the time, Sekizawa was already tired of writing the series and likely complained that he had run out of ideas for further monster movies, and director Jun Fukuda heartily agreed.

[16] Minilla's face was patterned after the character Chibita from the popular manga Osomatsu-kun published by Shogakukan in Weekly Shonen Saturday at the time.

One sequence shows Godzilla leaving Minilla behind on the freezing Sollgel Island and making it to shore before turning back was cut from the final film's ending.

[21] A portion of this sequence has been preserved in both the trailer and an outtake reel included with the Godzilla Final Box DVD collection as supplemental material.

It is unknown who was responsible for these bits being deleted, but it was possibly Tsuburaya since he would not have allowed time and resources to be wasted shooting each such scenes if he was not okay with them in the first place.

[2] The film was released theatrically in the United Kingdom in August 1969, as a double feature with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.