The Godzilla Nickname Avatar’s Creators Gave The Ocean Spirit

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the Ocean Spirit takes a monstrous form that prompted the creators to give it a Godzilla themed nickname. During Avatar’s season 1 finale, “The Siege of the North: Part 2,” the ocean and moon spirits are embodied in two koi fish: Tui, also known as the Moon Spirit, and La, also known as the Ocean Spirit. The spirits reside in a pool known as the Spirit Oasis, located within the walls of the Northern Water Tribe. During the finale, the Fire Nation attacks the Northern Water Tribe and Zhao kills the Moon Spirit to weaken the powers of the tribe’s waterbenders, but this also prompts the Ocean Spirit to retaliate.

In the climax of the battle, the Ocean Spirit, La, leaves the Spirit Oasis, taking the form of a giant, koi-like monster. The Ocean Spirit finds Aang and, with Aang in the Avatar State, their combined power easily overwhelms the Fire Nation. The Ocean Spirit sweeps Fire Nation soldiers into the water, leaving the reverent waterbenders unharmed, and proceeds to the ocean shore, where the Fire Nation fleet awaits. The Ocean Spirit and Aang slice through ships and generate a massive wave that pushes the rest of the fleet back out to sea. This imagery obviously resembles a familiar scene that has been repeated many times with a different monster.

The form that the Ocean Spirit takes during the battle looks a lot like Godzilla and this similarity inspired the nickname Koizilla. The Ocean Spirit, which has many forms, only resembles Godzilla when it takes the glowing blue form that merges with Aang and attacks the Fire Nation. The book Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Art of the Animated Series (written by showrunners Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino) confirms that they “affectionately” referred to this form of the Ocean Spirit as Koizilla, though the nickname is never spoken in the show.

The Ocean Spirit might be more reminiscent of the Forest Spirit’s night-walker form in Princess Mononoke (and it’s well-known that Hayao Miyazaki’s work inspired other creature designs, like Appa, in Avatar), but the influence of Godzilla’s design is also apparent. And though the Ocean Spirit is perhaps a bit more benevolent than the fictional monster that has been terrorizing large cities for decades, Godzilla has inspired countless other portmanteau nicknames, so it’s not at all surprising that the creators would have come up with a Godzilla-inspired nickname for the Ocean Spirit.

Koizilla became the deciding factor in the outcome of the battle between the Fire Nation and the Northern Water Tribe. With the help of Aang, Koizilla is one of the most powerful beings in all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Though the Ocean Spirit’s original form is a vulnerable koi fish, the form it takes when it merges with Aang retains only a few koi-like characteristics. After the two join forces, the Ocean Spirit’s massive size and powerful aquatic assault are certainly reminiscent of the infamous amphibian monster, Godzilla, making both parts of Koizilla’s nickname indeed fitting.

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