King Ghidorah's reputation

you have a good point gman, i think king ghidorah and mothra are toho's personal favourites, i considered godzilla mothra and king ghidorah as toho's big 3 monsters and they work so well with each other when you think about it.

Well not just Toho's, but the fans' favorites I think as well... Sometimes I'm baffled that Rodan isn't a part of that group, as he's fairly proven as well. I'd still like to see him in more though. That much I can agree with Durp on.

yeah considering rodan was one of the 3 monsters that got connected to one franchise but had a standalone movie i do think that rodan is under appreciated ( his role was good in g vs mg2) but i consider him better than angirus (no offence angirus fans) and rodan and mothra can work in stand alone movies seperate to the godzilla franchise.

Yes, but as you said a lot of that original popularity has to do with when their movie came out, and the setting for it. Decades don't matter if your original material is thought of as weak, as people won't go back to it to re-evaluate it. Granted we as fans of the series will thus we grow an appreciation for every monster in the series as we notice things no matter how subtle in every rewatch. I used to hate Mothra as a child simply because it baffled me in the original movie how 2 larvae beat the unstoppable Gozilla. Now while Mothra still isn't 1 of my favorite characters I can at least appreciate it. Had I not been a fan I would have probably seen the movie once dismissed it and hated Mothra with a passion since. Thus for the average viewer even in japan i would think as these movies don't hold the same stature they did at 1 point as evident by the success of the millennium series they may not know much about some of the older monsters, but every generation has gotten a chance to see Ghidorah, and this is a 40 year difference. It's not like the same people who went to the movies when Ghidorah the 3 headed monster and when Godzilla vs the Sea monster originally premiered are the major crowd attending movies now. Tastes and preferences change with different generations and the times. monsters that did well before might seem stupid now, and monster who didn't quite catch on may look very good to the current crowd.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to argue here, but I'll sort it out and aleve some misconceptions. First the Millennium series is largely not considered a success. Toho was happy with the performance of two movies (guess which two), two others only did servicable business and the other two outright flopped. Hard.

Meanwhile, Mothra is considered one of, if not the, most popular Godzilla adversary in Japan. This is of course why the Mothra Trilogy was done after the Heisei Godzilla movies. Mothra appeals to the female demograph and because women outnumber men in that country, we have see a lot of love for Mothra.

As for how the earlier movies are seen-- Fairly positive actually. Most the Heisei and Millennium movies were made for a niche group. Namely the fans. But the early Showa movies had no problem reaching wide audiences and being remembered for it. This is also due to the fact that the actors in the early films were widely considered some of the best in Japan: A-list superstars that were often in Akira Kurasawa masterpieces and Takashi Shimura made several appearences-- A man who Time magazine felt confident enough to call "The Greatest Actor in the World." Those are factors that don't exactly go away when recalling old movies.

So it's not a forgotten legacy which may be why other monsters don't get the love or popularity from more audiences. There's a reason the 1960s were called the Golden Age of Kaiju Eiga. Even if current generations didn't see Ghidorah 40 years ago, they're well aware of his legacy.

I feel you missed the point I was trying to make. I'm well aware the millenium didn't do well hence why I used it's box office as a conparison to the lower stature the movies had from past generations. I was simply using mothra as an example of how a younger audience could see any godzilla movie, mothra being my example because as a fan and rewatching it changed my perception of the character something the average person wouldn't do if they disliked a movie. Mothra in that example could be changed with any old toho monster, Megalon, Gabara, Ebirah, ect could all fill his role for the setting of some1 watching the movie, thinking the storyline or movie itself was weak, and dismissing the character altogether, thus older enemies are left out in favor of the more popular ones creating the endless cycle of those monsters gaining popularity while the others aren't used and never get a chance.

Yes people are aware of Ghidorah, but are they aware of all the Godzilla monsters that have been used? Chances are during their lifetime at some point a Ghidorah movie has come out so if you're interested in the character from there they explore the other movies he's in promoting the characters popularity. This isn't the case with other monsters though who haven't been used recently. If you never see Megalon(just an example monster any old underrated Godzilla friend or foe could be put in this situation) in a new movie would you be interested? No of course not as there's nothing putting him in the spotlight to give an interest to him.  This brings me back to my point of while Megalon's original movie didn't do well that came out roughly 40 years ago and tastes of movie crowds change. He could be brought back and be received very well, but that will never get the chance as that idea would almost 100% be thrown out in favor of bringing back a monster like Ghidorah and Mothra aaaand the cycle would continue.

Main point being back to what I said originally those monsters are popular because they're forced on you. No point being a fan of titanosaurus, or jet jaguar as chances are you'll never see that monster again, but if you can at least make yourself get behind Ghidorah or Mothra your monster will always be returned to at 1 point or another. True the fans make these monster popular and thus toho keeps returning to them, but when you give 3 monsters an appearance in over half the movie entries you're basically cornering out the competition. It's like if there was a Ms America pageant and 5 contestants got to participate in every round while others just came in for 1 of 2 of course those 5 would win, and of course they'd be the favorites as the others have no real way to compete with that.Probably a bad example but you get my drift.

The hilarious Ms. America pagent example not withstanding, that does make more sense. Still I would argue that these monsters aren't being "forced" on the fanbase if there was a generational cry for them from the beginning. You said yourself King Ghidorah and Mothra are used the most-- quite frankly the generational between them isn't large enough to simply be passed on from one curious fan to another, they tend to be cross generational with the amount they're used-- the exception maybe being the jump from Showa to Heisei.

It's an interesting argument for other monsters; the idea that if some were used today it might be different. Still, using the argument "fans make these monsters popular", I can't say I've seen a massive, collective cry for something like Megalon or most of the original Heisei monsters. I have for Gigan and (at least in America) Anguirus, but those two at least got some limelight in Godzila Final Wars after an annoyingly long wait.

But at this point we're debating the symantics on how popularity exists. I don't see how anything's been forced on the audience if there's a demand for it or if it's embraced.  King Ghidorah has stood the test of time in the same sense Godzilla has. The unfortunate thing is both Godzilla and King Ghidorah's popularity are also part of a right-place-right-time scenerio that other monsters people have brought up were not privy to. Would something like Captain America had worked if it were released today a opposed to the early 1940s? Of course not, but it's endured all the way to today because of that initial success.