Godzilla was designed by Teizo Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe under Eiji Tsuburaya's supervision. Early on, Tanaka contemplated on having the monster be gorilla-like or whale-like in design due to the name "Gojira" (a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla which is gorira, and whale which is kujira) but eventually settled on a dinosaur-like design.