Kenkichi Yamane

Kenkichi Yamane (山根健吉 Yamane Kenkichi) is one of the main human protagonists in the 1995 Godzilla film, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. He is the son of Shinkichi Yamane, adopted grandson of Dr. Kyohei Yamane, the adopted nephew of Emiko Yamane, and the brother of Yukari Yamane.

Kenichi was a Japanese college student, and the son of Shinkichi Yamane, a well-known scientist who dedicated his life to studying Godzilla. Kenichi did not share his father's level of passion for studying Godzilla, but did make a hobby out of studying him. Kenichi wrote a thesis paper about Godzilla's internal body structure and mechanisms, but his professor refused to grade it. G-Force was made aware of his paper and attempted to recruit him. Kenichi only accepted when he learned he would be working alongside Miki Saegusa. After studying Godzilla's current condition, Kenichi concluded that he would increase in power before exploding, taking out the entire planet with him. Kenichi believed the only way to effectively destroy Godzilla before his explosion was to kill him the same way the first Godzilla was killed in 1954, using the Oxygen Destroyer. Along with his sister Yukari, he went to investigate Doctor Kensaku Ijuin's 'new' discovery of Micro-Oxygen, and proposed that the doctor make a new Oxygen Destroyer in order to destroy Godzilla, despite his aunt Emiko's protests. Later, after concluding Godzilla would not explode, but undergo an even more catastrophic nuclear meltdown, Kenichi proposed the idea of getting Godzilla to fight Destoroyah, hoping it would cause him to be killed. Kenichi later witnessed Godzilla's meltdown from G-Force Headquarters, and began to lose hope as radioactivity levels skyrocketed. However, he then noticed that the radioactivity in the city was plummeting, thanks to Godzilla Junior's body absorbing the radiation and reviving.