VeeFriends Issue 12 Explained: History, Mythology, and the Bird that Eats Nuclear Explosions

VeeFriends Issue 12 is the brand's first introduction of a kaiju character. So let's start by defining what a kaiju is for the majority of individuals who have never heard this word before. 

Kaiju is a Japanese word that literally means “strange beast,” but it has come to be associated specifically with giant monsters. It is both singular and plural. The most famous kaiju you know are King Kong and Godzilla. VeeFriends introduces what is sure to become the third most popular kaiju: Mindful Minokawa. 

Transparently, prior to my wife asking me questions about what I was reading as I flipped through VeeFriends Issue 12, I did not realize that a Minokawa is not a real bird in our world. I thought it was a brother to the parrot or the macaw or something like that. 

VeeFriends Issue 12 takes place during World War II. This is a clear example of how VeeFriends blends real world history with its own fictional events. It's a unique combination that’s not unheard of, but it leaves me constantly wondering what they will and won’t alter in the real world. What if they do an issue where it turns out one of the VeeFriends killed JFK? That would be wild, but for now let's take a look at how they’ve chosen to blend history with fiction in VeeFriends Issue 12.

March 10, 1945, Tokyo 

The issue begins in Tokyo on March 10, 1945. On the night of March 9–10, 1945, the United States carried out a massive firebombing raid on the city, one of the deadliest air attacks in history, devastating large sections of Tokyo and killing tens of thousands of civilians. From there, we shift into VeeFriends history, as Japan’s direct response to the Tokyo bombings, according to VeeFriends Issue 12, is to urge the completion of their ongoing Project Minokawa.

White House, July, 1945

From there, the issue cuts to the White House in July 1945. In VeeFriends Issue 11, we saw the team choose to move away from historical accuracy. Despite the issue being set in the year 2025 on modern-day Earth, Donald Trump was not depicted as the sitting president. In VeeFriends Issue 12, however, they choose to honor historical accuracy, depicting Harry Truman as the sitting president, even though he is not directly named. 

The president’s counselors advise him that the only way to combat Japan’s upcoming doomsday device, Project Minokawa, is to release a doomsday device of their own before the enemy has the chance to deploy theirs. They inform him that Project Trinity was a success, proving their weapon is ready to be deployed to end the war. 

On July 16, 1945, the United States conducted the Trinity test in New Mexico, successfully detonating the first nuclear bomb in human history.

Top Secret Location In The Philippines 

VeeFriends Issue 12 then shifts to a top-secret location in the Philippines that resembles a tropical island, where Project Minokawa is being completed. The plan is to use POWs, prisoners of war, as forced labor to create a mindless monster that will win the war for Japan. This is where the story takes a strange twist. 

A prisoner named Babaylan, being held in the POW camp outside of Project Minokawa, is in possession of a magical lotus seed. Okay. How? This detail isn’t explained by VeeFriends Issue 12 or anything else in the VeeFriends lore up until this point. As readers, we are meant to accept this magical injection point with the understanding that introducing magic is one of the ways VeeFriends weaves itself into the real history of our world. That doesn’t mean we should stop asking these questions, but it does mean we shouldn’t let our lack of answers distract from the plot.

Babaylan explains to another prisoner named Sandro that the seed will free Project Minokawa, but he does not explain what that means. Trusting that it is for the best, Sandro agrees to take the seed from Babaylan and add it into the creation recipe mix for Project Minokawa during his next forced labor session.  

We are left to wonder. Who is this Babaylan that has access to magical artifacts? Why didn’t his magic prevent him from becoming a prisoner of war? How come whoever captured him didn’t confiscate this possession?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 1945

The issue cuts to a page with three settings: August 6, 1945 Hiroshima; August 9, 1945 Nagasaki; and September 1945. These are all historical references. On August 6, 1945, the United States detonated the first atomic bomb used in war over Hiroshima, devastating the city and marking the beginning of nuclear warfare. Three days later, on August 9, a second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Within weeks, Japan formally surrendered, bringing World War II to an end in September of 1945. In other words, the real world war ended exactly where this page suggests it did. But in the VeeFriends Universe, the story is about to reveal that something else was happening behind the scenes at the exact same moment in history.

Top Secret Location In The Philippines

Back to the Philippines...

Despite the war being over, Project Minokawa continues on to completion. The mad scientist leading the project expects the creature to be mindless and controllable when it is born, but he does not know about Babaylan’s magic seed. The mad scientist straps himself into some sort of command center as Mindful Minokawa begins to awaken. As this happens, alarms blare throughout the facility, and it becomes clear that the completion of Project Minokawa will culminate in an explosion of the chamber and apparatus used to birth the creature. 

Suddenly, there is a tremendous Kaboom, and Mindful Minokawa is born. His emergence takes up an entire page and is visually one of the most beautiful and appealing panels in the VeeFriends comic series up until this point. There is death and destruction everywhere. Fire and debris rain down from the sky. Confused soldiers do not know whether to fight or flee. Bodies lie on the ground.

Mindful Minokawa stands triumphantly as the giant at center stage of the action. His first order of business? Devour the pesky and puny mad scientist who is foolishly still barking, “I am your master.” Thanks to Babaylan and his magic seed, Mindful Minokawa is his own master. 

As Mindful Minokawa flies away from the wreckage, we see that Sandro has been killed in the chaos and crossfire. Was it worth sacrificing his life for this result? 

The issue transitions to its next setting: Bikini Atoll, 1946. Another history lesson.

In 1946, the United States selected Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands as the site for Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapons tests designed to study the effects of atomic bombs on naval fleets and military equipment. The tests required the relocation of the island’s inhabitants and marked the beginning of large-scale nuclear testing in the Pacific. 

Bikini Atoll, 1945

In the years that followed, Bikini Atoll would become one of the most famous nuclear testing sites in the world, forever linking the location to the early development of atomic weapons. It has also been speculated that “Bikini Bottom” from the popular children's television show SpongeBob SquarePants is a reference to Bikini Atoll. 

However, in the VeeFriends Issue 12 version of Bikini Atoll, 1946, Mindful Minokawa makes an appearance. As the mushroom cloud plumes, we see Mindful Minokawa soaring through the sky, siphoning the radioactive aftermath of conflagration and decaying isotopes into its mouth. 

Test Site, Nevada, 1951

Then the setting jumps to Nevada, 1951. Another historical reference. In 1951, the United States began a series of nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site, located in the desert northwest of Las Vegas. These tests were part of the ongoing effort to develop and refine atomic weapons during the early years of the Cold War. For more than a decade, dozens of nuclear detonations would take place in the Nevada desert, many of them visible from nearby cities, as the world entered a new era defined by the power and danger of nuclear technology.

Guess who shows up again to engorge himself with nuclear energy. If you guessed Mindful Minokawa, you guessed correctly. Apparently, a nuclear explosion is just a tasty snack for Mindful Minokawa. 

East Berlin 1945

At this point, the issue transitions again to East Berlin, 1953. Now the scientists are starting to realize that every time Mindful Minokawa consumes a radioactive plume, it increases in size. For some reason, this page is also illustrated in black and white, whereas the rest of the pages in this issue are in color. It's an interesting contrast that leads me to wonder if there is significance or hidden meaning in this color choice. As we have seen, color choice is frequently a thematic device used to communicate deeper meaning in the VeeFriends Universe. But that does not mean it always functions in that capacity. This could also just be a visual stylistic decision. 

The setting jumps again to the Philippines, 1955. There is a lot of setting jumping in this issue. It's fast-paced and follows the narrative of Mindful Minokawa through those who experience it instead of focusing on the point of view of Mindful Minokawa itself or any of the other characters. It's an interesting way to tell the story. It works for the fast-paced plot and storyline, but it also makes it difficult for the reader to get a sense of the personality of Mindful Minokawa, given that we are experiencing it only as brief onlookers across shifting reference points. In addition to the pace, the fact that Mindful Minokawa has no speaking lines also makes it difficult to get a sense for the personality of this character. 

Philippines, 1945

This transition to the Philippines seems to exist solely to establish that the real-world lore of the mythological Minokawa is incorporated into the VeeFriends character. That said, if you do not already know the myth, this page does not adequately explain what it is doing. There is just a native-looking man walking around with an Indiana Jones-looking character, talking about how the Minokawa eats the moon. So let's discuss. 

The name Minokawa itself comes from Philippine mythology. In those legends, the Minokawa is a colossal dragon-like bird said to live beyond the sky and powerful enough to swallow the moon. Ancient stories describe the creature attempting to devour the moon during lunar eclipses, with villagers banging drums and making loud noises to scare the beast away and force it to release the sky. In other words, the Minokawa was originally a mythological explanation for eclipses, imagined as a cosmic bird large enough to threaten the balance of the heavens. 

Then another setting shift: Operation Plumbbob, 1957. Another historical reference. Operation Plumbbob was a massive series of nuclear tests conducted by the United States in Nevada during 1957, as the Cold War pushed the country deeper into the development and refinement of atomic weaponry. By this point, nuclear testing had become not just an experiment, but an ongoing system of escalation.

This time, the scene is framed as though the military forces on the ground were anticipating the appearance of Mindful Minokawa, and when he arrives they immediately begin a vicious missile barrage assault against him. Unfortunately for those soldiers, Mindful Minokawa is completely unfazed. If anything, it is annoyed. The kaiju rages against the fighter jets in the sky. Despite their number and speed, they are no match for him. 

After all their firepower has failed them, the military’s last resort appears to be a coordinated sonic blast, with a fleet of trucks deploying devices aimed directly at Mindful Minokawa. While this does not appear to wound him, it does cause him to retreat for the time being. The military is left to regroup, recoup their losses, and figure out a new plan. 

White House, United States, February 1958

The final scene transition brings us to the last page of the issue: February 1958. A man who appears to represent American intelligence at the White House is recapping the news about Mindful Minokawa to someone else, urging that the only solution to combat it is to find “something much bigger.”

In the final panel of the issue, we see that a single feather from Mindful Minokawa’s wings is almost larger than the entire White House.

OMG. Does that mean this is leading to an epic, colossal kaiju-on-kaiju battle? Who is going to be the kaiju for the United States? I eagerly await that question being answered when the rest of this storyline is eventually developed. Truculent T-Rex is certainly a potential candidate. Does he play the Godzilla role in this story? Or will VeeFriends surprise us with their next kaiju presentation by selecting an unexpected character? What about Major Moth as a Mothra-type character? 

At first glance, VeeFriends Issue 12 looks like a giant monster story. But by the time the issue ends, it becomes clear that it is doing something much bigger than simply introducing a kaiju to the VeeFriends Universe.

This issue shows how the world reacts when humanity creates forces it does not fully understand or cannot control. Project Minokawa begins as an attempt to weaponize power during one of the most destructive periods in human history. Instead, it gives birth to something entirely outside of human authority. Mindful Minokawa is not a tool. It is not a weapon. It is a force of nature.

The decision to place this story inside real historical events makes the concept even more interesting. Nuclear weapons, Cold War escalation, and global military experiments were all real attempts by humanity to harness unimaginable destructive power. By weaving Mindful Minokawa into that timeline, VeeFriends reframes those events through a mythological lens. Instead of humanity alone controlling nuclear energy, the story imagines a creature capable of consuming it, growing stronger from it, and existing beyond the reach of the governments trying to stop it.

The mythology behind the Minokawa adds another layer to that idea. In Philippine legend, the Minokawa attempts to swallow the moon itself, threatening the balance of the heavens. In VeeFriends, that same mythological concept evolves into something modern: a creature that feeds on the most dangerous energy humanity has ever created.

And yet, even with all of that destruction and escalation, the character is called Mindful Minokawa.

That word choice feels intentional. The creature may be enormous and terrifying, but it is not portrayed as evil. It is simply existing within the world humanity helped create. The real question moving forward may not be how to destroy Mindful Minokawa, but whether humanity is capable of understanding it.

The final page pushes the scale of the story even further. If the only way to stop Mindful Minokawa is to find something “much bigger,” then this may be the beginning of a much larger kaiju storyline inside the VeeFriends Universe.

If that’s the case, Issue 12 may not just be the introduction of a monster.It may be the moment the VeeFriends Universe officially enters its kaiju era. And if that feather on the final page is any indication of the scale we’re dealing with, whatever comes next is going to be enormous.

After The Issue

If what resonated here wasn’t just the review, but the way identity, intent, and character traits were treated as forces that shape reality, that same line of thinking didn’t stop with this article.

Inspired by how VeeFriends treats character traits as forces that shape reality, I created Alien Traits: a 1-of-1 NFT series interpreting each of the 251 core traits. No repeats. Each visual piece also includes a written definition of the trait it represents in OpenSea's "About" section. 

It isn’t VeeFriends art. It’s a parallel conversation with the ideas underneath it.

Explore the full Alien Traits collection here: https://opensea.io/collection/alien-traits

Up Next

If you enjoyed VeeFriends Issue 12 Explained, next up is VeeFriends Issue 13 Explained!