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This article is about the Category III Kaiju in the film. You may be looking for the Knifehead (disambiguation page).


Pacific Rim

Knifehead is a Category III Kaiju that attacked Anchorage, Alaska in 2020.

Biology[]

Large and bulky, Knifehead is a heavily built Kaiju. Its most notable feature is its long and broad, sharp-ended nose, which can easily cut through the armor of a Jaeger. Atop the center of its head resides a blowhole that forcefully expels air whenever it resurfaces from the water.[3] It has large, shell-like armor on its back while the rest of its body is similar to that of a goblin shark in appearance.

Knifehead possesses two large, dominant arms and two smaller, secondary arms protruding from its belly. Its large arms each have three-clawed digits, the middle digit being significantly larger. It also has a tail. Bright yellow lines run across its body, with the rest of its body being a dark grey. Its eyes and the interior of its mouth, however, glow blue.

Like Slattern, Trespasser, and Scunner, Knifehead's primary forearm bones have a fleshless gap between them, looking like two fused arms ending in three-digited claws. Knifehead is the largest Category III Kaiju recorded so far, topping the record made by the Kaiju Yamarashi.

History[]

Knifehead emerges from the Breach on February 29, 2020 and heads for Anchorage, Alaska.[3] In a move to head the creature off, Romeo Blue is deployed to defend the ten-mile mark.[1] However, Knifehead evades the Mark-1 Jaeger and continues on its way to Anchorage.

Gipsy Danger, piloted by brothers Raleigh and Yancy Becket, is deployed from the Anchorage Shatterdome to defend the Miracle Mile. As Knifehead approaches the city at night during a violent storm, it encounters a fishing boat called the Saltchuck. Knifehead is so large that the crew initially mistakes the Kaiju for an island before they realize that the "island" is moving towards them.[3] Knifehead rises from the water and advances on the Saltchuck to attack it. However, it is intercepted by Gipsy Danger, who rises from the water aft of the Saltchuck and moves the boat out of harm's way.

Knifehead receives a right and left uppercut from Gipsy Danger, followed by a two-handed smash to the top of its head from the Jaeger’s fists. It lunges as Gipsy Danger raises its left arm defensively, catching the arm in its teeth. Gipsy Danger pushes forward and fends Knifehead off, and fires three blasts from its right-arm plasma cannon. Knifehead falls backward into the water and sinks out of sight, apparently dead. At the Anchorage Shatterdome’s LOCCENT, its signature vanishes.[3]

Moments later, Knifehead’s signature reappears on radar and the injured Kaiju attacks Gipsy Danger while its pilots are distracted, aiming for the Jaeger's Conn-Pod. When Gipsy Danger attempts to fire its left-arm plasma cannon, Knifehead drives the sharp end of its nose into Gipsy Danger’s left shoulder and tears the Jaeger's left arm clean off.[3]

Knifehead sinks its claws into Gipsy Danger's Conn-Pod and tears off a large section of the cockpit’s right side, killing Yancy. The Kaiju continues to relentlessly attack Gipsy Danger, using its nose and teeth to tear through the Jaeger's armor. As Knifehead grapples with Gipsy Danger, Raleigh, straining with the effort of operating the Jaeger by himself, charges and fires Gipsy Danger's right-arm plasma cannon into the Kaiju's face at point-blank range, killing Knifehead once and for all.[3]

Tales From Year Zero[]

Following Knifehead's attack in Alaska, the Kaiju's remains are dissected and studied by the Pan Pacific Defense Corps' K-Science Division.[note 1] Four years later, its skull is put on display in the Anchorage Shatterdome.[4][note 2]

Legacy[]

Knifehead's battle with Gipsy Danger marks a turning point in the Kaiju War. In all previous battles, the Kaiju had been unthinking brutes, easily defeated by the intelligence, weaponry and tactics of the Rangers and their Jaegers.

Knifehead is the first Kaiju to display overt intelligence and cunning in the battle. Subsequent engagements with the Kaiju over the next five years demonstrate the beasts' increasing power, intelligence, and their ability to adapt to the Jaegers' weapons and the tactics of their pilots.

During Gipsy Danger's battle with the Category IV Kaiju Leatherback in 2025, Raleigh Becket insists on "checking for a pulse" after he and Mako Mori take the Kaiju down, apparently remembering how Knifehead was able to blindside Gipsy Danger and kill Yancy by faking its death. To that end, Raleigh and Mako fire four more shots into Leatherback's corpse from Gipsy Danger's left-arm plasma cannon, eviscerating the Kaiju's body even further and burning it beyond any possibility of survival.[3]

Known Inconsistencies[]

  • According to Man, Machines & Monsters, Knifehead weighs 2,700 tons. In Pacific Rim and its novelization, Knifehead weighs 8,700 metric tons (9,590 tons).
  • A twitter post from Travis Beacham shows that 1 kilogram was defined as the mass of 1 litre (dm^3) of Osmium in 1803 of Pacific Rim Universe.[5]

Trivia[]

Gallery[]

Pan Pacific Defense Corps Logo An image gallery is available for
Knifehead (Kaiju)

Notes[]

References[]

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