[zumu]

> I would have thought "jira" was two syllables

It is in fact two syllables.

Fun fact: Gojira is the combination of 'Go' of 'Gorilla' and 'jira' of 'kujira' (whale). It is said, kujira comes from the combination of old Japanese 'ku' (black) and 'shira' (white) aka 'black white' after the coloration of killer whales. So at some level Jira derives from the word "white". I could probably trace back the roots for shira a bit, but I need to get some work done.