GAMERA RETROSPECTIVE - PART 4

If you haven't read the previous entries in this Retrospective, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3.

THE COMEBACK KID

GAMERA THE BRAVE
(Original Title: "Chisaki Yusha Tachi: Gamera" - Little Braves: Gamera)
April 29, 2006

A boy finds and befriends a turtle who begins growing at an amazing rate. Eventually a monster starts attacking the city and the turtle now grown to giant size steps in to fight it off. Suffice to say this is no ordinary turtle, but the successor to the very monster that gave his life to protect the earth, Gamera!

In November 2002, Daiei Film was bought up by and eventually merged into Kadokawa Pictures, making them the new owners of Gamera. Naturally, a new film was considered.
One of the concepts Kadokawa proposed was a 'Godzilla vs. Gamera' crossover film which almost everyone was on board with...except for Toho. With that idea shot down, it was decided to simply go with a standalone reboot.

Unlike the last couple of films, this one would harken back to the roots of the original Gamera films. When I first heard about this, I was immediately skeptical given my feelings of the majority of those films.
However, you may be pleasantly surprised to hear that this movie is nothing like the originals. Despite having a focus on child characters, they are not annoying, the adults don't act like idiots in comparison and the story is treated with maturity and realism. Or at least as realistic as you can get in a movie with giant monsters in it, but at least we don't have aliens wearing goofy outfits. 
And yes, we still get our gratuitous monster gore.

Our main character is a boy named Toru (Ryo Tomioka) and after seeing so many annoying little boys in these movies I'm grateful to have one that I don't want to scream at. He's just a normal kid who forms a bond with a turtle he names Toto. Toto will be our future Gamera.
No wacky hijinks for this kid however. Instead we get emotional trauma and feelings of loneliness because of his mother dying years ago, his friend having heart surgery and his father working endlessly at his restaurant. Now throw in a new pet that just so happens to be the savoir of the planet descended from the same Gamera who sacrificed his life to kill a trio of Gyaos threatening Japan, who Toru is worried will follow the same path and leave him again. 
Is this enough baggage? 
Regardless Tomoika does a good job of giving us the best boy lead in a Gamera film and the rest of the cast including Toru's Father (Kanji Tsuda) and his friends are also solid. I really don't dislike any character in this movie.  

As for Toto himself. He's cute, more than capable of putting up a fight and I like him. I feel like they could have easily named this movie "Son of Gamera."
There is one thing however, I do not like about him. WHAT. THE HELL. HAPPENED. WITH HIS ROAR!?!?!?!!!

Gamera has such a unique and iconic roar, I just can't wrap my head around why Kadokawa decided to replace it with a stock dinosaur roar. Every time I hear it all I think about is the "T-Rex" from 1957's 'The Land Unknown' and countless other movies and shows that have sampled it. At least when it was used in the 1976 King Kong remake, they used a different variation of the roar to make it a little different. This is less Kong '76 and more Jaws the Revenge. 
I recently found out that Media Blasters attempted to reinsert the original Gamera roar into their English dub for the DVD/Blu-ray release, but they were denied the opportunity to do so by Kadokawa.
Toshinori Sasaki plays both the full size Toto and the first Gamera we see in the movie aka Advant Gamera, and I'm just gonna say it, Advant Gamera looks like he should have retired at least 20 years ago. He needed a better union. 

And then there's our enemy monster, Zedus. He has a pretty cool design, but he's mostly basic. His only real unusual power is a spear tongue. There is some really good buildup to his appearance. The movie shows ship wrecks and various people getting eaten at sea until finally he makes landfall, starts wreaking the town and devouring crowds of people.
Zedus was played by Mizuho Yoshida, who also played Godzilla in 2001's "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack" 

*takes a breath*

So I guess in a roundabout way, Kadokawa got their 'Godzilla vs. Gamera' movie after all.

Aside from the full-size suits, a number of real turtles and scale rubber props were used to portray Toto throughout his various growth spurts and CGI is used to enhance Toto's expressions.

Another noteworthy prop used was a full size, 15-foot long Toto model used for the scenes showing him being transported to Nagoya on the back of a truck. In fact, it was so convincing several news sites published articles claiming it to be the "Worlds Largest Tortoise Found!" Of course, they were quickly debunked.

The best way I can describe Gamera the Brave is imagine if Hayao Miyazaki made a monster movie. It takes mature subject matter, sprinkles it among a very whimsical backdrop and leaves much of the story elements and backstories up to the viewers' imagination. We don't get much background on the "Giant Monster Council" or even a hint of where Zedus comes from. I can see that being an issue for some, but I really don't mind because ultimately, that's not what the focus on the story is about. It's a personal story about a boy and his turtle that doesn't necessarily need a multilayered plot with endless exposition. 
Or as the intro to a certain show says: Repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax!"

Gamera the Brave takes the best elements from the better Gamera films, great monster scenes, engaging characters, emotional themes and manages to work them into a delightfully charming film that anyone can enjoy. It manages to hold itself up well, especially to those like myself who had reservations upon hearing about it. Take it for what it's worth and just have a good laugh, cry and a cheer while watching.
I certainly would not have minded seeing more Gamera movies done this way.
However despite a mostly positive reception, Gamera the Brave ended up being a box office failure. It was the lowest grossing Gamera film to date and Kadokawa ultimately decided to shelve Gamera indefinitely.   

WILL GAMERA RETURN?

While the Kaiju genre has continued to expand into new territory and grow in popularity in recent years, Gamera has been noticeably absent. Since 2006 there has not even been a whisper of a new film. 
Then in 2015 for Gamera's 50th anniversary, there was an amazing trailer at New York Comic-Con showing a fully CGI Gamera fighting a swarm of Gyaos before facing off against a new monster. It looked amazing, Gamera looked great and he even got his roar back. The trailer ended up being a proof of concept, shown to hopefully ignite interest in a new film.
Fan reception was overwhelmingly positive, but nothing else seems to have come from it. To this day, Gamera's only major appearance was in the 2017 video game 'City Shrouded in Shadow', a game where you play as a civilian trying to escape a city being attacked by a monster that seriously needs a US release!

It goes without saying that I and so many others miss seeing the titanic terrapin. Only time will tell whether or not Gamera will grace the screen again. But when he does, you can bet I'll be there. 

Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon

and thank you for joining me here in my lair.

So long...

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and if you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

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GAMERA RETROSPECTIVE - PART 3

If you haven't read the previous entries in this Retrospective, be sure to read Part 1 & Part 2.

KAIJU PARADISE

GAMERA: THE GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE
(Original Title: "Gamera Daikaiju Kuchusen Kessen" - Gamera: Giant Monster Midair Battle)
March 11, 1995

A flock of carnivorous, bird-like creatures called Gyaos suddenly appear and begin to ravage Japan. Meanwhile another giant monster emerges from the sea with the intention of destroying the Gyaos. The people of Japan must decide whether or not to destroy all the monsters or to put their faith in their new supposed savior, Gamera. 

15 years after his last foray in film and with the recent success of Toho's Heisei Godzilla series, the under-new-management Daiei decided it was finally time to try and bring back Gamera, just in time for his 30th anniversary. 
A new team of filmmakers were brought in to helm this new project. Among them were Shusuke Kaneko, an avid fan of Kaiju films who, like most of us, had a hard time taking Gamera seriously. Kazunori Ito, best known as the writer of the critically acclaimed 'Ghost in the Shell and Shinji Higuchi, a special effects director who previously worked on 1984's 'The Return of Godzilla' also joined the project.
Although Daiei was initially skeptical of his pitch, Kaneko stood his ground and would go on to direct not just this movie, but a trilogy of films that presented the titanic terrapin in a more serious and iconic way than ever before.
Thus, the Heisei Gamera series was born...

First let's talk about Gamera himself, he's awesome in this movie. His new design is a perfect update to the original, he's given a more muscular/tortoise-like appearance and his face feels like a mix of mean and aggressive yet gentle and protective.
I love this design as opposed to the lanky looking Gamera of the older movies. I also appreciate how Gamera has a hunch that keeps his head straight and not awkwardly pointed upward. In addition to the traditional suitmation method (performed by Takateru Manabe & Jun Suzuki) and scale models for flying scenes, Gamera also got himself a nifty animatronic of his upper body to perform movements and express emotion that the suits couldn't do.
While Gamera's power of flight remains mostly the same, his fire breath has been simplified to a powerful fire ball attack and he gets a pair of elbow spikes that help a lot in battle and are great additions to Gamera's arsenal.  

One thing I've always found weird is how in these movies they never refer to Gamera as turtle given his appearance, but it wasn't until later I found a quote from Shusuke Kaneko where he said that in the film's universe, turtles don't exist at all. Those are the kind of moments that make you go: Huh?!

Being Gamera's most popular opponent, Gyaos returns to battle against him. Gyaos looks miles better in this movie then ever before. Its body looks more like a dragon and it's movements, while not always perfect, are still fairly believable. I can actually see Gyaos as a creature and not a stiff rubber suit. 

While most of the Gyaos in the movie are portrayed by puppets, the final 'Super Gyaos' is played by Yumi Kameyama, the first female suit actor in a Kaiju film. 

'Guardian of the Universe' goes out of its way to explore the origins of Gamera and Gyaos. In the first movie, it was merely hinted that Gamera may have come from the lost continent of Atlantis. Here, it's revealed that the people of Atlantis originally created the Gyaos but they got out of control and so they created Gamera to stop them. 

This was more or less the origin presented for Jan de Bont's proposal for the American Godzilla film from Tristar, before he left the project. I can't even imagine what would happen if both these films had come out like that. 

What I do know is that I appreciate this origin for Gamera a lot more as it helps him stand out from feeling like a Godzilla clone and gives the character and story a more epic and mythical feel to it.

What also helps the Heisei trilogy stand out from the previous films is the cast. Gone are the days of having children as the leads and the adults being pushed to the side or looking like morons. Instead the characters are actually interesting and very much central to the plot. 

Some of the stand out characters include ornithologist Mayumi Nagamine (Shinobu Nakayama), hot on the trail of the Gyaos and the voice of reason against the know-nothing Self Defense Forces. Assisting her is Inspector Osako (Yukijiro Hotaru) who while a bit over his head, at least has his heart in the right place.
Tsuyoshi Ihara plays a Coast Guard officer who along with an insurance investigator named Kusanagi (Akira Onodera), seek to solve the mystery of Gamera and his connection to the Gyaos.

Left to right: Nagamine (Shinobu Nakayama), Yonemori (Tsuyoshi Ihara), Asagi (Akayo Fujitani) & Kusanagi (Akira Onodera)

But the character of greatest importance is Kusanagi's daughter, Asagi (Akayo Fujitani.) Asagi acts as Gamera's connection to humanity, essentially becoming a priestess for him and later giving him a power boost to battle Gyaos. 
It also wouldn't be a 'Guardian of the Universe' review if I didn't mention that Akayo Fujitani is actually the daughter of Steven Seagal.

Scoring the movie is Kow Otani, his new Gamera theme is instantly iconic and the rest of the music helps to elevate the action and mood of the film. 

Rounding out the excellence of this film are the special effects and fight scenes. 

As I mentioned before, the fights in 'Gamera vs. Gyaos' left much to be desired with it's stiff models and unrealistic movement. The fights here are what I expected to see. The suit actors do a good job battling each other and the "giant monster dogfights" are a delight to watch. 
Despite the production working with half the budget of the average Godzilla film, Shinji Higuchi proved that his special effects could stand toe to toe with them. He even threw in several CGI moments that I'm willing to bet you won't even notice on your first viewing.

With all of these elements I can easily say that after viewing this movie for the first time, I became a Gamera fan. 'Guardian of the Universe' excels at giving the audience great human characters to root for and exciting monster action to enjoy. If you're looking to get into Japanese monster movies, this one is a must watch!

GAMERA 2: ATTACK OF LEGION

(Original Title: "Gamera Tsu Region Shurai" - Gamera 2: Legion Invasion)

July 13, 1996

After a meteor falls to earth, insectoid creatures begin wreaking havoc in Japan and threaten to colonize the planet. It isn't long before Gamera appears to deal with the invaders, but will he succeed? Or is he doomed to fail against the Legion?  

After 'Guardian of the Universe' became a surprising success critically and financially, Daiei opted to give Shusuke Kaneko  even more creative control on the sequel. Kaneko had come into the first project skeptical that a rocket-propelled turtle could be menacing, but grew to love Gamera more with each film. 

Changes included subtle design tweaks for Gamera's head and the addition of elbow spikes. I think his limbs may have been slightly slimmed down and extended to make him taller, or maybe it was adjusted to fit Akira Ohashi, the new suit actor. I'm not 100% sure on that one.
But one big change included the ability to morph his arms into flippers while he's in flight mode, a concept initially rejected by Daiei. Instead of just casually flying through the air, Gamera looks much more dynamic as he soars through the air like a jet. 

Left to right: Homani (Miki Mizuno), Watarase (Toshiyuki Nagashima) & Obitsu (Mitsuru Fukikoshi)

Our 2 human leads consist of Homani (Miki Mizuno), a science center curator and Obitsu (Mitsuru Fukikoshi), an engineer  together they manage to make sense of a series of strange phenomenon relating to the threat.
This time around there's a larger focus on the JSDF in their efforts to fight off the invading Legion. Unlike the previous government/military officials, Col. Watarase (Toshiyuki Nagashima) is far more willing to heed the words of our 2 leads and is just a great character all around.
Later in the film, we meet up with Asagi (Ayako Fujitani) from the previous film. Her role isn't as large, but her presence does give the film some appreciated continuity. 
Yukijiro Hotaru also returns in a small cameo as Osako. 

Shinji Higuchi's effects continue to shine all throughout, but special mention goes to the miniatures. There is a particularly impressive one during a scene where a building appears to be falling apart by itself during an earthquake.
There are tracking/panning shots of the monsters during the fights that are nice touches and give the fights a touch of flare that help them stand out against most other monster fights consisting of only wide shots and close ups.

But the best special effect in 'Attack of Legion' is Legion herself, aptly named after a soldier randomly quotes Mark 5:9. 
Initially appearing as a group of soldiers, a larger Mother Legion appears and proceeds to give Gamera quite a hard time, impaling him causing him to gush blood (emulating the over the top Showa series gore) and even blasting off a piece of his shell. Needless to say, the Mother Legion is quite a force to be reckoned with, plus she's much larger than Gamera. The Mother Legion suit was so large that it required 2 actors to move it (Mizuho Yoshida & Toshinori Sasaki.)
The design is also awe-inspiring. Although there were initially talks to bring back one of Gamera's older foes like Barugon or Guiron, I'm glad they went with a new monster. 
The smaller Soldier Legion were portrayed by small puppets, CGI and suit actors. It's surprising they were able to hide the actors legs as well as they did. 
Not every special effect is perfect however, the first moment when Legion soldiers swarm Gamera is done in CGI, while it works for Legion the same cannot be said for Gamera.

The Heisei Trilogy was dubbed into English and released on home media in the United States by ADV Films. The dubs they provided are pretty good, but one dub for 'Attack of Legion' is a special case.
What started as a gag reel in which the majority of the characters were dubbed with drunken redneck voices eventually evolved into a full dub track first released on a 2004 DVD box set known as the "Lake Texarkana" dub. This track is hilarious and would be perfect for a movie night with friends. 

Overall, Attack of Legion ups the ante from the last film and delivers a solid sequel. While I personally don't know if I like it more than 'Guardian of the Universe', it is still an excellent follow-up.

GAMERA 3: REVENGE OF IRIS

(Original Title: "Gamera Suri Irisu Kakusei" - Gamera 3: Evil God Awakening)

March 6, 1999

As flocks of Gyaos begin to spread out of control, Gamera goes on a warpath to eliminate them, causing mass destruction and casualties. Meanwhile, a girl forms a bond with a strange creature and vows that together they will take revenge on Gamera for causing the death of her family, unaware that the awakening of this creature may in fact doom the human race.

While 'Attack of the Legion' was a superb entry in the Gamera series, 'Revenge of Iris' to me feels more like a sequel to 'Guardian of the Universe', not only because of the return of several past characters, but also in terms of tone.
'Attack of Legion' felt more like science fiction with elements of horror. 'Revenge of Iris' continues the more mythical and spiritual feel of 'Guardian of the Universe' all while creating a thought provoking story with a somber feel that still manages to entertain and get people excited to watch. 

Shinobu Nakayama and Ayako Fujitani return as Dr. Nagamine and Asagi respectively. Both characters are still great and this time they are eventually placed right in the action instead of watching from the sides.
Also returning is Yukijiro Hotaru as the character Osako, putting a cap on his small arc throughout the trilogy.

The most important new character is a girl named Ayana (Ai Maeda), who's parents were killed during the final battle between Gamera and Gyaos. In a sense, she is the inverse of Asagi, sharing a psychic bond with a creature not for protection, but for revenge. Ai Maeda's acting is so reserved yet powerful. A lot of it comes from her stern expressions and wordless acting, broken by more emotional moments performed just as powerfully. 

Other noteworthy characters include an occultist named Asakura (Senri Yamazaki) and a game maker named Kurata (Toru Tezuka.) Both characters are memorable purely for how insane they both are, and Kurata especially delights in chewing every bit of scenery he's in.

Really the only character I take issue with is Moribe (Yu Koyama), mostly because there's a lot of build up to him being of great importance, but very little payoff. 

Gamera (Hirofumi Fukuzawa) is once again redesigned for this film, this time he looks a lot bulkier and scarier than past incarnations. This new edgy look adds to framing him as a more aggressive, destructive character. 
The Gyaos in the film are a combination of horribly, mangled puppets and CGI, all of which are handled better than they were in 'Guardian of the Universe.'

As for Iris (Akira Ohashi), while it may start out small and almost a bit cute, it quickly evolves into something big and horrifying. With it's large tentacles, glowing skin patches and a head with practically zero facial features, I really cannot think of any other Kaiju that looks more like an eldritch abomination than Iris does. 

As you've probably caught on by now, this is a much darker and emotional film than any previous Gamera movie ever made, but it can also get disturbing at times. And I'm not just talking about the scorched Gyaos with their eyeballs hanging out of their sockets. Let's just say that the inclusion of tentacles elicits a lot of unintentional implications. Thankfully it never goes farther than that.

The action and monster fight scenes are on a whole other level compared to the last films. In addition to the dynamic camera work, pulse-pounding score by Kow Otani and spectacular pyrotechnics, there's a lot of CGI implemented. CGI in Kaiju films of the 90's often resulted in mixed results, here however, the CGI actually enhances the action and helps give Iris a more otherworldly feel to it. One of the best shots in the film has Gamera fighting Iris above the clouds completely in CGI and while not as polished as something from say ILM or Weta, it still looks fantastic. Although my favorite shot happens to be the moment when we see a close up of Gamera roaring, flames transition to a profile view of Iris and then another flame transition cuts to a profile view of Ayana, further establishing their connection.  
The suit work is still very much on point. The climax of the film eventually see's both monsters confined to inside Kyoto Station. Seeing both Gamera and Iris suits inside such a large model building is pretty unique and the claustrophobic setting really adds to the tension of the battle. 

Shuske Kaneko and his team took what they perfected from the last 2 entries and managed to top it to even greater heights. It is because of this that many consider 'Revenge of Iris' to be one of if not THE greatest Japanese Kaiju movies ever made and it's not hard to see why. 
As much as I love over the top, fun monster movies, I always appreciate it when they aspire to be more than monster romps. I would even dare to say that this film may be better than most of the Heisei Godzilla films. I genuinely have a hard time figuring out which Gamera movie is my definitive favorite, it's between 'Guardian of the Universe' and this one for me.

THE APPEAL OF THE HEISEI TRILOGY

For a time, Gamera was the little monster that could, always living in the shadow of the more popular Godzilla. But the Heisei Trilogy brought a new popularity to the titanic terrapin among fans of Japanese Kaiju films.
Even general audiences seem to think highly of these films. Roger Ebert himself gave 'Guardian of the Universe' his signature "Thumbs Up" rating.
Think about that, the man who spoke ill of the 1954 Godzilla film had mostly positive views on a Gamera movie.

If you look at the VHS case for 'Guardian of the Universe', there's all kinds of positive blurbs from American film critics. For years, I would see this box and ask myself: "why?" What is it about these 3 movies that could appeal to people who more than likely aren't as familiar with these types of movies like I am?

So one weekend I visited my dear friend and editor, Rhiannon and we sat down and watched the Heisei trilogy together. Later I asked for her take on the films as a whole, she had this to say:

"All Beyblade jokes aside, these movies fully live up to their hype. 

For a kaiju novice like me watching these films for the first time, comparisons to Godzilla are inevitable. In my opinion, Gamera is at his best when he's doing things Big G simply never could. 

When you're watching a Godzilla film that positions him as fighting against monsters that want to wipe out humanity, even one of the more lighthearted ones, there is still sort of a hard limit on how much Godzilla is going to be able to actually interact with the human characters. Even in the most kid-friendly ones, he seemingly feels little to nothing about the humans caught in the middle. When he rescues them, it's often purely by coincidence. This rebooted Gamera connects with the people he's protecting not just through his ad hoc priestess Asagi, but in the way he always throws himself between humans and danger, often taking severe damage to protect even a single child. Unburdened by the crown the King of the Monsters wears, he's just as menacing, but he wears his heart on his sleeve.

 TL;DR, Gamera is big and cool and my friend." 

I think that sums it up pretty well. It just goes to show that any crazy idea like a fire breathing turtle that flies can work, you just need people with the right vision and skills to make it happen and these 3 films are solid proof of that.
Well, there's only one film left to go. Stay tuned... 

Till next time, I've been your host Gryphon
And I hope you've enjoyed your time in my Lair
So long...

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and if you would like to see more from The Gryphon's Lair, be sure to give my Facebook page a 'LIKE' to see updates and other related stuff. 

Thanks for reading!

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GAMERA RETROSPECTIVE - PART 2

If you haven't read the previous entry in this retrospective, be sure to read Part 1. 

GAMERA VS. MY PATIENCE

GAMERA VS. VIRAS

(Original Title: "Gamera tai Uchu Kaiju Bairasu" - Gamera vs. Space Monster Viras)

March 20, 1968

An alien race seeking to conquer Earth runs into trouble when Gamera attempts to stop them. They end up taking two boy scouts hostage and threaten to kill them if Gamera doesn't do their bidding. Now the boys must find a way to escape their captivity and sever the alien's hold on Gamera.

The team at Daiei had found the winning formula for their Gamera series despite studio heads continuing to slash budgets and even the looming threat of bankruptcy. However another installment was put into production, with a little help from a few unexpected sources. And so began the downward spiral of quality. 

This film would only receive a third of the budget the previous film had, even with backing from American International Pictures (AIP). Therefore a limited number of sets were used and monster scenes had to be extended by using stock footage. Stock footage in Japanese Kaiju films is nothing new, it's usually done to pad the action/runtime of the film, but it was usually limited to a few city destruction scenes or monster moments from previous films. Gamera vs. Viras however used stock footage to an egregious level. Using their technology, the aliens look into Gamera's mind to figure out a weakness. And by that I mean, they just watch the entire fight scenes from the last 2 films, which means we have to sit through them again as well. Even more confusing is when we see Kojiro Hongo's character from the last movie in the stock footage when he plays a completely different character in this movie!
Later they manage to take control of Gamera's mind and force him to attack Japan, so cue the scene of Gamera attacking the dam from 'Gamera vs. Barugon' and the city destruction scenes from the first Gamera movie. Yes, the first Gamera movie that was in black in white.
IN BLACK AND WHITE! 
Oh, but they put a cool, dark blue filter over it so we won't notice, right?
The movie runs for an hour and a half, the stock footage used in the movie takes up 28 minutes of that runtime!

This time around we have 2 child leads, one Japanese and one American. This choice was one of the stipulations made by AIP to try and give the film a wider appeal to international audiences, in exchange for buying the distribution rights to the previous two Gamera films as well as any future installments.
As random as the inclusion of the Boy Scouts sounds, Masaichi Nagata, Daiei's studio head was actually an advisor to the Boy Scouts of Japan. That's art imitating life for you.
The kids, Masou and Jim (Toru Takatsuka & Carl Craig) aren't that bad all things considered. When they're not being mischievous, they actually make logical and mature choices and are even ready to sacrifice their own lives so the army can destroy the Virasian craft. 
That being said, it is still a bit of a stretch that they would know exactly how to operate advanced alien technology. 

But these kids are nowhere near the worst actor in the movie. Oh no, that honor goes to Jim's mother, who only has one sloppily dubbed line that makes Tommy Wiseau's acting look like Shakespeare. 
The rest of the cast really aren't that consequential and only exist to move the story forward. 

But we all came here to see Gamera vs Viras right? Oh you'll see it.
In the last 10 minutes of movie.

Anyway, what is Viras? It's name of a planet, whose inhabitants are known as Virasians and their leader is also named Viras, who becomes the big bad monster for Gamera to fight. The Virasians look like what would happen if you got HR Giger to design Squidward, though most of the time they wear human disguises with freaky glowing eyes.  
But creepy imagery aside, these aliens are really bad at their jobs. As soon as they take the boys hostage they then make no effort to restrain them or make sure they don't sabotage anything, which ends up happening. Do they not take any of this seriously? I guess once you see Gamera riding Viras like a jet ski, all sense of seriousness is out the window. 
As for the monster Viras, it's an interesting idea for a monster, but the tentacle movement looks anything but natural. Its overall execution cannot convince me that it's not a guy in a suit. 

Kenjiro Hirose gives us a wonderfully whimsical score. He also composed the infamous Gamera March. A song that sings about how strong Gamera is and how he'll beat any monster from outer space. 
Personally, I prefer the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. 

Gamera! Gamera!

Gamera is really neat!

Gamera is filled with meat!

We've been eating Gamera!

Shell! Teeth! Eyes! Flames! Claws! Breath! Scales! Fun!!

I already have a pre-existing grudge against this movie.
For its American release in 1970, AIP wasn't about to just release it as 'Gamera vs. Viras' no, no, no. They needed a more snappy title, you wanna know what they chose?
"Destroy All Planets!"

Toho's 'Destroy All Monsters' was released in the US the previous year and they just had to capitalize on it. This made things worse with the advent of DVD. When I started to build up my Godzilla DVD collection, 'Destroy All Monsters' was particularly difficult to find, even though it did exist you'd be hard pressed to find it in store or online. During my hunts at various video stores, I'd get excited thinking I'd finally found a copy of the movie but my excitement was deflated when I realized it was 'Destroy All Planets' instead. Then I'd get angry and tell myself I'd never fall for that again...only to fall for it again months later.
Thank God for Media Blasters and later the Criterion Collection.

Gamera vs. Viras is a monster movie with good ideas and intentions. But unfortunately, the bad outweighs the good and the film only succeeds in outstaying its welcome. 

GAMERA VS. GUIRON

(Original Title: "Gamera tai Daiakaiju Giron" - Gamera vs. Giant Evil Beast Guiron)

March 21, 1969

Two kids stumble across a spacecraft and after fiddling with the controls they end up being taken to a mysterious planet where they encounter two alien women. While the aliens seem friendly at first their true intentions are actually devious and they have control of a fearsome monster named Guiron. Luckily Gamera is not too far behind and comes to the rescue.

Gamera vs. Viras was made with the intention of being the very last Gamera movie Daiei would produce. However, it was yet another box office success and with their financial woes, they weren't about to let this money printing series go just yet. 

From the beginning, this almost seems like a repeat of the first movie: Two kids, one Japanese (Nobuhiro Kashima), one American (Christopher Murphy), find themselves in a spaceship, hijinks ensue, kids instantly figure out alien tech and Gamera fights a goofy looking monster. 

One of the kids, Aiko, seems to focus on traffic accidents being a major problem with Earth. I'm not saying it's not a problem but when you pair it against war, it just feels a little uneven.
Aiko also has a younger sister (Miyuki Akiyama). Her role consists of her running about trying to convince the adults that the boys are in a spaceship.

This film adds the new element of a pair of alien women, their names are Barbella (Hiroko Kai) and Florbella (Reiko Kashara.) Silly names and even sillier outfits aside, I actually like how they actually have character to them outside the creepy eyes of the Virasians. The way they go from being kind to the kids to wanting to eat their brains is way scarier.  

The rest of the human characters are pretty basic, but the thing that perplexes me are the mothers of the kids and how they're constantly trying to convince them that the monsters are simply products of their imagination. Did they just forget about the previous bouts Japan has had with Gamera and aliens? Are we operating on sitcom logic here?
Well, at least the American mother gets a better actor this time.

The enemy monster, Guiron, is an interesting one. It's basically a lizard with a large machete like blade protruding from its head. Its unusual power? Shooting shuriken out of the sides of its head and being able to control them telepathically.

As with most Gamera enemies, we have a great idea with questionable execution. A lot of the time, Guiron simply can't help but look like a puppet and the fight scenes are just ok. 

I feel Guiron would have worked better as a primarily bipedal monster.
We also get to see Gamera pull off some sweet gymnastics.

Ya know guys? It just dawned on me how weird this film is, ya know?

Gamera vs. Guiron is arguably the most violent of the original movies as we get to see a battle between Guiron and a Space Gyaos (seriously) which ends with Guiron decapitating the silver painted monster and then slicing him up like a piece of Kaiju sausage. But don't worry, blood's purple, not red so that makes it more suitable for kids. right? 

Despite being a low budget production, Daiei made the most of what they could. Admittedly the movie does have an imaginative setting, you don't often see Kaiju fights taking place on an alien planet. While stock footage is once again used to pad the runtime, there is only a thankfully short amount.

While Gamera vs Guiron suffers from some of the issues as the last movie, it at least manages to do it in a so bad it's good way. I can say that I wasn't bored and it gave me 82 minutes of something fun to laugh at. But apart from that, it's really nothing special.

GAMERA VS. JIGER

(Original Title: "Gamera tai Daimaju Jaiga" - Gamera vs. Giant Demon Beast Jiger)

March 21, 1970

After a strange statue is taken to be used as an attraction for the upcoming Expo '70, a beast known as Jiger awakens. Gamera takes exception to this, but Jiger is a formidable foe. After Jiger inserts her parasitic offspring into Gamera and paralyzing him, it's up to the kids to help get him back into fighting shape and save Expo '70.

I hope you like Expo '70, because this movie never lets you forget about it.

For those who don't know, Expo '70 was a world's fair held in Osaka between March and September in 1970 and themed around the progress and harmony for mankind. 
It was a visit to the still under construction expo by director Noriaki Yuasa that inspired it's inclusion in the film. The people in charge of the expo agreed to let Daiei film on fair grounds and even co-finance the film, under the condition that the expo not be destroyed by the monsters.
I'd to think there were several "but, but, buuuuuut..." conversations that happened. 

Our main characters are a Japanese boy, Hiroshi (Tsutomu Takakuwa) and an American boy, Tommy (Kelly Varis).
Have we been here before? The boys are fine, if you liked the kid leads in the previous films, you can stomach this duo. Both the boys also get sisters, Tommy gets a younger sister named Susan (Katherine Murphy, who is also the younger sister of Christopher Murphy who starred in the last Gamera movie.) Susan starts out as a bit of a brat who isn't on board with the monster antics at first, but she quickly comes around. Then we have Hiroshi's older sister, Miko (Junko Yashiro) who really isn't having any of the boys shenanigans making her one of the more memorable characters in the movie for the wrong reasons.

Now let's talk about Jiger (like "Tiger" but with a 'J'), the first female Kaiju introduced in the Gamera series.
In terms of design, I think she looks like a dinosaur mixed with a bulldog. Looks aside, it's actually one of the better executed four legged monsters. Usually most quadruped monsters in these types of films would end up crawling on their knees, but Jiger manages to keep all four of her feet on the ground.
Now comes the weird power roll call: magnetism force in her hands, jet boosters in her neck, she can shoot needles made from saliva from her side horns and fire a large disintegrator beam from the center horn.

But the real problem stems from Jiger injecting her parasitic offspring into Gamera via a spike on her tail. Of course this spells bad news for Gamera, so our two boys volunteer themselves to deal with Jiger's youngling, 'Fantastic Voyage' style. The idea of going inside Gamera's body via submarine is one of the more creative set pieces.

It should be noted that during the scene in which scientists are deducing the cause of Gamera's condition is a parasitic lifeform, they demonstrate this by playing real life footage of the removal of tapeworm larva from an elephant's swollen trunk. Even though the footage is in black and white, it's still quite disturbing even for a movie primarily aimed at children. If you're squeamish, look away.  

Most of the fighting between Gamera and Jiger is handled well and fun to watch, although certain shots of Jiger 'soaring' through the sky look a little goofy.
Unlike the previous two movies which had a limited budget and bare landscape sets, the director demanded a bigger budget for this film and got his wish. As a result we get a return to monsters fighting in a miniature city set as well as a military assault. It's quite refreshing to see some decently done city destruction scenes that aren't stock footage. 
Luckily, in this movie the only bits of stock footage are relegated to the opening credit sequence. 

Gamera vs Jiger feels like a breath of fresh air to the series, feeling more on par with the likes of Gamera vs. Gyaos. I personally didn't enjoy it as much as that movie but it's still pretty fun and deserves to be counted as one of the better Showa Gamera films.

But Gamera's exploits at Expo '70 didn't end there.
In March of 1970, Gamera took the stage in a special show in which he faced off against the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla! They were joined by several other monsters including Gyaos and Gorosaurus. Unfortunately, very little footage of this show still exists today and the idea of seeing these 2 famous monsters sharing the spotlight in an all-out battle remains a fantasy.  

GAMERA VS. ZIGRA

(Original Title: "Gamera tai Shinkai Kaiju Jigaru" - Gamera vs. Deep Sea Monster Zigra)

July 17, 1971

Invaders from the planet Zigra invade Earth hoping to make it their new home after their destroyed planet. After causing a series of global disasters Gamera comes to put a stop to it.

And the aliens are incompetent, the kids are just ok, there's an underwater craft, Gamera does silly things, movie ends.
At this point, we've gone back to the alien invader formula we've seen before and it's just as repetitive to the point where I'm running out of things to say. 

Our 2 kids Kenichi (Yasushi Sakagami) and Helen (Gloria Zoellner) are by far the youngest of our protagonists so your tolerance for their antics may vary. 
We do get one hint of an interesting twist on the "Gamera gets incapacitated by the enemy so our heroes have to revive him" formula. It's the father characters (Isamu Saeki & Koji Fujiyama) who man a bathysphere to go underwater and see what's wrong with Gamera. But of course the kids have to stow away on the bathysphere, contribute little and nearly get themselves killed.
The rest of the humans are just there. Nothing new.

The only other character of note is the woman under control of Zigra, known as Woman X (Eiko Yanami), who despite having a neat twist to her character, spends most of the movie wearing goofy outfits and chasing the kids around Kamogawa Sea World and generally not being that great at her job.
But at least she looks good in a bikini, for better or worse...
Did I mention Eiko also starred in some softcore films? Moving on.

Zigra, our deep sea monster of the movie has a good design being loosely based on a goblin shark.
We have several underwater fights between Gamera and Zigra which are pretty well executed. We also see that just like Flex Tape, Gamera's fire breath is so strong it even works underwater. 
Where things start to get awkward is when Zigra gets on land and assumes a bipedal form. His rear side fins just magically turn into legs, shall we add that to the weird power collection next to the beam that paralyzes cellular activity?
Also, Zigra talks. A lot. Mostly environmental preaching about how their world was destroyed by pollution and neglect. There's even a bit of that in the Sea World scenes.

Because of the films low budget, not a ton of sets were built so the majority of the scenes were shot on location at Kamogawa Sea World. One miniature set of the facility was built for the monsters to fight on, but again, they weren't allowed to destroy it.

If you haven't figured it out by the time Gamera plays Zigra's spines like a xylophone: This movie is dumb. Fun to watch, but dumb.

The production of 'Gamera vs. Zigra' was nothing short of a train wreck. Countless delays and a continuously decreasing budget did not help lift the spirits of the crew, even the usually chipper Noriaki Yuasa, had a hard time staying positive. 
By the time filming was finished, it wasn't long before the inevitable happened. Daiei's financial trouble and mismanagement finally caught up and the company officially declared bankruptcy in December of 1971.
For the first time in history, the future of Gamera was uncertain...

GAMERA SUPER MONSTER

(Original Title: "Uchu Kaiju Gamera" - Space Monster Gamera)

March 20, 1980

The earth is invaded by the Zanon spacecraft which unleashes a horde of deadly monsters. Our planets only hope lies in the hands of the combined forces of a young boy, three super women and the Friend to All Children himself, Gamera. 

In 1974, Daiei was back in business after being bought up by the head of Tokuma Shoten. After a series of modest hit films, the studio was once again in a financial pickle and Noriaki Yuasa was approached to bring Gamera back with a new movie after a 9 year absence.
Just before Daiei went bankrupt, a riot broke out at the studio and all of the original Gamera props were destroyed, so the production team had to start from scratch by creating a brand new Gamera prop and nothing else. Unfortunately, this movie is nowhere near as epic as I made it sound as it relies on the oh so unfortunate get of jail free card of Japanese monster movies: Stock footage.
Did you enjoy watching Gamera fight Gyaos, Zigra, Viras, Jiger, Guiron and Barugon? Well now you get to watch it again! Quite literally every fight scene in this movie are all the fights you've seen before, every hand thrown, every weird ass power, every obvious black and white scene, every awkward man in suit movement, every stiff puppet. Nothing new, except for maybe the music.
Its not enough they had to recycle footage from the previous movies, but they had to go and super impose Gamera flying over footage from two anime films "Space Battleship Yamato" & "Galaxy Express 999"
If you're asking me to make sense of this, there's the door.

The only new Gamera footage is shot using a stiff flying prop with a moving mouth that makes it look like a parade float.
One other noteworthy moment in the movie is where we see Gamera knock over an advertisement for a film called "Sayonara Dojira", an obvious parody of a certain King of the Monsters.

We're back to only having one kid character in the form of Keiichi (Koichi Maeda) who at first glance seems like another version of Toshio from the first film. He gets a pet turtle, is told to get rid of it by his mother and the turtle inexplicitly turns into Gamera. Thankfully, Keiichi is nowhere near as annoying or suicidal as Toshio. Thank GOD.
For what it's worth, Keiichi is an alright character. The most notable things about him is that he writes and performs the movies new theme for Gamera "Love for the Future" and has this weird habit of calling every female character in this movie 'Sis', but more on that later...

The earth is not completely defenseless against our alien invaders, as we have 3 super women. They are played by Yoko Komatsu, Yaeko Kojima and former wrestler, Mach Fumiake.
They're powers consist of changing into white spandex, flying and not much else...These woman aren't exactly the most super, as they mostly just talk about protecting the earth from Zanon but do very little in that regard. They could easily fly up to the ship and wreck it, or at least subdue the aliens but they don't. Even their teleporting cars would suffice. 
Fumiake does get a chance to show off her fighting skills as she squares off with the alien lackey in what is the best fight in the whole movie. I know that's not saying much, but it's something.

We never actually see what the beings from Zanon looks like, we only see a spacecraft that looks like a Lucasfilm lawsuit waiting to happen accompanied by a disembodied voice.
All we see is the lackey, Giruge (Keiko Kudo) who cannot manage to escape the formula of the alien lackey that's bad at their job, she even manages to get herself shot with her own gun.
Strangely enough, she also has one of the better arcs in the movie. I mentioned how Kiiechi always calls women 'Sis', well it turns out it's because he's an only child who's father (played by Sir Not Appearing in this Film) works a lot and feels lonely as a result. After Giruge fails to kill Kilara, she feels disgraced and attempts suicide but is stopped by Kiiechi and the super women. After recuperating, Giruge turns good and considers being part of a family.
It's not only tragically touching, it's also something that I've never seen in a Kaiju movie alien invader plot, so I can appreciate it. Which means this movies only about 95% bad.
Too bad it's forgotten after she sacrifices herself to protect the space women from being destroyed by Zanon. 

If 'Super Monster' was an attempt to revitalize the Gamera series, I'm sorry to say it failed miserably. It was not a box office hit and it literally killed the series. Not even MST3K or the Mistress of the Dark herself can make this messy, boring slog of a movie enjoyable to watch for me.
I'd rather watch 'All Monsters Attack' 3 times in a row, and believe me, that's saying a lot.
This is how Gamera ended.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper. 

A POSTMORTEM REFLECTION

I used to disregard the Gamera movies of the 60's/70's as nothing more than knock-offs of the more popular Godzilla. Before, I had attempted to watch them on DVD but I was not in the right mindset and I immediately decided that I did not like Gamera.

It wasn't until I bought the recent Arrow Video Collection that not only would I give them another chance, but I would do this retrospective and give my thoughts on them. Not all of them were hits and even though I was pretty critical of the series throughout my writings, there were some surprises. I can't help but have a newfound respect for Gamera now. 

I'm not gonna lie, I did buy that set mostly for the Heisei Gamera movies and because I like Matt Frank's artwork he did for it and I don't regret it one bit. 
But for now, the best is yet to come...

Till next time, I've been your host Gryphon
And I hope you've enjoyed your time in my Lair
So long...

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