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thezanyarthropleura · 1 year

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The Not-March Ones (3 of 5)

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion was released on July 13th, 1996 and will celebrate its 27th anniversary later this year. This is the middle film of the Heisei trilogy, and the only one of the three that has nothing to do with Gamera’s origins and ties to Gyaos. This time, instead, Gamera takes up the role of Guardian of the Universe against an outside context problem: the fast-spreading interstellar organism that would come to be known as Legion!

Yes, this is an alien invasion movie! The only one of the Heisei era, and the only one in the Gamera series as a whole that foregoes any human aliens or speak-through-a-human scenarios and just gives us a voiceless, enigmatic, truly alien nemesis in the same vein as the tripods from War of the Worlds. Compared to the entries before and after it, Legion is less character-driven and more of a formulaic science fiction film. That’s not to say we don’t have interesting characters here, but none of them quite get a full character arc. They’re in the story to serve the roles needed for the plot, and to translate the events of said plot for the audience. But in some ways, they still excel compared to most characters in kaiju films due to a few of them being returning players from the first film whose stories will continue into the third.

One character unique to this film is probably the most audience-centric character of all, Honami Midori, an employee of the Sapporo Science Center who is overseeing a field trip in the mountains of Hokkaido when she witnesses the crash of a strange meteorite. When her insight proves valuable, she joins the investigation, and is looked to for scientific answers by the other, primarily military lead characters. She continues to notice things others don’t, propose ideas others find ridiculous but that turn out to be right, and is the first to make connections between seemingly unrelated events and start piecing together the reality of the slow alien invasion moving across Japan. She does, however, continue to be sidelined when it comes to the actual monster battles, at which point the military takes over the plot, although to be fair, the other younger male scientist Obitsu is to an extent given the same ultimatum, and them being sent away from the active combat zones usually leads them into other plot-important situations. Specifically, when Ms. Honami is sent to evacuate, that’s where she encounters Asagi for the first time, and ultimately witnesses the initial battle between Gamera and Mother Legion, which happens to take place at the airfield while their helicopter struggles to take off.

There’s a particularly chilling moment when she’s observed Obitsu’s calculations for the blast radius of the Legion pod’s space launch, and realizes it’s impossible for the two of them to get away in time. They simply stare down death, until the military delays the launch and Gamera arrives to destroy the Sapporo Legion flower for good. She gets to show off a bit of a comedic side as well, particularly with a scene in the middle of the film where she invites the two male leads to her apartment to coordinate their findings on Legion, while all the while, her parents seem to believe she’s invited them for a threesome (she shows only the faintest hint of romance for Watarase, while Obitsu is clearly, CLEARLY smitten with First Lieutenant Hanatani). She and Asagi both get sidelined for the final battle, and while their role in reviving Gamera is crucial, their absence is still felt for most of the action, while even Obitsu gets to run interference on the Legion swarm and have Watarase show up to save him.

Speaking of Asagi, she’s back here, and one of the characters that actually gets quite a bit of significant development because it’s largely in comparison to the previous film. Going entirely by where she’s left off at the end of GotU, the question is still open of whether Asagi’s entire life has been upended and irrevocably changed by her bond with Gamera. Some aspects of her personality shown off at the beginning of the film don’t quite return within the runtime, and we’re left to wonder if she can even live a normal life anymore. But in Advent of Legion, the first we’re shown of Asagi has her smiling and giggling with Yukino as she makes a phone call to her offscreen father. She still becomes her stoic, cryptic self again after she’s reunited with Gamera, but even after his first battle for which Asagi wasn’t present, she’s apparently able to enthusiastically continue her ski trip with Yukino. In fact it seems quite odd that she’s so casual after Gamera has begun a fight with an alien threat, although at this point it’s partially believed the threat is over, with the last open question being whether the ‘big one’ was actually destroyed by the military after being shot down over the ocean.

I’ve mentioned that this is the film that made me ship Asagi/Yukino, and that’s mostly because in their first scene together, Yukino is very emphatically cuddling into Asagi’s shoulder to listen in on a phone call (and because they’re YELLOW AND PINK), but there’s a lot to be said for how much having a friend probably means to Asagi right now. In the first film, she ran out on Yukino and possibly some other friends without explanation, something that was never resolved, but here we see the two of them at least are still close, and still going on trips together. Because their screentime is so brief (Yukino is still only in about two scenes) a lot is left up to interpretation, such as whether Yukino knows about Asagi’s connection to Gamera. Even during the airfield battle, Yukino’s reactions are short, wordless, and non-descriptive while Asagi directs her attention to Gamera’s approach and openly enters her trance-like state in the helicopter. Since Honami appears there and directly identifies Asagi, we can be sure Yukino knows the truth now if she didn’t already, but we don’t see her reaction to this information, nor does she appear in any later scenes (she has a broken leg from the skiing trip so one presumes she went home or was evacuated to a hospital). It’s very plausible, however, that Yukino knows or at least suspects the truth the whole time, as we’re shown here that a website has started rumors of Asagi’s involvement with Gamera that have spread far enough that some high-ranking military officials are aware of them.

Asagi continues into the later stages of the film, now joining with Honami in returning to the ruins of Sendai to take part in a vigil for Gamera, who appears in a petrified state after being caught in the Legion pod’s explosion. Asagi insists Gamera will return, and sure enough, perhaps in part because she’s focusing on her Magatama bead, the embers from the vigil fires bring Gamera back to life – but at a price. Asagi’s bead shatters, and we see the first stages of the next chapter in her story, wherein Gamera has broken his connection to humanity and Asagi is left in the aftermath with a huge part of her life torn away. In the next film, we’ll learn she eventually began studying abroad, traveling to the South Pacific to find out more about Gamera and the bond she once shared with him, but here, we just see her bleak happiness at Gamera’s return and later, her tearful goodbye as she leans on Honami for support.

I’ll mention that (former) Inspector Osako is back too, even if it’s just for a small cameo that shows the beginning of his slow decline of being scared out of jobs by encounters with monsters. Jokes from the other two Heisei film reviews aside, I actually like him quite a bit, and his character arc pays off well in what we see of him in the third film. Here, though, he really is just in it for a cameo.

The special effects in this film continue to amaze, but the Legion creature designs are especially impressive - they look truly alien, in a way most alien monsters don’t, and really sell the idea they’re a creature that evolved totally independently of earth life. One can pick out some similarities to insects and crustaceans, but the limbs are all coming out of the wrong places and have weird shapes and redundancies. Both the Symbiotic Legion and the larger Mother Legion are portrayed by people in suits, not puppets on wires, and there’s behind the scenes footage showing Mother Legion can walk around in an open, grassy field with the rear legs moving and everything. Lore-wise, ‘silicon-based life’ is brought up but not just thrown around aimlessly like it usually is, there’s some actual thought given to the science behind how they process matter and interact with their environment, and their compressed-air-based circulatory system is both a neat touch and leads to some creative moments in fight scenes involving both stages.

Out of the three films in the Heisei trilogy, this is probably the one that makes Shusuke Kaneko’s religious leanings the most obvious, as right in the opening credits, we’re presented with a gigantic Christian cross… which gets burnt and charred in fire, and its broken remains then absorbed into the katakana Gamera logo, so I can’t decide whether it shot itself in the foot or not. The other big one here is that the bible is directly mentioned and quoted when Legion is given its name, and then there are a few more subtle ones like Gamera dying and being revived. I don’t have the context to know whether they would have been noticeable to Japanese audiences, but in a western world populated by multitudes and multitudes of Christ allegories, one would be forgiven for missing most of them entirely, or brushing it off as ‘movies are just like that sometimes.’

Ultimately, the references are subtle enough that these movies can be enjoyed regardless of one’s opinions on Christianity, with so much of the true meaning being left to interpretation. Personally, when I look at the Heisei trilogy, I see a continuation and expansion of the main themes of the Showa series – Gamera may have a more defined origin and purpose here, and he may be put through darker circumstances that bring his relationship with humans as a whole into question, but throughout it all, he remains devoted to saving children, and they continue to learn to trust and believe in him despite interference from, or loyalty to the memory of, parents. With one child in particular taking a very, very roundabout path toward both. But we’re here to discuss Advent of Legion, not Revenge of Irys, so I’ll bring up the Sendai vigil, where the audience of mourners paying respects to Gamera is shown to consist primarily of children, as well as one child in another scene who expresses concern for Gamera when he is believed dead.

In the odd times when people aren’t insisting the Heisei trilogy films are better than everything that came before, they sometimes remark that they don’t faithfully respect Noriaki Yuasa’s original vision, but in execution if not intent, I tend to disagree. These films may be appealing to a wider audience than the originals, but even so, Gamera continues to be the friend and hero children need when adults do dumb things like shooting at the good monster instead of the bad one, stopping to take pictures when they should be evacuating, or shaming and verbally abusing a kid for wanting to keep the family name of the parents she lost tragically (because they stopped to take pictures when they should’ve been evacuating).

(Back to Legion…)

As I’ve stated, this film loses out on character focus in favor of a plot-focused sci-fi story. For me, that makes it the film in the trilogy I like a little less than the other two, and for some, it may make it the one they like a little more. By no means is it anything close to a trilogy low point, however – it consistently brings me joy and is probably the most fun out of the three. And if I were to rank on shipping alone, just that one Asagi/Yukino payphone scene would make Legion easily the second most lesbian Gamera movie after Super Monster, not even counting the great mlm ship we get when, as they’re preparing for the final battle, Hanatani promises Obistu (who is wearing a purple/pink jacket at the time, to set the mood here) that he’ll take him out for a drink afterward. Additionally, this is one of the only kaiju films set and filmed in winter, with deep snow on the ground for the first act set in Sapporo and the cold still felt throughout the rest with everyone wearing heavy winter coats. It’s very scenic, and a film best watched on a snowy morning with a mug of hot chocolate.

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