Zedus on the prowl for some humans to snack on.

Happy Birthday Gamera [ ガメラ ]

November 27, 1965

Gamera is 58 years old !!! !!!

Earth Defender and friend to all children

From Gamera franchise

Alright, time for our next poll!

March 15th marks the 57th year anniversary of Gamera vs Gyaos, so I thought I’d shake up the streak of Godzilla or general kaiju fandom polls and give us all a Gamera-centric one, in time for the birthday of his most common enemy. Hoping this gets some traction despite Gamera not being that popular, come on, let’s spread the word of the turtle-

Please remember to reblog so this can get a wider sample size!

Absolutely LIVING for the dose of positivity that is the Minus One team having to figure out how to hold their Oscars while also holding their Godzilla vinyl figures.

Say what you will about the awards themselves, but I have high hopes this will bring about positive change and recognition for the genre (and hopefully a faster/more comprehensive stateside disc release because I NEED to see this movie again).

But while we're riding high, I'd like to perhaps rudely elbow in just a little and throw out one insignificant internet opinion that is: if you liked Godzilla: Minus One and specifically it's 'feel' as a movie, and are currently perusing through the film catalogue hoping to see that replicated elsewhere in the genre (and don't have an abject hatred of child characters) please consider the underrated gem from 2006 that is Gamera the Brave:

As someone who's seen upwards of 50 classic daikaiju/tokusatsu films and rewatches most of them regularly, this is by far the one that most feels like "Minus One before Minus One," reflected in it's characterization, cinematography, score, and ability to play with darker themes while still building to a grand, hopeful tone. I've been saying ever since I first saw the film, about a year and a half ago, that it truly feels like the type of foreign film that could've had wide acclaim with western audiences if there weren't giant monsters in it.

While I don't think absolutely everyone will love it, for as beautiful of a film this is, I hope that it (and Gamera in general) don't get lost in the shuffle if we're really going to see a reexamination of the history of the genre with a newfound appreciation.

Gamera the Brave (Ryuta Tazaki, 2006)

On this day...

- November 27, 1965 -

Happy Gamera Day to our Earth Defender, the Guardian and Friend to All Children!

Gamera vs. Zedus

Zero to hero, just like that!

Toto

Altura: 261.8 metros

Longitud: 410.9-545.45 metros

Peso: 163,636 toneladas

Primer Avistamiento: Shima, Japón [Tierra: Teratoverso]

Controles: Fuego Control [ Aliento de Fuego, Bolas de Fuego, Visión Laser y Pulso Nuclear] Agua Control [Nado] Energia Control [Rayo de Energía] Tierra Control [Caparazon, Reforestación] Aire Control [Vuelo]

Guarida: Isla Monstruo [Tierra: Teratoverso] Zaofu [Avatarverso]

Aspecto: Toto + Gamera Rebirth + Tortuga caiman (Cabeza)

Aliados:

Humanos: Aang, Katara, Soka, Iroh, Zuko

Kaijus y otras bestias: Anguirus, King Kong, Godzilla (frecuentemente), Mothra, Rodan

Enemigos:

Humanos: Ozai y Azula

Kaijus y otras bestias: King Ghidorah, King Kong, Godzilla (ocasionalmente)

Gamera wants a hug! A quick sketch of my favorite turtle kaiju.

Zedus, that most handsome of kaiju!

Happy Birthday Gamera [ ガメラ ]

November 27, 1965

Gamera is 57 years old !!! !!!!

Earth Defender and friend to all children

From Gamera franchise

Film Ranking and Retrospective

So, after evaluating all twelve Gamera films based on purely objective metrics like turtle spin velocity, character development, how much I cried, number of potential sapphic relationships, and least amount of tapeworm, here they are from favorite to least favorite:

Gamera the Brave

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion

Gamera: Super Monster

Gamera vs. Zigra

Gamera vs. Guiron

Gamera vs. Barugon

Giant Monster Gamera

Gamera vs. Gyaos

Gamera vs. Viras

Gamera vs. Jiger

Gamera the Brave takes the top spot for being so much more than it needed to be, perhaps taking a few steps outside what makes a typically good monster movie to just be an all-around great film. Of course, the Heisei trilogy still aren’t far behind, balancing the two a lot better than the Brave does and building an excellent cast of characters to the point that the hardest decision on this entire list, and the one I’m most likely to go back on at any moment, is ranking these three films against each other. Super Monster reaches for the stars just like the Brave does, daring to be something wholly unique despite its objective flaws, and is held back only by a gut punch ending after the likes of which I can’t actually make myself put it higher than the Heisei films. And of course, the rest of the Showa films are still going to end up ranked lower by being products of their time and having a relatively limited approach to in-depth storytelling, but there are still some I find exceptional for more unique reasons than I once thought I would. I even genuinely like most of Jiger, it’s just so much sensory hell it can be tricky to watch.

But my goals during this extended fixation weren’t really centered on pitting the films against each other - there was a lot of discovery, too. About halfway through March I did something I hadn’t expected I’d want to at the beginning, and bought myself the Arrow Video complete Showa era collection, mainly to get a physical copy of Super Monster but also with the bonus of getting to see Japanese versions of all eight films. In fact, I’ve now seen the Showa films probably just about any way one can see them, be that the subtitled original Japanese version, the AIP dub or first import English version, the Daiei pre-international dub (which I’ve learned is a more accurate term than “Sandy Frank”), the MST3K edition, the MST3K KTMA edition, the MST3K Fanmade edition, or specifically in Gamera: Super Monster’s case, the Elvira’s Movie Macabre edition or the Cinema Insomnia edition that’s missing a whole third of the movie.

That’s quite a lot of watching the Showa movies, and I think really a big theme for all of this was gaining a better appreciation of those films, specifically Noriaki Yuasa and his vision. He imagined Gamera as a hero for children, specifically because, as a child himself, living through the second World War and its aftermath, he came to believe adults were untrustworthy and too easily swayed by propaganda, and if that doesn’t make him the most relatable kaiju film directer of all time I don’t know what could possibly top it. Screw Gamera: Rebirth, the next one should be Gamera vs. Fox News.

Oh, right, speaking of which, I haven’t talked about that, either. And that’s because most of the major reasons I like the existing Gamera films so much tend to be more happenstance, and have little to do with how well they’ve followed the franchise formula. So far, nothing about Gamera: Rebirth has told me anything about how well it will handle its human characters, whether any of their stories will be relatable to me personally, whether it’ll have a strong environmental stance like Zigra, and actually with what we’ve seen of the cast, it seems like there aren’t going to be too many women in this series at all. Of course, that could always change, and there’s always a chance the one lady we’ve seen in the trailers could be compelling enough on her own to still make it a favorite, like with Mai in Gamera the Brave, but we won’t know anything for sure until release. But if, as seems most likely, Rebirth really is just a throwback to the early Showa era, I think now I can be a little more okay with that.

(I do actually quite like the monster designs revealed thus far. If I ever go back and write that possible Gamera vs. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequel, there’s a good chance of that magenta Neo-Jiger showing up in the Triceraton arena).

I think, if I were to put into words what makes Gamera unique among kaiju cinema, it’s that Gamera is most consistently a story about a giant monster interacting with humans, in most cases one or more specific humans. When I write for Toho kaiju (and by that I mean Battra), I’ll admit I’m basically just using yet another combination of the 37853590434 creative ways people have come up with to tell a story that’s still really about humans but using the monsters as the characters - and we do this because the monsters do have character. Unlike most giant creatures in the west, Japanese daikaiju represent things, they have emotions and personal values and life purposes, and often unique dynamics in interacting with one another. But you can’t really do much with just this side of things for the Gamera franchise, since there’s not a single monster in any of the full-length films whose relationship with Gamera is anything but antagonistic. But Gamera is already about the relationship between humans and monsters, and that was what I wanted to specifically take these couple of months to explore here, as it’s very similar to the stories I've already been straying farther from canon in order to tell with the friends and enemies of the other Big G.

As far as most of the western kaiju fandom is concerned, having such a focus on humans might appear to be the biggest risk the Gamera movies ever took, given how many fans I often see dismissing the human characters as unimportant at best, annoying at worst. Personally, I beg to differ, and the more I rewatch these films, the more I’ve begun to appreciate how remarkable it is that this one subset of historical foreign cinema, with the characters it portrays and the values it represents, became embedded in western culture all because there happened to be a market for imported special effects films. There are actually quite a lot of kaiju movies whose stories inspire me to want to write about the humans as well as the monsters. But the top of that list, if I wrote it out, would probably be stacked with more Gamera movies than anything else.

Monster march 2023 Day 21 - Zedus as X drake if he ate the Ryu Ryu No Mi, Kaiju Type: Model: Zedus

Zedus