gamera, the giant monster
“gamera’s a good turtle.”
i love me some gamera but his first movie is just kind of okay, and i remember feeling that way about a lot of the shōwa era gameras, but i’m super open to having my mind changed! i do enjoy the symmetry of gamera being launched into space at the end and the next godzilla movie being invasion of astro-monster. i know that was probably completely unintentional on both studios’ parts, but it’s still pretty cute.
speaking of which, i really wish we got a godzilla vs. gamera at some point. maybe sometime in the future? i know it would take a lot to make happen but it would be so awesome. here’s hoping. b-rank
gamera vs. barugon
“gamera immediately became aware of barugon’s rainbow
and rushed across the skies to osaka to find it.”
okay so the thing is this movie actually predated the association of queer people and rainbows. but the thing about that is I DON’T GIVE A SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME? like i’m gonna pass up gamera LITERALLY BEING THIRSTY FOR BARUGON’S RAINBOW on some technicality??? get outta here with that shit. THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT GAY MONSTERS WHO ARE GAY FOR EACH OTHER.
so yeah, gamera gets back from outer space shortly before some new dumbass twink who thinks he’s hot shit named barugon shows up. the twink uses rainbows to blow up tanks and cop cars, and his blood is purple. he is extremely gay. and gamera is EXTREMELY into it.
thing is, barugon is a bratty dumbass and thinks he should be on top. gamera takes one look at this obvious bottom and is like “uh, yeah, SURE” but unfortunately underestimates him and actually loses his first fight with him. barugon, in a typical act of theater kid melodrama, freezes gamera solid, flips him onto his back, and steps on him to assert his dominance. kinda embarrassing for gamera tbh.
“i’m the only person in my village who has seen him and his terrible rainbow. i used to ask my elders about the rainbow and how terrible it was.”
with gamera out of the picture for the moment, barugon goes on an adorable rampage. some boring human stuff happens, the worst of which includes japanese actors in blackface pretending to be native islanders and one of those islanders being essentially gifted to the protagonist as a love interest. yay.
“is modern science totally ineffective against these monsters?”
anyway, their plan to defeat barugon is literally to distract him with shiny objects so add adhd to the list of queer stereotypes our good boy fulfills. he’s so good. i’m proud of him.
“barugon has met his master.”
ultimately, though, gamera shows back up and saves the day by bullying the heck out of this bratty twink and dunking him in a lake. order is restored. and hopefully the two kaiju live happily ever after. a-rank
gamera vs. gyaos
“gyaos eats people!”
gyaos’s suit is ADORABLE, omg. they tried. i hear he’s a lot of people’s favorite gamera antagonist so i have to imagine he’s better later. but in this one, like, DANG.
on the other hand, there’s a vore scene with him BASICALLY IMMEDIATELY, and you get a pov shot of his maw and yeah i got extremely turned on because of course i did. which was really embarrassing when we finally got an establishing shot of him and i was like “... wait, did i just get really turned on imagining being vored by the dorkiest looking kaiju ever???” (yes. yes i did. i regret nothing.)
i’m not the biggest fan of the gore of gyaos’s laser beams almost slicing off some of gamera’s limbs but i am pretty into how awful the effects look. it’s disarming and frankly kinda charming.
the human story is kinda whatever. some land developers are trying to get a village to sell their houses so they can build a freeway. they’re kinda portrayed as the good guys in that situation so not the most class conscious thing ever but oh well. i didn’t love it, but it mostly doesn’t add to or detract from the proceedings. b-rank
gamera vs. viras
“gamera! gamera! you are strong, gamera! you are strong, gamera!”
yeah, it reuses a lot of footage from previous entries in the series due to budget constraints, but i don’t care.
i love the child protagonists, i love the dumb ufo and dumb aliens that are just japanese dudes with glowing eyes (until, spoilers, their heads pop off and reveal they were squid people all along). it might not be the best kaiju movie ever or anything, but this movie is delightful. b-rank
gamera vs. guiron
“let’s make the earth a great place to live, without war, and traffic accidents.”
not one of the better ones, but this series at least has a very solid identity that it sticks to, and that goes a long way. there are plenty of delightfully silly moments in gamera’s fight with guiron, and guiron’s ridiculous design is a thing of beauty (knife head!!). and it doesn’t drag or overstay its welcome or anything, it just feels like there’s a dimension missing. like it’s maybe a slightly better kaiju fight away from being drastically better. still, it’s perfectly fun just the way it is. c-rank
gamera vs. jiger
“i believe in gamera.”
i appreciate how much of this was kaiju fighting, and the fights themselves didn’t suck. overall i wish more kaiju movies had this structure. the kaiju-to-human ratio was tilted very decisively in the kaijus’ favor which is always what i’m looking for. unfortunately i just didn’t love jiger’s design, and i would really have preferred less gamera torture porn. c-rank
gamera vs. zigra
“we owe it to the dolphins!”
... alright, hear me out.
gamera is in rare form here. by which i mean he’s a MASSIVE DORK and i’m here for it.
his enemies are aliens that keep grandiosely demanding the total surrender of humanity and who fly around in a ship whose roof looks like gumballs and whose kaiju is a swordfish shark thing? and their whole deal is summed up in a line that’s literally something like “you humans live on the land and eat things from the sea, we live in the sea and eat things from the land!” and it’s kind of laughably straightforward (and also a little horny depending on your kinks, just sayin), so uh yeah. and some of the science in this is hilarious levels of “THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS! THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS!” very much “this is terrible... i love it” kind of territory.
yeah, the human story is basically a giant commercial for seaworld. and yeah, seaworld sucks. (zoos and aquariums in general suck, tbh.) but still. a theme park commercial is... far from the least interesting human story in a kaiju movie? and there’s a MOON BASE! and something called a moon jeep. you can’t expect me to not like this!!
there’s also a lady who walks around hypnotizing people, but at first it kind of looks like she just intimidates them into submission by glaring at them? and honestly i’m here for it either way.
i did briefly get very excited that it seemed like the movie was hinting at the orcas getting in on the kaiju fighting action, but alas it wasn’t to be. still, though! this was very silly and i loved it.
the fights had more gore than i like, but they were also very silly and you kind of need kaiju fights to be either epic or silly, and while i prefer epic because it has a higher ceiling, i’ll still take silly! b-rank
gamera: super monster
“now gamera is the only one strong enough to protect the earth.”
it had me until the ending.
yes, i know it’s a glorified clip show. yes, i know the parts that aren’t a glorified clip show are blatantly aping star wars and superman. yes, i know the new footage of gamera is awful.
yes, i know this is basically the same movie as all monsters attack, which i have made no secret that i absolutely loathe. but you know what? this is a bearable version of all monsters attack!!! hell, in spite of everything working against it, i genuinely like it!
i’m sorry, i guess i just have too much joy in my heart, but taking a gamera clip show and putting a framing narrative around it with literal magical girls (one of whom is played by a professional wrestler??? and i am just all kinds of gay for her??? and she just knocks this character out of the park i love her so much i would die for her) and a kitbashed star destroyer? and in spite of all the words i just said the framing narrative is still way more coherent than the one in all monsters attack!!! seriously!!!
but, yeah, the ending was seriously bullshit. a one-two punch of “redeemed evil character heroically sacrificing herself in a blatantly pointless way” and “we literally killed gamera lol.” no. nope. no thanks. none of that, please.
at least the space women appear to have adopted the little boy. it’s not enough to make up for the rest of the ending, but yeah. nice wish fulfillment there. b-rank
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