By Joe Gibson
To celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the original Gamera film, I am doing a couple “What-If” scenarios
for Gamera corresponding to other notable Tokusatsu franchises. In this essay,
I will be crosspollenating the Gamera characters and tropes with the Ultraman
formula as a template for where the franchise could go from here (as
unfortunately Rebirth seems to keep the tradition of being very good and yet
killing the Gamera franchise indefinitely that previously happened with Gamera
3 Revenge of Iris and then Gamera The Brave). Along those same lines, you can
look forward to a video in the coming days where I throw my hat into the ring
with my idea for how a Gamera vs Godzilla film could function.
Gamera Rebirth actually
is a pretty good template for how to adapt the series into this premise, but it
is a very short show dealing with a small monster cast (but also more focused
on being season one of Hiroyuki Seshita’s unique Gamera vision). Still, the
bond between Boco and Gamera, as derived from Asagi’s metaphysical connection
to Gamera in the Heisei movies, would be the analog to the merging of Ultra
with human, and the sinister Eustace Foundation that teams up with the kids but
also has ill intentions toward them would take the role of the attack team
pretty much as is. Other important tropes for this exercise would include the
increasingly powerful enemies and unlocking abilities of the hero. Rebirth was
a little arbitrary about when Gamera could use his higher level abilities, so
the status quo here will pertain to the increasing knowledge of Gamera’s child
priest/priestess and willpower contrasted against increasingly strong kaiju. In
place of a color timer, the concept of this child taking on the same damage
that Gamera does will serve as a time limit for each fight (notable in Rebirth
as well as the Heisei series).
One of the challenges
behind any Gamera revival is balancing Gyaos with the other monsters because,
as the Heisei series codified, Gyaos is not only the main villain of this
franchise but also very easy to tie into Gamera’s own origin for peak
efficiency. Rebirth introduced the idea that the same faction created Gamera
and Gyaos but also Jiger, Zigra, Guiron, Viras, etc, but adding back in
Ultraman means that the original alien origins for at least Zigra, Viras and
Guiron should be important again even if a faction like the Eustace Foundation
can still be controlling most of the Monsters of The Week. To start,
Gamera’s origins will be an overarching mystery but akin to the Heisei series
setup of being created to destroy Gyaos and also existing alongside Iris, who
is either a failsafe for him or an evolved Gyaos.
Ultraman Omega episode 1
features the Vagsect horde that (presumably) reappears later with a separate
monster as the primary antagonist MOTW, so that would be the ideal situation.
Gamera rises to deal with the Gyaos swarm in a cold open, and the ensuing
battle leads the child to a weakened Gamera and the magatama bead to connect
them. As they bond, the other characters in the Research Attack team can track
the real MOTW released by the villains (that will end up to be this research
team as a plot twist later on), and I would suggest Barugon as a weak(er)
episode one kaiju that can very easily be released from an egg within the same
episode it rampages. The child will start a friendship with one of the agents
in the attack team here when the plotlines converge, and the following episode
can have the actual recruitment occur. (As much as this premise relies on
Ultraman tropes, being a child-led toku show means Johnny Sokko’s structure is
also necessary to think about.)
Though Toru is the best
child character in the entire franchise, and Asagi and Ayana are the runner
ups, I think this star should go in a different direction from those and also
probably be a girl. There are fewer well developed female child characters than
male, but that is not actually why I would want the lead character to be
female. Gamera vs Guiron features a sort of Cassandra archetype in Akio’s
younger sister Tomoko who gets left out of their adventure and tells the adults
what happened (but no one believes her). A lonely left out character like this
would justify how the allure of the attack team overpowers her finer
sensibilities. Also, Tomoko’s only real friend in the movie is Officer Kondo, a
very goofy incompetent police officer played by a notable comic actor, and
replicating that dynamic in the confines of this attack team could lend one
sympathetic Special Agent character left after the reveal of the organization’s
ill intentions (casting a comic actor in this role would also help). There are
a few Ultraman shows that do something like this.
Naomi’s uncle in
Ultraman Orb was a VTOL agent but also very comedic slapstick character, and,
in Ultraman Geed, Riku’s older sister figure is essentially an ICE agent but
very selectively competent at her job (and it’s that last part that keeps her
entertaining). Adding back in analogs to Akio and his friend Tom as side
characters to get kidnapped and eventually grow to respect the Tomoko stand-in
could round out this cast (it is not unprecedented to abruptly kill off the
entire attack team midway through an Ultraman show, so it is important to have
other characters exist).
Most of Gamera’s enemies
get a film to themselves to prove them a great threat to Gamera so powerscaling
is difficult to establish. Of the Showa era kaiju, Viras was actually pretty
definitively the weakest, only lasting one fight, but Rebirth positioned him as
a boss kaiju. In a 25 episode season, we could easily do both especially
because Viras is just the larger form of notable Virians. The Virians would
shape up as larger villains, but, unlike the Gamera films, Ultraman television
shows usually feature multiple alien invaders at the same time, and it would be
cool to see disparate alien campaigns fail and the survivors unify against
Gamera (basically we see the Planetary Invasion Syndicate from Ultraman Orb
form but with Virians, Zigrans, Terans, etc). So as part of this storytelling,
Zigra and his ilk would be deliberately compared to the Virians and then exist
alongside them so Zigra himself will be more powerful than the weak Viras but
less powerful than the strongest Virian.
If episode one covers
Barugon, episode two can be the Virian’s first attempt at conquering Earth
(through kidnapping and replacing humans with Virians and then, when discovered,
converging into one being Viras and fighting Gamera). I think it is somewhat
important to include a scene where the lead character knows some people are
Virians in disguise but no one believes her. Then we can adapt Nezura if some
rats feast on tissue samples of the fallen Gyaos (eventually revealed to be
intentional by the attack team), with episode four being the Zigran’s first
effort, contrasting the previous Viras episode (instead of disguising
themselves as humans, they just brainwash a human that the attack team
mistakenly kills and waging a more overt offensive to lure Gamera out). These
would be increasing in threat level, but the main advancements for Gamera would
be agility and endurance. Barugon froze Gamera but was tanky while Viras was a
very slick opponent, Nezura would have strong rat teeth but each be as wriggly
as Viras, and Zigra, with his ocean aesthetic, paralysis beam, strength and
speed, would wrap most of these attributes together, necessitating more
abilities from Gamera than just fire breath. With Zigra dead, I would have it
that no other Zigran can grow to giant size but the invasion force still needs
to colonize Earth so they approach the Virian delegation.
Ideally, there would be
hints within the show at the attack team's true intentions, maybe as simple as
literally showing something very damning before the context of that is clear.
But the thing is uh Gamera Rebirth did a great job of crafting its Eustace
Foundation twist, but it seems no one else paid attention to Emiko’s clear
manipulation in episode 3 of that show, so it has to be even more blatant for
it to register in this fandom I guess. Garasharp can be the fifth episode's
MOTW, and the main thing of note for this is that we can just adapt the short
film’s ending where Gamera wants to save and protect Garasharp’s young this
time against the attack team. If Garasharp has two children, they can both come
back in a later episode post reveal, the attack team having gotten to one of
them.
Six episodes feels like
enough time for other monsters to shine consecutively, so one Gyaos will have
grown to giant Super-size in the meantime, and I suppose if you want to play up
the inorganic body horror angle some incarnations apply to Gyaos, you can have
it be that Super Gyaos is actively mutating to better combat Gamera. After a
hard fought battle codifying whatever new power also defeated Zigra (let us say
the heated Plasma Fist), Gamera dispatches Gyaos into several pieces scattered
about the countryside, and the episode can leave off on a lizard chewing on
some pieces.
In a pre-existing video
ranking all the Gamera Kaiju, I declared Guiron my number one Gamera kaiju (All 30 Gamera Kaiju Ranked, Except Iris Who Joe Forgot). As such, he is the most important kaiju for me to get
right in this show, and I want to take a big swing with him that you will see unfold
over the rest of this pitch. In the original Gamera vs Guiron, two young boys
travel to an alien planet where there are two sole survivors that want to eat
their brains and assimilate Earth culture. There is a sort of shadow
relationship between Tera and Earth down to every notable aspect, the people,
the guardian monster and even the monsters that attack that planet. Adjusting
that slightly, the dark mirror of Tomoko and special agent Kondo would be an
abusive mentorship (which will expedite the plot point of one Teran shooting
the other midway through the adventure). As I am still recycling Akio and Tom
into this premise, we can still have the Terans kidnap Akio to feast on his
brain and have Tom get captured trying to save him. Up until this point, they
would be minor characters in this show, only interacting with Tomoko, but the
attack team rescuing them would lead to further importance and heightened
stakes when the attack team can also kidnap them post villain reveal.
For the actual kaiju
matters, Guiron is too cool to go down this episode, so, even after trying
every new power he has, Gamera is unable to destroy the knifeheaded monster.
Still, there is a pretty clear thematic point of comparison in this battle to
clarify why Guiron cannot win either; Guiron is being controlled
dispassionately by two evil beings in conflict with each other. The warm
partnership of Tomoko and Gamera with their mutual respect for agent Kondo will
be able to survive longer than the partnership of the Terans with Guiron. The
last Teran dies in an explosion, Guiron is left on his own for a later episode
to explore him, and the Zigran and Virian coalition moves into the Teran base
to begin construction on a new monster to defeat Gamera once and for all.
Two episodes after Super
Gyaos’ debut and dismemberment is enough time for that lizard to eat the
carcass and mutate into Zedus. Though this monster is one of my favorites, I
cannot contrive a scenario for him to reappear, so not only will this be a
definitive battle, it will probably be a very quick one since, by design, Zedus
is only really a challenge for a Baby Gamera. Because every Ultra series show
has around 20 episodes, not every monster fight is an increase in challenge,
but the hero still does progress the whole time, so you will pretty immediately
run into an overkill scenario where the hero uses one of their special forms or
kaiju helpers in a fight against an admittedly pretty weak villain. Zedus’
tongue will pose little challenge to Gamera, but he will still use the Plasma
Fist to show that the bond between the Tomoko character and Gamera has more
energy than before to where it is less draining to use this move.
I wanted to save Jiger
for later, but, as I am now realizing, it is very difficult to pace these
monsters over the course of 25 episodes in a way that does not feel arbitrary,
and every creative currently doing so on the Ultra series has been doing so far
longer than I have been. In any case, episode 9 is far enough separated from
Barugon so as to not feel redundant of including another overpowered quadruped.
One of the areas Rebirth fell short was adapting Jiger; she came off as more or
less a dinosaur version of Nezura with none of her old powers, so this episode
would take roughly Rebirth’s perfectly updated design but stick all of the
powers back on. She will shoot barbs of hardened snot, be able to fly and all
of her various powers, but notably, she will also impregnate Gamera again.
Gamera will have to use his Burning Fist on himself to abort the child, and,
while this happens, on the human end of this relationship, the child character
will have appendicitis. This feels like clever mirroring for that.
Now, with all of the
main Showa foes out of the way, Powered Gyaos can show up, and, as you may not
know, the conceit behind Powered Gyaos is that it is a Voltron of these Showa
era foes. (To round this monster cast out, I have to bring in some obscure ones
that you hear about in my ranking: All 30 Gamera Kaiju Ranked, Except Iris Who Joe Forgot) Now obviously, I have plans for the Virians, Zigrans and
Guiron outside of this Voltron later, so it will just be a composite of cells
left behind in their fights against Gamera. Specifically, the show will imply
it is the Zigran and Virian coalition’s doing, but, post heel turn reveal, the
Earthbound attack team takes credit for it in the back half of the season. Even
so, the Ultra series does not need as rigid of an explanation for how a fusion
of kaiju can appear between appearances of the kaiju within; Ultraman Orb has
two different forms of Zetton, one of which comes back after Zeppandon, who is a
separate fusion of a classic Zetton and Pandon, who also appears in a new form
in that show before that point. I have less to say about the actual fight.
For the midseason two
parter, the Zigrans and Virians with Teran materials will have created W, the two
headed Wyvern kaiju and scrapped archenemy to Gamera. This feels like a natural
place in the season for such a concept and also for another powerup for Gamera.
The only problem is he seldom powers up too much, so we are only left with a
few moves from previous shows (even Gamera the Brave had to make flight one of
the powers Gamera has to grow into). If handled with the proper gravitas,
“bigger concentrated fireball” can be the powerup; otherwise, it can be a new
armored form akin to Rebirth’s design or maybe eye lasers because Godzilla also
got those once for some reason. All we know about the original Gamera vs W
movie pitch is that they would have fought within flames, so a more durable
form would make a certain kind of sense.
Episode 13 seems to generally
be the obligatory Recap episode, showing stock footage of all of the previous
fights as we go into the next half of the season. In the past, I have skipped
Recap episodes for some shows; other shows have a built in reason not to skip
the Recap episode, be it unpacking a major plot development/reveal and actually
including a monster suit as in Ultraman Omega. For this fictional season of
television I am envisioning, this is the best place to have the main characters
figure out that the attack team is up to something and even behind some of the
monsters’ attacks. What adds to the tension building between our leads and the
faction though is that the next conflict, in a two parter, will be the invasion
of the Legion horde that forces a teamup. Legion is far too big of a concept
with far too many forms to fit into one episode, and, frankly, they could be 4
episodes easily, but the basic idea is to put Legion into the Galactron role in
Ultraman Orb. Legion will be the strongest monster up to this point in the show
and probably one of the three most powerful in this show in general.
For episode 16, I would
want to have the return of Guiron, and, like in Gamera Rebirth, I want Guiron
to chop one of Gamera’s arms off (the specific scenario would be Gamera trying
to use the Plasma fist attack but Guiron being able to parry and riposte). This
would again force the idea of potentially teaming up with the attack team, but
their full heel turn would come about here, raising the stakes by kidnapping
one of the characters. Now I have written myself into a corner entailing the
divorce of a little girl’s arm from her body since it happened to Gamera, but I
want to pull some shenanigans. The magatama bead or whatever plot macguffin
links the girl to Gamera would be the beta capsule here, and Ultraman often
loses his transformation device, so in an Ultraman 1966 Gomora scenario, Guiron
wins and leaves, and the hero drops the magatama bead, resulting in her not
suffering the damage but also being unable to move Gamera until she finds it.
In episode 17, our
heroes will try to rescue the kidnapped friend (let us say it is Kondo to tap
into that Johnny Sokko rescuing Jerry Mano homage) without the use of Gamera
and the magatama bead. The attack team will unveil the Monster Of The Week,
Iris, an alternative hero to Gamera with another magatama bead link from the
same civilization. Ideally, up to this point, the mystery of Gamera and his
origins has been sufficiently teased. This episode would fill in those answers
about the prehistoric civilization creating Gamera and some of these monsters,
but we would deviate from Rebirth’s reveal that some of the people in charge of
the villainous faction seemingly are from those days; this attack team is just
interested in control.
We can juxtapose that
with the genuine friendship Gamera has with the kids, and so, while one notable
attack team member uses the Iris magatama bead to control it, Gamera will
ultimately step up to protect Tomoko and her friends without her needing to
control him. I want this to be a notable subversion in the show where the
audience expects that the traditional “losing the transformation device and
finding it in the right moment” trope will start happening in the show, but
instead, it just exits the show. I also kind of want to include this as this is
more similar to Johnny Sokko in that I have separated the lead character from
the fighting force, and that show was a little bit hard to read in terms of
when Giant Robo gained sentience and independence from Johnny. The kids
successfully rescue Kondo, and the attack team gets to work on other
alternative monsters to Gamera, but we can leave that plotline for an episode.
Next would be the
reappearance of Viras, and the vision I have for Viras II is that a different
notable Virian that survived the events of the W two parter slinks around the
ship assimilating the other Virians and Zigrans there to become a horrifying
giant mutation of a Viras. It would be a different kind of cold open than
Gamera vs Viras proper had but with a similar doom aboard the spaceship. The
actual battle would be fiercer and grosser than the first Gamera vs Viras fight
in this show, and this can be when Gamera unveils a new special move. In order
to fully disintegrate this writhing mass, Gamera’s plastron opens and a greater
beam comes out as you have seen before in the Heisei films. Naturally, that
would be very physically taxing, and Gamera will be very weak for the next
episode, which will entail that other Garasharp that the attack team will have
modified into a weapon in a tragic turn of events.
It is very difficult to
find enough content to spread over a 25 episode season. The ideal solution
would be that the creative team makes new monsters, but, just stretching what
we do have, the mushroom headed long armed absurdly named Marukobukarappa that
has been planned for several projects but never appeared could work here. And
since the comedy has been lacking up to this point, make the episode a comedic
farce. That’s all I’ve got for that. Then, I think Bodera from Gamera Rebirth
Code Thrysos was a really cool design for a prototype created kaiju so the
attack team can send that out, and then for episode 22, Guiron will get his
third episode. Since Gamera is currently down to just one arm due to the knife
headed monster, there will be a ferocious rivalry, but I want their fight to
resolve peacefully. As the horde of giant mutated Hyper Gyaos roll in, Guiron
decides to fight on the side of Gamera, becoming the obligatory helper kaiju,
the sword and shield fighting together to save the Earth. Maybe it is obvious
that I like Guiron a lot, possibly too much, but that is the big swing I would
want to take with his character since he is anomalous for being a mirror to
Gamera in that original film and still being treated as one of the evilest
villains despite killing the most Gyaos of anyone. This will also be the end of
Gyaos as a villain in this show.
One thing I find very
poignant about serialized television is that it ends, and I have really come
around to the idea of that ending, at least in tokusatsu seasons, denoting the
death of the giant hero. Ultraman and Giant Robo both die in their series, and
it is an early lesson to a child audience of the fragility of life and nobility
of sacrifice. Gamera also dies at the conclusion of his Showa film series (and
Gamera Rebirth), ambiguously dies at the conclusion of the Heisei series and
dies at the start of Gamera the Brave, so he takes to this. Gamera’s Showa
series death was against Zanon, a metal ship that could send out his previous
monsters, and I talked about a way to rehabilitate that concept with a
different monster in my kaiju ranking video.
The final two episodes
of this show, marketed as the Death of Gamera, will be about fighting Morphos,
the artificial shapeshifting kaiju made of metal the attack team creates that
destroys them before taking on the form of every other monster Gamera has
fought in this show. Whether in stock footage or new battles, it is the
opportunity to do something really interesting here and exhausting for Gamera,
but the final form of Morphos will be a metallic Gamera, and Gamera will have
to use his Plasma Glow across his entire body alongside the plastron beam to
recreate his self destruction move from Gamera the Brave to take out Morphos.
I will discuss this in
the Gamera vs Godzilla video, but this exercise is interesting in that I am not
fully satisfied with the pitches I make as a fan of these franchises for them.
The urge, and in this case obligation, to pull from all corners of the
franchises I am referencing constrains me into very odd and specific writing
decisions. But of course, I wanted to do something special to celebrate
Gamera’s 60th anniversary, and I will now turn it over to you to share your
thoughts in the comments. Let us know your thoughts on this pitch and if you
would like to see Gamera and Ultraman crossover, even how you think it could
go.
