The Legacy of Barugon

By Joe Gibson

Gamera vs Barugon (1966) is the second Gamera film and the odd man out of the Showa series for its dark tone and mature themes. The anniversary of its release (4/17) passed recently, and I was unable to get a review out in time, but that helped me realize that I would rather wait to review it so that I can spend more time interacting with what the film is trying to say. I have an essay in the works trying to break down the themes, imagery and implications of Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga (don’t worry, I’ll try to make it as approachable and easy to understand as I can), and, ultimately, I plan to do something similar for Gamera vs Barugon. That will take time, and there are other reviews I will get to first, so, in the meantime, I will release this, a short contemplation on the legacy of Gamera vs Barugon and its antagonist monster as a whole.

As I often mention, Gamera vs Barugon is the odd one out of the Showa Gamera series creatively and tonally. However, that does not mean that it is non-canonical or that its creative DNA does not still exist within the franchise to some degree. (I guess if you get really specific into the stock footage backstory segment in Gamera vs Guiron, that film either simply ignores Gamera vs Barugon or implies it did not happen in that timeline, but the stock footage in Gamera vs Jiger shows it again, and the positioning of Barugon as the final foe in Gamera Super Monster re-emphasizes the importance of this monster’s existence to the Showa era.) The original plan was actually to have Gamera face off against Ice Giants, hence why Barugon has ice powers even though the Rainbow Death Ray factors into the stakes more, and one could see Daiei’s Daimaijin character as essentially what they would have looked like, but creating Barugon as a kaiju and not a humanoid kaijin set the precedent for kaiju on kaiju battles in the Gamera series.

Unlike every other Showa Gamera movie, Gamera vs Barugon’s director was not Noriaki Yuasa but Shigeo Tanaka. I could not see any evidence of more kaiju films in his filmography, but the major reason Daiei brought him on was that he was an established director, churning out multiple films a year consistently since 1931. After the original Gamera was a large success, Daiei wanted to treat the sequel as a bigger budget film, filmed in color this time, so it makes sense to bring on a prolific director who had been working for longer than Noriaki Yuasa had been alive. This might be the reason why while there are still growing pains in the monster fights and larger special effects difficulties, this film has far greater tonal unity and cohesion than the previous as well as surprisingly well done human on human fight scenes within the direction and blood effects. (I do not know the ins and outs of the production except that inexperienced Noriaki Yuasa was still special effects director, and I personally believe Yuasa found his footing fairly quickly in this franchise, but it seems fair to attribute the professional streamlined aspects of this film to Tanaka, who I otherwise have nothing to talk about.)

In Gamera vs Barugon, a small group of greedy humans seek a jewel and betray each other. While one man goes on to brood and undertake a redemption arc, the other, through their greed and negligence first cause the jewel to hatch into a kaiju and then interferes with an effort to combat the kaiju Barugon. Greed is the mechanism that drives the human villain Onodera but also to an extent Barugon, as he seeks after a shiny diamond that, once procured, does not stop him as he keeps going (according Shout Factory’s release of the film, Barugon has a diamond digesting sack in his body because he is drawn to shiny objects like food and based on the diagram, seems to be using them as fuel for his Rainbow Death Ray). Because of the causal link to Onodera’s actions, it is crucial that the film shows us the birth of Barugon; it is equally important that the film never address the fact that Barugon is literally a newborn kaiju landlocked (he is deathly allergic to water) in a strange place constantly being shot at by the military. The original Gamera established that he was the friend to a specific child and left that ambiguous while later movies would codify that he is the friend to all children; this movie has no human children, shows Gamera as only marginally the lesser of two evils (though he arguably has less of an excuse than Barugon for their rampages) and shows a type of child Gamera has no issue murdering.

Again, for the intersection of the film’s themes and ideas, Barugon has to be a child, and there is no issue with this film for Barugon to be an unsympathetic child (just more of a weird precedent for this series as it would become to have set). The 1991 short film/pitch Gamera vs Garasharp featured the idea that newborn monsters were innocent and thus protected by Gamera, but that has not been integrated into any of the mainline films or shows. Barugon’s hatching scene with the three shaku puppet and cigarette smoke is iconic, as well as (allegedly) Yuasa's favorite scene in the movie, so it is no surprise that the concept of sinister child kaiju came up again later.

Most notably, the later quadruped Jiger appears somewhat similar to Barugon. While Barugon is a chameleon and Jiger a triceratops, they both have an absurd array of powers while being mundane looking, Earth monsters and quadrupedal, a very unique package of characteristics. Jiger is a dormant adult but impregnates Gamera’s lung, and the technically innocent Baby Jiger immediately attacks the humans it encounters while also leeching Gamera’s life to the point where the characters must perform a shortwave radio abortion. As far as other instances of this oddly specific trope, well, discussion of the legacy of Barugon’s portrayal necessarily weaves in and out of a conversation about Gyaos because, there was reasonably a time where either could have had claim to the archvillain role, and each influenced each other in some key ways.

Gyaos is Gamera’s archenemy due to a few key characteristics: popularity, two Showa era suits (distinct appearances independent of stock footage use), prominence in the marketing and narrative of Gamera Super Monster and finally the villain role in Gamera Guardian of the Universe 1995 and ultimately as the recurring villain of the entire Heisei trilogy. The thing is while the various posters were on the same page that Gyaos was the highest profile villain and the film shows off Gyaos as the first kaiju Gamera fights, it technically makes Barugon even more important to have his fight last in Super Monster, to be the fight that everything was building up to. At the same time, Barugon was also considered to be the villain of Gamera GOTU and perhaps that is part of why at no stage of the Heisei Gyaos’ lifespan can they not be considered evil. However, no matter what, that Heisei backstory for the villain monster role of being created by Atlantis and then destroying Atlantis is quite clearly derived from Space Gyaos (Gyaos’ second Showa appearance) in Gamera vs Guiron, so the legacies of Gyaos and Barugon were always going to be tied together.

Interestingly, the recent show Gamera Rebirth, distributed this backstory of being created by a bygone society to the remainder of Gamera’s Showa era combatants: Viras, Guiron, Zigra and Jiger. While it is unfortunate that the show elected to give Gyaos two episodes instead of letting Barugon back with his Showa era brethren, he technically gets some representation through the portrayal of Jiger. Rebirth Jiger is just not the same beast as Showa Jiger. With none of the same powers and much less of a threat presence, her episode leverages the imagery of her new ratlike physique with the choreography of her feeding in the sewers (if you know about the scrapped Daiei monster Nezura, then that is what is referencing). However, she and Gyaos are the only ones shown as newborns, and all of the Jigers have the same sinister drive to consume and grow larger, imagery that is only compatible with a Gamera series because Gamera vs Barugon exists. (You have to admit that if Gamera vs Garasharp, with its message of child monster innocence, replaced Gamera vs Barugon, this series never would have produced the image of a horde of newborn lizards eating each other until the last one remaining emerges to fight with Gamera and dies from getting its insides torched by his hand.)

That was all functionally a technicality. While it is true that there is substantially less to explicitly point to in terms of legacy for Barugon than Gamera of Gyaos, the legacy of Barugon in this franchise is still quite notable. For the Heisei series, there was a tie-in comic that included Barugon as the main opponent monster (Viras also got one, but the treatment of Viras in Gamera Rebirth also indicates we are meant to see Viras as a significant villain for Gamera too, so…). I discussed Gamera The Brave recently, and its villain monster Zedus is the most blatant legacy of Barugon in that they both have the shooting tongue and Zedus would have been a quadrupedal monster until the team realized he would be too similar to Barugon. And uh also Barugon’s roar is also the roar of Ultra series monsters Gubila and Twin Tail – that’s good enough to end this article on, right? That’s a Rodan level contribution to the genre (Rodan’s roars have been used for an absurd amount of kaiju roars just pitch adjusted or sped up). 

Okay, it is true that not much has come of Barugon objectively speaking. He has seemingly only inspired lesser kaiju such as Wanigon and the Azure Dragon, but, as they say, every dog gets his day, and Barugon will have more opportunities if Gamera Rebirth ever gets a season 2 or if Shusuke Kaneko gets to make his pitch to Kadokawa he approached them with when they busy with Rebirth season 1. I say we remain optimistic and maybe something unprecedented can happen one day, maybe we will even see a derivative of him in a major Hollywood blockbuster release. And actually, we have. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire featured two main antagonist monsters, one of which, as you likely know, was an ice monster named Shimo, and I will leave you with this piece of trivia. Jared Krichevsky based early concepts of Shimo on Barugon and acknowledged the inspiration publicly. Perhaps the legacy of Barugon is greater than we thought after all.

A True Yuasan Modern Gamera Film: Gamera The Brave, 19th Anniversary Celebration of Gamera The Brave

 

By Joe Gibson

The following is an anniversary celebration post of Gamera The Brave, intersecting with one particular aspect of the movie’s exigence. We may do a more in depth review eventually, but you can watch a discussion on the film from Doug and Joe Gibson here: https://youtu.be/O1SZ8W5BKIg?si=r-rG3-ExlPlFPjLu 

Gamera The Brave is my favorite Gamera film and one of my favorite films of all time.  An honest and objective inquiry might find that Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris has less plot conveniences (all of the monsters have built in plot justifications for when, why and where they appear unlike Zedus) and more success in the ambiguity it employs, but I will maintain that not only is Gamera The Brave the runner-up in nearly every category of filmmaking, but Gamera The Brave is also the truest Gamera film, at least in upholding a vision similar to Noriaki Yuasa’s with more success in budget allocation.

Background

Noriaki Yuasa was the primary creative of the franchise between 1965 and 1980 (1991 if you count the Gamera vs Garasharp short), his creative influence waxing and waning proportionally to the success of the brand. (Most people attribute Daiei president Masaichi Nagata with the original thought of a flying turtle monster, though other stories exist, but Gamera, as we know him, exists because of Yuasa.)  While the series would eventually become the ultimate child friendly kaiju adventures, Daiei’s vision for this character and franchise was a cheap knockoff of the then more serious Godzilla, bringing on Noriaki Yuasa (director), Nisan Takahashi (writer), Akira Inoue (creature designer) and Yonejiro Saito (producer), some of whom had more experience than others, for early drafts and development of the project. Those are some of the names that each brought their own ideas to this franchise, so we can try to whittle down basic authorial intents and inputs from there.  

Yonejiro Saito only worked on the first two and seventh (so his contributions are to be mostly ignored except in how the films under him differ from the rest), replaced by Maisaichi’s son Hidemasa Nagata (definitely more in support of the childlike vision since he wrote the disembodied child anthems for Gamera). Some sources indicate Hidemasa’s involvement as early as the original film, but others credit his father instead, which would make more sense. Despite only having one other directed film, Yuasa stepped up to leave his fingerprints pretty much everywhere else in the production.  As well as working on special effects, Yuasa worked closely with Inoue to iron out the designs of several of the monsters in the franchise, including Gamera himself, and Yuasa and Takahashi were united in the belief that Gamera should be The Friend To All Children, working together to include the infamous scene where hostile Gamera catches a child from the lighthouse after attacking. Yuasa has said that his primary job was adapting Takahashi’s scripts, but I actually believe Takahashi wrote whatever he was told to while Yuasa pushed in a distinct creative direction, since the second film Gamera vs Barugon, after Gamera was a success, demoted Yuasa to special effects director but kept Takahashi as writer and is a dark and gritty film about human greed with no child characters. 

Once Gamera vs Barugon, a big budget production, did not meet expectations, Daiei realized Yuasa somehow had the key to making this franchise successful and reinstated him as director, quite possibly catering to his vision since Gamera vs Gyaos was a far more polished demonstration of Yuasa’s tropes than the original film, which switched between Daiei and Yuasa, Daiei and Yuasa. The budgets would slowly dry up, motivating creativity from Yuasa but eventually surpassing his capability to make a competent story (see my review of Gamera vs Zigra: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/gamera-vs-zigra-turning-53-years-old.html). 

The Tropes of Yuasan Gamera

But what are these Noriaki Yuasa staple tropes? Yuasa is a very fascinating and complicated figure, and the interviews with him, while cryptic, help us to understand him a little better especially Jorg Buttgereit’s and David Milner’s (if you can still find it). This explanation of his intent comes mostly from those sources.  

First, more than just featuring children, Yuasa wanted to emphasize the wisdom of children while engineering scenarios that serve not only to vindicate but console them and their worldview. Yuasa thought of himself as childish but also trusted children more than adults because he grew up during World War II and witnessed the inconsistency of the adults around him politically reacting to all of that.  Children were simple and could see the truth of things without confusion, so, even with all sorts of turmoil and politics around them, the truth in a Yuasa movie must be simple and ideally it is the child character that can understand it by the end of the film. With the journey Gamera The Brave’s child protagonist goes on, once I explain it, you’ll be sure this is represented in the movie too.

However, children also needed to be protected. Yuasa spoke of a time when he was filming at an institution for abandoned children and noticed their sadness as one of the reasons he made Gamera into The Friend To All Children. Gamera specifically goes out of his way and often into danger to protect Eiichi from Gyaos, Masao and Jim from Viras, Akio and Tom from Guiron, and Ken and Helen from Zigra. While that trend continued into the 90s films (random child in GOTU, Asagi in all films and Ayana in the third), it is on full display in Gamera The Brave.

Going along with that, Gamera has to be an influence that helps the children navigate the issues in their lives. Obviously, when they trust in him, he saves the day, but Gamera actually seems to help Akio and Tom with their character arcs while helping them fight Guiron, and is one of the main influences that helps Keiichi in his social life as he gains the older sister influences he needs in his life from the Space Women (as bizarre as Gamera Super Monster is, there is at least a clear thematic core that interplays with the other trends of this franchise). A home life with mundane conflict stemming from the children being seen as childish is very common for the franchise, so we should look out for that.

Adults are not as trustworthy, but, on an individual basis, if they support the kids, they are good guys, and, if not, they are not. Virtuous characters either actively defend the children or think like children themselves (Kondo in Gamera vs Guiron and the worker in Gamera vs Zigra), while unhelpful but sympathetic characters initially oppose the children but come around to their way of thinking (the parents in most of these movies), and truly evil characters often betray the kids from a place of trust (Viras himself and the Terans in Gamera vs Guiron). This is something that gets more elaboration in Gamera Rebirth with notable plot payoffs based on the reveals of which adult humans have or do not have children’s better interests in mind, but there are aspects of it here.

The children also must play a role in the monster proceedings of each film, whether it is as simple as Eiichi needing to be rescued not only by Gamera but also some human characters, as arbitrary as the children getting Zigra to paralyze them so they don’t die of asphyxiation in a broken Bathysphere (even in context, that one is pretty harebrained) or as direct as the boys in Gamera vs Jiger literally going inside Gamera to abort Jiger’s parasitic child with a shortwave radio.  We must pay extra attention to where the kids fit within monster set-pieces and how the film leverages that. (If, for example, the core of this movie were a scene emphasizing the way particular kids as well as all kids can and will help Gamera when given the chance, that would fit quite nicely into this franchise.)

Single parent families are common but so are dual parent households (both are prominent in this movie). Similarly, pairs and trios of friends exist in the old movies and here to varying extents. I do not mean to be fallacious and claim total adherence to the formula of a Showa Gamera film because the cultural and societal context is different. Yuasa’s views came about as a reaction to perceived adult political inconsistency as Yuasa was growing up around the time of World War 2, so that subtext cannot be carried forward organically within this film. (Instead, the film seems to be using the Showa series itself as the subtextual background stimulus to justify the tropes in ways I will explain shortly.)

Finally, and this is where we get into that bizarre Yuasa phrasing that is either due to translation errors or genuinely how this man’s brain worked that animals are also capable of the same emotions as humans, and as part of a religious philosophy, gigantism does not disqualify one from being like man either. All this to say, Gamera’s emotions are as valid as any other, and him being a turtle is no reason he cannot be a human archetype. Having already thought about this, Gamera is this strange mixture of Sage, Caregiver, Everyman/underdog and Warrior that does not fit popular definitions of any of those the more specific you get but can bring all of those together into a specifically Jungian version of Jesus Christ (read my Jungian analysis of Gamera vs Guiron for more information: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-jungian-exploration-of-gamera-vs.html), which is also weird because I have no evidence at this point of Yuasa having any affinity for Christianity, least of all Jungian Christianity. (Ultraman himself seems to be an inherently Christian character and later analysis into Ultraman 80 to see how Christian Yuasa’s episodes are will be my last chance to further that connection.) The specific imagery is self sacrifice (Gamera Super Monster), crucifixion (Gamera vs Jiger) and a death and rebirth cycle (Gamera vs Guiron). 

So, on one end, Gamera as a gigantic animal, is not disqualified from being human and God, but Yuasa also emphasized that the less organic the villain monster, the more Gamera was a hero by comparison (one of the main reasons I read knife-headed Guiron as a false Christ personally, but you can read more on that by following the links). For this point, what we have to keep in mind for Gamera The Brave is that Gamera is a character, maybe Jesus, and the less organically possible the villain monster gets, the less human it is (extra points if the villain monster gets less organically feasible over the course of the film rather than just starting out inhuman).

The Yuasan Film

Toru Aizawa is the protagonist of Gamera: The Brave. As a child protagonist with a special bond with Gamera that we are meant to empathize with and see the story through, his character has an automatic credibility, but he also demonstrates wisdom and knowledge about what to do with Gamera and strong interpersonal skills with his friends. While he is stubborn and realistically whiny, the moment where he learns of Mai’s impending surgery and offers the red jewel for good luck as well as his scenes learning to care for Gamera clarify a strong moral center in a dynamic character that grounds this experience (this is the type of story where the lead character’s development demonstrates the theme). While his friends outside of Mai are not exceptionally well developed, their role in the shared relay race to Gamera clarifies that they can step up to do what needs to be done and exemplify the wisdom of Yuasan Gamera children. While Mai takes the most vocal stance against keeping Toto, she is the first in the chain to get the jewel back to Gamera. To make those last two sentences make sense, I should explain that the scene at the core of this movie, that every leads up to, is a set piece in which all of the kids in the movie including set extras, all realizing Toto needs the red jewel good luck charm found by his egg to fully become Gamera and use the powers to save the day, pass of the jewel to each other to reach him in time. 

Adults try to evacuate the city and impede the children running straight into the danger, but, any time an adult stops them, another kid arrives until the jewel gets to Gamera. This exemplifies the Yuasan ideal that children are wiser and more trustworthy and ultimately more powerful in these scenarios. Actually, the movie’s original title would translate better to The Little Braves, Gamera, which by process of elimination is actually referring to the children in this scene and not Gamera himself.

Though this is a children’s film, the antagonist Zedus is a literal maneater, and the child characters are literally in danger of getting eaten throughout the film. Toru’s friend Mai is waiting for and then goes through a risky surgery, and her entire family has to deal with the idea that she might not make it (thankfully she does). Similarly, Toru just lost his mother and not only mourns having her near but lacks belief that he will ever see again, a very human character wound to ground this story in. To varying degrees, the children need Gamera, but their partnership with Gamera works because they are brave, and, for them to be brave, they have to face adversity, even adversity that would be difficult for adults.

As the adult figures are judged in this movie by proximity to the children, those that are motivated to look out for the children and/or defer to their wisdom are the “good guys.” Toru’s father is technically structurally a minor antagonist in this movie because he wants to keep Toru safe and away from the kaiju action, but he eventually relents, and his own previous connection to Gamera helps to explain why. At the same time, the life and death stakes affecting Toru and Mai also affect their parents. The military and government task force help Gamera recover but do so for their own reasons and fundamentally disagree with the children, which codes them as shifty and perhaps past their usefulness.

Gamera, though far less blatant than Ultraman, is very easy to slot into a Christ role, and, as I have mentioned a few times before, Little Braves Gamera happens to be the strongest example of Gamera as a Christ figure and legitimately has more one to one points of comparison than some Ultraman shows. In this case, Toru’s growth alongside Gamera specifically allows him to gain faith in an afterlife, so a spiritual component exists in the subtext of this movie. More tantalizing, this Gamera, Toto, is both Son and Father, reborn 33 years (the age of Christ in tradition) after a self sacrifice. By the end of the movie right when Toto is about to willfully self-destruct (giving up the ghost), he has been lodged in a building, and Zedus spears him in the side (I am fairly confident it is the same side as Jesus was supposed to be speared on). Consequently, this is actually a fairly good Easter movie for being about the miracle of a Christ figure’s rebirth, and, as Easter just came, it is worth mentioning. I do feel I have harped on the Gamera as Christ symbolism a little bit too much lately though and will try to explore other aspects for the next little bit.

In the Showa Gamera series, the children would usually have an important role in the action, and that is true here too. The heart of this movie is the aforementioned scene when the kids pass off the red jewel back to Gamera to get him to full power. Having to save Gamera calls back to Gamera vs Jiger notably (but that case was a radio powered abortion, and this case is throwing a rock into Gamera’s mouth). As for Eiichi and most of the other child characters, Gamera has to save Toru’s friend from the enemy monster in the film. Even the speculation from Toshio in the original film on Gamera’s motivations has a match here, while Toru initially refuses to believe Toto is Gamera and gets to spectate much of the action. Though it all may very well be coincidental, the spectrum of Showa Gamera child engagement is present in this film.

Zedus is an interesting creature that could match Yuasa and Inoue’s design philosophy insofar as he technically grows less and less organically natural/viable as he establishes and codifies himself as the villain of the picture. First, he appears lampooning Jaws offscreen attacking survivors of a shipwreck (notably an actual shark could do everything he does in that scene). When he reaches the mainland, and we see his full design, he attacks and eats humans, something very down to Earth for a kaiju to do (compare this to Legion from two films prior, who was an entire army of pneumatically powered extraterrestrials). Zedus then gains special abilities of the extendable tongue and frill that serve to separate him from the mostly natural dinosaur he had been thus far. It is not quite as blatant as literally turning Guiron into a knife to drive the point home that he is villainous and organic, but Inoue even said at the time “Only Guiron is like this,” implying that it is usually meant to be more subtle. (Indeed, Viras’ squid head is also capable of stabbing Gamera in the climax of his movie, the same movie that introduces us to Viras as an innocent animal in a cage before revealing he can talk and is in charge of the entire operation, warping our perception of him from organic zoo animal to impossibly sharp space demon squid.)

This last one is not necessarily a serious point, but, in my own analysis of Gamera vs Guiron, I found similarities to portal fantasy (at least more than there were with Grimm’s fairy tales), and, here, the concept of a pet named Toto could be a subtle reference to The Wizard of Oz, one of the most notable Portal Fantasy films.  Whether or not this was coincidental either time it occurred, a Yuasan trope nonetheless became a Tasaki trope.

Basically, this film is everything Yuasa would have wanted but with better writing, acting and special effects.

Conclusion

While it is impossible to truly replicate a Yuasa film, this film comes the closest. Based on Gamera vs Guiron, Yuasa would have emphasized acrobatics in the fight scenes more than this film does, though it also has some involving Zedus. As far as the positive portrayal of Toru’s father, it is possible that such a character would exist in a Yuasa film and also possible he would not (much of Yuasa’s worldview regarding the negative qualities of actors and adults came from Yuasa’s father, an actor, also being unfaithful, and mother characters are certainly more common than fathers in the Showa series, though both exist).

It is not exactly a surprise this film turned out to emulate Yuasa’s style; according to Wikizilla, that was director Ryuta Tasaki’s goal, as he, like Yuasa before him, predominantly made his tokusatsu stories to be appreciated by children. The story for this movie was also based on earlier draft of the 1995 film Gamera Guardian of the Universe (before that film and trilogy went in its own darker direction helmed by Shusuke Kaneko and Kazunori Ito) that I unfortunately could not find more information on before the release of this post. I must confess I have not looked as deep into Tasaki as I have attempted for Yuasa, but, as The Little Braves: Gamera is the last film in the franchise, Tasaki, born 1964, is the 30 years later (Yuasa was born in 1933) next generation to keep the franchise and our connection to Gamera intact, just as we see in the movie’s Aizawa family. 

I cannot help but compare this film from 2006 with Godzilla Final Wars (2004) as both were intended to serve as celebrations for the franchises before them, but, while Godzilla Final Wars paraded around the corpses of our favorite monsters and reduced Akira Takarada and Kumi Mizuno to set dressing, The Little Braves: Gamera crafted a compelling new story that truly celebrates the old in such a way that I am sure Noriaki Yuasa would have been proud if he’d lived to see it.  Yuasa praised the moment toward the end of the 1998 Godzilla where human and monster are face to face, but, here, it is not a moment in isolation but the scope and focus of this story to reach that point.

Joe's Gamera Film Ranking, Worst to Best - Gamera Day Nov. 27, 2024

 

By Joe Gibson

Very suddenly, the anniversary of the original 1965 Gamera film, November 27th, 2024 (otherwise called Gamera Day) is close upon us. Now, here at Plan9Crunch, I, Joe Gibson, have been working my way through specifically the Showa Gamera series (1965-1980) out of order, and I eventually intend to have reviews up here for all of the Showa Gamera films + Gamera The Brave and Gamera Rebirth (if you are interested in essays on the Gamera Heisei trilogy, let us know). However, Gamera Day comes only once a year, and this ranking can serve as a preview for those later thoughts and a concise summary of earlier articles (links interspersed throughout). If you disagree, share your own rankings below.

13. Gamera vs Zigra 1971 (Link here to a Plan9Crunch review: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/gamera-vs-zigra-turning-53-years-old.html)

As I have already expressed, Gamera vs Zigra is constrained by such lack of budget that Director Noriaki Yuasa's creativity is unable to realize in any substantive charm. The film, set almost entirely in Kamogawa Sea World has to contrive reasons to stay at the setting without destroying it and proves unable to use the setting to ground any main characters' arcs and actions (outside of a superfluous aquarium worker that somehow contributes more than the children do). The plot comes off as a retread of Gamera vs Viras, and the intention and powers of Zigra and those under his thrall as well as the stakes are very inconsistent without many creative fight scenes to offset that. As I will discuss in the following sections, most Showa Gamera movies are a mix of high highs and low lows; this film is just the same bland tripe throughout where the contrivances in Zigra's paralysis working differently for different people leads into the contrivance of the main cast's ultimate survival, but the more clever choreography and aquarium juxtaposition taper off into nothing by the end of the film.

12. Gamera 1965

Being the first Gamera movie ever made and one of the most influential kaiju films (at the very least, Yongary seems to have copied this film's tonal inconsistency of designating the title monster as  terrible destroyer as well as friend to a child), it is surprising I have not discussed this in its own dedicated review yet. Personally, I find it quite hard to watch with its very abrupt storytelling and confusing character motivations of Toshio and his family, but it places here on the list because the image of Gamera catching Toshio from the lighthouse (as well as other scenes that support Yuasa and writer Nisan Takahashi's intent for Gamera as an icon to children) touched upon something that would go on to fuel the childlike whimsy of this franchise. Gamera 1965 is a movie at war with itself, with the studio Daiei wanting a darker Godzilla ripoff and Yuasa wanting to emphasize his childlike creativity; Gamera vs Barugon 1966 shows us Daiei's vision more fully realized, and Gamera vs Gyaos 1967 is the earliest film where Yuasa can show off what he wants to do unopposed. Both are much higher on this list so stay posted for my thoughts on those.

11. Gamera vs Viras 1968 (link here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-best-of-scenes-and-worst-of-scenes.html)

In my review of Gamera vs Viras, I emphasized the growing pains of the transition from early to late Showa Gamera with the decreasing role of series mainstay Kojiro Hongo and introduction of an American child alongside a Japanese one per AIP's dictates, and, consequently, this very uneven film is the best of the Showa series...and also the worst. It averages out to merely decent (there are more things done well here than in the original Gamera). Whenever I get to reviewing Gamera Rebirth, I will have to compare Viras' utilization there to his original film, so while I do not have much new to say on this movie now, it will get its time for fresh thoughts.

10. Gamera Super Monster 1980

Having Gamera Super Monster this high is an insane hot take; I understand that. Hear me out. While I enjoy the common joke that Gamera Super Monster, as a trashy clip show, makes the worst Godzilla films look like Shakespeare, that just is not true according to the way I am watching these movies. The two films before this on this list are intensely inconsistent, detrimentally affecting their value as stories and art to relay a theme, emotion or internally consistent script. Do I enjoy any of the component parts of Gamera vs Viras less than watching a dorky child try to impress three good spacewomen and an evil one? No, obviously not since I haven't talked about this one and only intend to reference it as scarcely as necessary, but this movie is consistently about Keiichi seeking an older sister influence, said arc justifying his interactions with the three good spacewomen and his naivety that redeems the evil spacewoman. Add in the genuinely good transitions into the stock footage segments and a great soundtrack, and it is better than several Godzilla films (but I should probably stop that train of thought before I incite a mob against me). If you want some literature to give you a newfound appreciation for Gamera Super Monster, pick up Constantine Furman's "The Unoffical Tokusatsu Fan's Handbook For Gamera Super Monster" (link here: https://www.amazon.com/Unofficial-Tokusatsu-Handbook-GAMERA-MONSTER/dp/B097VBGYTL).

9. Gamera vs Jiger 1970

I feel kind of bad having this film this low since, though I have not yet had the opportunity to talk about it, I genuinely think this is one of the best Showa Gamera films and a darn fine Showa kaiju film in general. Because I mentioned that Vs Viras is an awkward intermediary stage between early and late Showa Gamera, I should probably expound on how I would characterize both halves of this era. Just like with Showa Godzilla (where I would argue Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster 1964 exemplifies grounded but absurd early Showa with Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 1974 carrying with it the tropes of goofy late Showa and Godzilla's Revenge being the awkward middle step where priorities reframed to children), the trajectory changed, and this film pays off the influence of Yuasa the best in AIP era Gamera. Yuasa's childlike creativity is best epitomized by the treatment of Jiger, a triceratops with an absurd amount of long range weaponry I can't even summarize efficiently that has been locked away  for a long time. But Yuasa tackles this daunting premise in a way only he can. So Jiger escapes her captivity, right? Immediately, she goes to take a long drink of water. It's so simple (this is the way a child thinks) but it helps to not only characterize the villain monster but also set the creative and whimsical tone. Throughout the movie, Jiger cycles through her absurd arsenal believably and efficiently, again in a childlike cycle: Jiger lands her attack, Gamera recovers, Gamera learns how to counter the attack, and then Jiger moves on to the next weapon because the other one stopped working. It is a simple formula, but this series' creativity thrives in simplicity.

8. Gamera vs Gyaos 1967

Though I am placing this film this low, I can understand and would defend any placement above this point; everything just genuinely comes together extraordinarily well: Kojiro Hongo is a very engaging hero, there is enough social commentary to keep the intersecting subplots and archetypes purposeful, and the influence of child character Eiichi on this plot helps to keep the sci-fi aspects simple and creative. Gyaos gets its name from Eiichi imitating the cry it makes (meaning the pronunciation regardless of how you spell it is probably meant to be Gy--oww-ssss as one syllable), and the explanation of Gyaos' head stiffness is a unique way to account for the limitations of suitmation. All in all, this is just a great example of Showa kaiju eiga and proves what Noriaki Yuasa and Nisan Takahashi can do when Daiei appoints a producer Hidemasa Nagata that agrees with their child marketing enough to write children's songs for them.

7. Gamera vs Guiron 1969 (read Doug Gibson's review here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/04/gamera-versus-guiron-was-fun-fare-for.html)

You may be thinking that this film has no valid reason to be this high, that it messes up incredibly easy dumb things like Akio and Tom's mothers not remembering that aliens literally invaded last film when they say that there is nothing left to be discovered in space. You would be kind of right. You may also say this a morbid trainwreck of a fairy tale, but I'd contest the label fairy tale when portal fantasy is much closer philosophically and by counting common tropes. Technically speaking, I am evaluating this film's placement with different rules than the previous ones, but that is because no one else seems to have considered the portal fantasy connections or the ones I can draw between this film and the teachings of Carl Jung (see my Jungian Analysis of Gamera vs Guiron here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-jungian-exploration-of-gamera-vs.html). Most speakers on this movie have some knowledge on how Noriaki Yuasa's psychology made it into these films, but the literary criticism stops there for some reason. All art is art, and, if any art deserves deeper in depth analysis, all art does. If we were just focusing on the craft and internal consistency, this film's placement would slip, but I also will point to the possibly unintentional way that this film transforms Gamera's stock footage into a very effective Jungian Answer to Job Christ figure. If the pendulum ever swings to favor this film intellectually, I will be more critical of it; as of now, I have the most fun being its most stalwart defender. If you want to hear a more dynamic presentation of this argument, you can visit our YouTube page, watch this podcast episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsnr2cNOm2c) and comment your thoughts.

6. Gamera Rebirth 2023

Despite poor viewership, I honestly think Gamera Rebirth was one of the best shows of 2023 (far better than the Skull Island cartoon anyway). It has the unique and unfortunate position as the revival for Gamera while kaiju reintrepretations are at an all time high in supply and Gamera's popularity is high among fans but low generally. As a kaiju/tokusatsu fan entering 2023, distributions of Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider were on the horizon as well as Godzilla Minus One, Godzilla x Kong, etc, and Gamera Rebirth pretty provably fell out of attention. But it somehow managed to thread together Showa and Heisei sensibitilies to be a love letter to this series, the Shin Gamera that no one seems to want to make. The 6 episodes each give Gamera a different opponent (Gyaos, Jiger, Zigra, Guiron, Viras and a really big mutated Gyaos called S-Gyaos) mostly in retrospect to each kaiju's film (the Jiger episode brings up the subplot from that movie of the military not trusting Gamera, and the Guiron episode is when the characters realize they cannot necessarily trust the adults, which is a major idea in that film as well). As such, I really will need to have fleshed out reviews for all the relevant movies to point to when I end up reviewing this show. Broadly, I can say this series builds up its characters really well because the templates of Toru (from Gamera the Brave), Asagi (from the Heisei trilogy) and Akio and Tom (from Gamera vs Guiron) exist and can be revised and shaken up for Boco, Joe, Junichi and Brody. The last episode is, by far, the worst one (something this show has in common with Johnny Sokko) because, given the explanation provided, S-Gyaos really should not exist (if Viras can absorb dead kaiju parts while they are enclosed in a box, how did it fail to assimilate living tissue that had no plastic protection from his body?), and Joe, Junichi and Brody have barely any relevance during the final battle.

5. Gamera vs Barugon 1966

While I am mainly a fan of Noriaki Yuasa's Gamera vision, I cannot deny that Gamera vs Barugon 1966, the only Showa Gamera film not to feature Yuasa as director is really really good. It focuses on human greed and the collateral damage that causes as dastardly villain Onodera murders his friends and sics a kaiju on Japan because of his self serving greed. This is Kojiro Hongo's first Gamera role as the brooding protagonist Keisuke Hirata who deconstructs his own blame for these events and selfishness throughout the runtime. This film otherwise will probably assault the senses in a marathon: it is dark and edgy with bloody human fights that outshine the monster ones, the only child character is newborn monster Barugon, who Gamera drowns, and for some unknown reason, there is a shot that simulates oral sex when Karen licks Keisuke's blood from his arm at an odd angle. In retrospect, does this make sense as part of this series? No. But is it a great blockbuster achievement for Daiei? Yes.

4. Gamera 2. Advent of Legion 1996

For the 30th anniversary of Gamera, Daiei allowed Shusuke Kaneko and Kazunori Ito to reboot Gamera, and the ensuing 90s trilogy that places these next three spots on the list was born. There was some executive meddling in keeping Gamera's cuddly and childlike nature around and only incrementally letting Kaneko and Ito bring in their darker ideas, but, like an ouroboros, that meddling ended up clarifying how they wrote their story (i.e. building up Gamera as an obvious hero and then casting that in doubt as the stakes, building dread by showing Gamera getting scarier and scarier but still being on our side...for now). As the middle chapter in this story, Advent of Legion has to build the stakes from the previous film and provide something new and interesting. The worldbuilding of the Legion alien army is spectacular, being somewhat feasible pneumatic aliens that spread through pods. As I mentioned in the third part of my Godzilla x Kong review (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/part-three-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html), I do take issue with a major contrivance toward the end that goes unexplained, namely how Gamera does defeat Legion. It is debatable if it actually ruins the cause and effect of the climax, but I do not like having to make inferences for a movie even if it has definitely earned that.

3. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe 1995

Talking about the Heisei trilogy comes far less naturally to me, but again I have nothing but praise for how this movie interprets its monsters, especially the villains where Gyaos returns for a sleek redesign involving better fleshed out science fiction and fantasy by delving into the origins for Gyaos (and Gamera), something that has only really ever had lip service paid. (For what it is worth, the plot point of the Gyaos turning on their creators comes directly from Gamera vs Guiron, if you wanted another reason to reevaluate any negative opinions on it.) To be concise, GOTU, AoL and RoI all have a different focus; this first part is a streamlined kaiju format that balances its plot and character complexities, Advent of Legion was very plot heavy, and Revenge of Iris will be so vague in the plot just to prop up its characters and themes more. What approach you prefer depends on your preference, but I will argue that RoI is superb enough to place above this, and Advent of Legion is flawed enough to deserve placement beneath this.

2. Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris 1999

I suspect later honest inquiry will find this to be the best Gamera movie of all time because Ayana's arc perfectly develops the moral ambiguity, revisionist ambiguity and mythological ambiguity that not only the trilogy up to this point but especially this film is building to in its climax . If you are unaware who Ayana is, I ended up going on a tangent about her in my Godzilla vs Kong review that is a better summary than I can give here (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html). This movie, as I mentioned in my later Godzilla x Kong review manages to redeem the Deus ex Machina of Gamera's final attack on Legion in G2, and it uses the mythology of Atlantis, Gamera, Gyaos and now Mana (what allowed Gamera to kill Legion but seemingly also creates Gyaos if Gamera uses too much in any single dose) to tie together this trilogy's storytelling in a very satisfying way. The storytellling, fight scenes and character progression of Ayana as well as returning characters Nagamine and Osako are genuiney top tier, so there was never any question in my mind that this would be top 2. So what can be better than this?

1. Gamera The Brave 2006

Despite heavy ambivalence, I have chosen Gamera The Brave (original title The Little Braves, Gamera) to be at the top of this list rather than Revenge of Iris. In my defense, this is a close matchup. The debate for best human character in this franchise is always going to be Toru or Ayana, and, ultimately, which one you choose is going to depend on if you prioritize deconstructing the Showa formula or reconstructing it to be stronger in the modern era. (Like the Showa era, this film is about Gamera helping the development and survival of a young boy Toru, caring for him after his mom dies and while his neighbor is about to undergo a surgery, while Revenge of Iris was about a young girl trying to cope with her loss by destroying a very destructive Gamera.) The effects are impressive in both GtB and RoI (surpassed by both GOTU and AoL), and I think both scripts are near perfect. It will be a challenge to find a victor just focusing on either film because the strengths of each film are firmly rooted in retrospect (the flagship scene of this movie involves all the children passing off a magic rock to give to Gamera, which plays off of the series trope that Gamera is the Friend to All Children, while one of the most impactful scenes in Revenge of Iris features Gamera saving a random child seemingly accidentally, deconstructing the purpose that we apply to Gamera or gods in general in our relationship with him). But if you prefer slice of life character development to dramatic philosophizing, you may see what I see in Gamera the Brave that makes it the very best this franchise has to offer.

Hope you enjoyed this ranking and that you enjoy Gamera Day by watching some of the above films and show. Gamera Rebirth is on Netflix, and you can stream all the other Gamera films on Amazon Prime Video. Tubi, Pluto and YouTube should also have listings to stream for most of these films.

Plan9Crunch Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction

 

According to David Kalat’s film commentary on the Arrow release of The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch, this film melds together the genre conventions of Japanese horror throughout the century (from the Classic ghost tales to middle of the century monster horror), but the most important genre influence comes from manga artist Kazuo Umezu, who wrote the source material for this film: Reptilia. While Kalat argues that this is not a children’s film due to the dark subject matter and frequent scares but instead a slipstream horror that only appears childish because it stars one and was made by childish director Noriaki Yuasa, I would argue that books/films such as Coraline prove first that children’s media can carry dark subject matter and second that subgenre classification is usually still possible for those works. Because it draws so much from Umezu’s works in the manga medium, this film corresponds to the tropes of Shojo horror. (And this extends to Kalat’s reasoning for his classifications since Snake Women are frequent in Classical Japanese horror but also in Umezu’s shojo horror…).

 

If you are unaware of the different types of manga, the simplest way I can explain is that intended audience often is the name of each genre (Shonen manga is intended for young boys, seinen for older boys). Shojo manga is manga directed towards young girls, and Shojo horror would be a subset of that.  As Elliot Michel Weber’s thesis defense from the Florida State University Libraries (https://repository.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:854133/datastream/PDF/view) argues, Shojo manga mostly utilizes themes pertaining to the life and development of women, with the horror reflecting body dysmorphia during puberty and the influences that mothers have on their children. The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch, starring two young girls whose rivalry begins from developmental beauty and ugliness while also contrasting two different types of mother figures, is a near perfect fit for this. (Coincidentally, Coraline, a portal fantasy story, also stars a young girl figuring out her place and role in society while encountering two different types of mother figures, and the difference in end result is something I would attribute to cultural differences between the creatives.  This is also why I resist the recent pop culture push to classify any culture's Other World stories under the similarly vague Japanese term Isekai, since neither shojo nor portal fantasy seemed to cross the sea in popular discourse.)

 

Disclaimer

 

I have an ulterior motive for discussing this particular fine example of Japanese Shojo horror: it has the potential to be the missing piece in my ongoing Jungian analysis of Gamera vs Guiron (Link here: https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-jungian-exploration-of-gamera-vs.html).  Indeed, from what sources analyzing it I could cite when I wrote that previous article, this seemed to interplay uniquely with the pieces of my argument, but I still could prove no outright connection between Noriaki Yuasa, Christianity, Jung or portal fantasy (despite the textual analysis of Gamera vs Guiron that seemed to imply such connection).  Much of this review will be devoted to furthering that connection.  However, this film is so unique (to my Western sensibilities where a film like Coraline is designated as portal fantasy not Shojo horror), surprising, etc. that this review will also have to go over the film on its own merits.

 

The Film (on its own merits)

 

This is a very well-directed film, to start. Noriaki Yuasa is seen as a lesser director of a lesser series compared to Ishiro Honda and Godzilla, but the major issues that affected the directorial quality of Yuasa's first Gamera film were inexperience and creative differences with Daiei over if the film should be more adult or more childlike.  By the third Gamera film onward, Yuasa and his team crafted a consistent tone and consistent acting until the budgets ran out.  The Snake Girl and The Silver Haired Witch shows us Yuasa adapting a more serious subject matter focused on horror, so the acting is less comedic.  The atmosphere needs to be just as meticulously Gothic as it previously was goofy, so from the opening scene casting Tamami's murder of the house servant in darkness, this film is noticeably effective in building suspense.

 

Tamami is, of course, the titular Snake Girl, mostly masked through dream sequences or obscured by scenery at the beginning of the film, with some snakelike characteristics.

 

The film is unclear and contradictory on a few key details, namely if Tamami is actually a snake woman outside of the dream sequences, if the silver haired witch is actually magic and capable of turning invisible and what age relationship Sayuri, the lead, has with Tamami.  The ambiguity is effective because your reading of the film and its themes will be different depending on what you pay attention to.  Most importantly for right now, Tamami has a facial deformity directly proportional to the evil in her heart, and some of the most interesting imagery of this film is the idea of her skin mask being just a very thin veneer to hide her monstrousness (though the degree of her affliction depends on the focus of the scene).

 

Ultimately, the main point of this story is to contrast lead Sayuri Nanjo, a paragon of good spirit with the unfair world around her, best exemplified through Tamami, the Snake Girl, the Silver Haired Witch, unfair housekeeper Ms. Shige and inconsistent mother Yuko Nanjo.  None of this would work if Yachie Matsui could not adequately sell Sayuri’s good nature as she gains the family she had wanted for so long being within a Catholic orphanage and then loses it piece by piece (first, her father is called away for his snake research, and then Sayuri loses the attentiveness of her mother when Tamami starts her plan, loses the support of secondary guardian of Ms Shige and even loses her bedroom to Tamami, having to sleep in the attic where the witch and some animals accost her).  Once Sayuri first sees her room in the Nanjo household, she says, “God, if this happiness is all a dream, please don’t ever let me wake up!” and from that point on, the film proceeds as a warped dream, where scenes connect more through the feeling and tone than strict cause and effect (a clever metatextual layer to put on a horror film, since that is the point of the direction of the genre).  There are very many dream sequences in this film, distinct for their swirling imagery and more overt supernatural happenings, but some of these dream sequences occur during the day in the middle of scenes.  Let us put a pin in what the supernatural ambiguity means for the themes of the film.

 

Before we proceed, it may be important to clarify what separates a paragon from a simple one-dimensional character, so that we all view this movie in the best possible faith interpretation.  One-dimensional characters (for whatever reason two-dimensional characters are described the same way even though I feel there should be a gradient between one and three dimensions) are generally flat characters that do not undergo growth or development.  I would submit that if we are following the name, one-dimensional characters, as they lack complexity, we should regard as a straight line, acting based only on one or so impulse, theme, trait, etc. at any given moment.  (From this, a two-dimensional character would actually be a 100 percent improvement, hence my ire at conflating them.)  This is necessary for many tertiary characters that only exist to fill the world or unsubtly foreshadow a theme, but it is a challenge to make that work for a more important character.  Characters need not be active to circumvent this; the more personality and context a character has, the more complex they are.  Static characters are one example of this (where an unchanging character proves the theme to the world around them the way only that particular can), and paragons are the epitome of whatever single trait defines them, framed often through conflict with the world around them.  Sayuri’s character works because we see her outlook challenged constantly and she has to draw on whatever strength she can from whatever sources she can to not only survive but remain optimistic about it.  

 

Tatsuya Hayashia is one such source, an older male from the orphanage appointed to help ease Sayuri’s transition to living with the Nanjos and attending school.  He trusts her, does everything he can to help her, and gives her a doll that briefly helps Sayuri conquer her fears about Tamami.  When Tamami’s animosity escalates (and again when The Silver Haired Witch actively tries to kill Sayuri), he makes a distinct effort to help her and figure out what is happening.  It is through his character’s growth (of accepting the pseudoscience of Tamami’s inner ugliness causing her condition) that we first understand the movie’s theme, and Tatsuya is the only consistently dependable character for Sayuri in this story, raising the stakes when he is separated from her in the climax.

 

In case you still disbelieve that this film’s trials are enough to make Sayuri a compelling character via her resilience, the Silver Haired Witch tries to kill her by making her fall from a high place twice (stopping short of total defenestration to be more of a Mufasa in the Lion King situation).  Sayuri survives both attempts, but upon the latter one, the witch beats her hands, drawing a lot of blood.  As I already mentioned, the supernatural is only debatably real in this film, and it is important to note that much of the horror of the original source material by Kazuo Umezu was from the villain being a warped maternal character, so the film’s ultimate twist, that Ms Shige is the Silver Haired Witch trying to inherit the family’s money in a Scooby Doo-type scheme, works as a marriage of the realistic horror and the fantastical.  The Silver Haired Witch is the greatest danger within the house: some mysterious grownup with authority over Tamami and the animals that can turn invisible to spy on and torment Sayuri.  Compare this to Ms Shige: the totally innocuous housekeeper that can carry out her evil plans unnoticed and, even after witnessing Tamami order Yuko around to persecute Sayuri, can still justify mistreating Sayuri.  I think the stakes of the Real and Other map well onto each other in this film, which is a compliment to the film’s storytelling.

 

Ahead of this Halloween season, I recommend you watch this movie.  Even respecting Noriaki Yuasa as I do, this film still surprised me with its quality.

 

Symbolism 

 

From our discussion with Andi Brooks on Japanese folk horror (link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGGPJlevPXg), we know that the Buddhist monk as a villain is a common trope, and I find it very interesting that the Catholics in this story are all good guys in honest action and with clear sight, while Buddhist ritual masks the secret of The Snake Girl (the participants involved being either misguided or evil).  However, this is ultimately a film that values different perspectives, since Sayuri is not only aware of traditional Buddhist rituals (even if she disbelieves early on) but attributes her mastery of the film’s theme of inner vs outer beauty to Tamami and not Tatsuya at the end.  (This is significant because it is Tatsuya that spells out said theme in conversation with Tamami near the end, so, it is possible to attribute the lesson to either individual.)  

 

Hair is usually an important symbol in Japanese culture (this very movie emphasizes silver hair as a characteristic of the witch), especially in shojo manga, but I have been unable to figure out why Sayuri (the sister said to be beautiful) has short hair rather than long (which is the symbol of status as a woman). That is the kind of creative choice that must be intentional, but I cannot figure it out.

 

From there, we have to get more specific into what symbols come from which creative.  What of this film is due to Kazuo Umezu and what is due to Noriaki Yuasa?  (As Kalat points out, some stuff such as the swirls and eyeball imagery in the dream sequences is important to both styles.)  The source manga for this film is innovative and celebrated due to the main idea of having a sinister mother figure at the heart of the horror for the young girl to deal with.  I figured the quickest way to be somewhat educated on the discourse around shojo horror and Umezu would be Wikipedia, so according to the page on the source text for the movie, Reptilia and its reception, this was due to benevolent mothers being a staple of Shojo horror, so the subversion is more interesting and raises the stakes.  It also lines up with Jung’s idea of the Evil Mother archetype, but Umezu represents this with Snake women (which in Japanese culture are associated with witches, mask themselves as human and try to turn others into snake people to build a warped family, while Jung regarded snakes as representative of the duality of man and the basis for unconscious thought), which does not match Jung neatly as far as I am aware. (How deep anyone should read into Jung is up for debate, and we should not expect a writer using one of Jung’s concepts to demonstrate all of them; I just mean that the Jungian subtext of Umezu’s works has been read in by critics and so requires more evidence than the claim itself.)

 

Another significant Umezu trope is the eyeball in the ceiling hole, which Tamami uses to spy on Sayuri in this film and drop snakes on her. Those instances also correspond to the idea of Sayuri as an unreliable narrator where there is ambiguity as to how much of the events of the film actually happen. Because the main character voicing doubts in Sayuri’s stories (Mrs. Shige) turns out to be the villain, and the rest of the film proceeds as if each supernatural event happened in some capacity (even if Tamami was not a Snake Girl that violently murdered a human-sized version of the doll, Tamami did still break Sayuri’s doll), I think it is fairest to take Sayuri’s side.  According to Weber’s thesis, shojo manga frequently does explore systemic lack of trust and respect in women, so the doubt cast on Sayuri’s story may just be trying to simulate that, in which case I assign that feature to Umezu, the trailblazer in shojo manga.

 

The pamphlet included in the Arrow release of this film includes an essay by Raffael Coronelli, who claims Yuasa was very enthusiastic about Japanese folk stories, even as the reason for his views about animals and humans being the same in capacity for motivation and thought or for there being divinity in things the West would label as monstrous. This would bring deeper meaning to the scenes of snakes and spiders in this movie, since they would not just be props but actual characters. Based on the film, I think there are more areas Yuasa diverged from Umezu, since this film downplays the evil mother relationship, and demotes the Snake Girl to a child shadow of the main character rather than the symbol of the mother’s evil.

 

This takes us to the doubles relationships in the film.  There is nothing so outright Jungian as in Gamera vs Guiron (where the Terans actually work better as the warped Animas to the main boys than as foils to their parents), but there are a lot of shadow relationships.  Tamami ultimately represents a warning to Sayuri about what would happen if she prioritized her looks over her heart.  Sayuri goes through similar scenarios and tests as Tamami (namely having to live in the attic), but her positive qualities show her handling the situations differently.  Similarly, while Mrs. Nanjo is a weak but caring parent, and Mr. Nanjo is a strong and caring one, Ms. Shige plays the role of the weak but cruel housekeeper while being the dominant and manipulative Silver Haired Witch. The introductory pamphlet mentions that Yuko Hamada (the mother in this film) also plays a domineering mother in Gamera vs Guiron, and, as I have kept saying, there really is not that much to connect Akio’s mother to the Terans, while here (especially because of Kazuo Umezu’s input) there is a direct line of comparison between Yuko Nanjo and Mrs. Shige.  

 

This suggests a different focus in the doubles relationships that exist and also probably proves intentionality in those doubles relationships (since my understanding of Kazuo Umezu’s version of this story is such that it would have condensed Tamami, Mrs. Shige and Mrs. Nanjo into the same false mother character). Separating the Good Mother And the Evil Mother is a coincidental similarity to Coraline, but, more than anything, it indicates that Yuasa, independent of Umezu, has some understanding of double relationships. My initial comparison of this film to Coraline was based on all the incidental similarities (Other Mother symbolism, ambiguous reality, living doll, prominent male friend in the film version), the same way David Kalat’s commentary track brings up the similarities between pure Sayuri and the American slasher Final Girl trope, but those are coincidental similarities because again the relevant cultures as so different and divorced that the comparison here is primarily to help you, the audience member, understand what this movie is similar to not what it is.

The presiding view on Gamera vs Guiron, as argued by Kalat in his Arrow video film commentary for the Gamera collection, is a fairy tale (where the proposed punishment from Mr. Kondo toward Tom manifests as the Terans shaving Akio’s head, but this film and other fairy tales remain focused on the same protagonists and same antagonists for the subtext.  If Noriaki Yuasa intended Gamera vs Guiron as a fairy tale, he failed in ways he did not for the movie that directly preceded it in his filmography). As I argued, in my Jungian analysis of Gamera vs Guiron, the film fits closer to the beats of Portal Fantasy (condemnation of technology and prominent imagery of Sweets, specifically candies or pastries) than Grimm’s fairy tales, but this film The Snake Girl… actually uses the kind of Grimm allusions people ascribe to the later film.

 

I was going to go through the tropes of Grimm fairy tales to compare with this film one by one but just referencing the film’s plot points will be sufficient to say my piece on that.  Especially during the dream sequences, traditional Grimm fairy tale imagery is leveraged as part of the horror.  First, Sayuri’s doll takes on a Fairy Godmother role, growing in size and transforming Sayuri’s pajamas into nice clothes; The Snake Girl invades the dream and murders the Fairy Goddoll. (Some critics like Kalat attribute this sequence as a reference to the Nutcracker, but that is not in their better interests; The Nutcracker and The Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman, the original version of that tale, is an early example of portal fantasy, which would make it possible for Yuasa to be aware of those tropes when he was making Gamera vs Guiron.) Next, once Sayuri is forced into sleeping in the attic (becoming a princess locked away in a tower like Rapunzel), she has a dream where she is menaced by a large snake and must fight it with a sword (not necessarily a specific allusion I can think of but the more generalized idea of a fairy tale scenario that lacks any portal fantasy confounding tropes).  And of course, rather than slaying the dragon, it turns out she has, in the dream, killed Tamami, who she at this point is sympathetic to, once again subverting the fairy tale imagery (and foreshadowing Tamami’s later death).

 

Most importantly, another notable common trope is the major theme of both this film and the Grimm tale The Maid Maleen, where someone’s beauty is proportional to the goodness in their heart (in this case where monstrous ugliness has a pseudoscientific explanation).  It is not perfect adherence to all of The Grimms’ tropes, but neither is any individual story from their collections.  I hope the existence and distribution of this film disproves the notion of Gamera vs Guiron being a Grimm fairy tale based only on the presence of violence and childlike whimsy, because, even if Noriaki Yuasa didn’t put these allusions in here, following his work on this film, he would know how to make these allusions and what the common tropes are and look like.  Yuasa’s filmography getting less fairy tale-like over time should be very telling, but I should again tie this back to the conclusion that The Snake Girl… is a very Grimm tale (if it is possible to find these same messages in Japanese folklore, I will encourage this conversation to continue along those lines. I am just presenting the argument my research supports).

 

Bringing this back around to Gamera vs Guiron, Sayuri is actually a quite similar character to Akio’s sister Tomoko: a young girl that is constantly discredited but singularly innocent and with an older male friend (in Gamera vs Guiron, the policeman Kondo). I find that interesting because the benevolent older males in the Gamera series usually interacted with the male child leads (Kojiro Hongo in his second and third Gamera films). This is not just a movie Yuasa did on the side but one that was very important to his storytelling style (also a film he negotiated to make between Gamera flicks as a palate cleanser), so further analysis into The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch will be necessary to understand Noriaki Yuasa more.

 

Sources

https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/the-snake-girl-and-the-silver-haired-witch-blu-ray-review-yuasa-noriaki-arrow/

https://www.dabblewriter.com/articles/the-innocent-archetype

https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/snake-girl-and-the-silver-haired-witch-1968-horror-film-review

https://www.ghoulsmagazine.com/articles/junji-ito-monthly-halloween-and-the-rise-of-shojo-horror

https://www.structural-learning.com/post/carl-jungs-archetypes

https://openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/thesis/_But_I_am_still_a_girl_after_all_A_Discourse_Analysis_of_Femininities_in_Popular_Japanese_Manga_Comics/17019113?file=31475207

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357823.2017.1370436

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/TheBrothersGrimm

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilia_(manga)

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https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:854133/datastream/PDF/view