Who Are The Big Five Kaiju In Gamera?

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction

 

There is a specific category designation of certain kaiju in the Godzilla series: the Big Five. I guess it measures the fact that only these five have appeared in every era (though that is not exactly true and rendered irrelevant by the increasing amount of one-shot film continuities per era that only partially adapt that list of five) or maybe the marquee value compounded over a long time of these specific monsters topping the box office. In any case, many of the conversations and speculation surrounding the early Monsterverse was when and how Legendary would adapt these monsters, those being Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Rodan and Mechagodzilla. Only after Godzilla King of the Monsters had four of those in a film together did fancasts include secondary Godzilla kaiju like Gigan or Anguirus.

 

In my anecdotal experience, in terms of the influence on pop culture, Godzilla and Mechagodzilla have been the most common specific parody monster formats, but King Ghidorah has appeared as is in a surprising amount of cartoons, and the concept of insect and pteranodon monsters are disproportionately common for how many types of monsters one could make. (As the research I carried out for this article reveals though, Gamera as a turtle kaiju has also had a great deal of references and outright appearances in pop culture.) However, the concept of the Big Five goes back as long established fan knowledge, so any argument I make to reinforce it will necessarily be assuming the conclusion already and thus circular. 

 

For instance, the concept or specific character of a son of Godzilla appears as often as the 4 other costars, and King Kong technically should qualify for having a film contemporary to every Godzilla era. The utility of a “Big Five” is in comparison to the Godzilla series, for marquee value and a more focused vision for the franchise’s future based on which wild dart shots landed on the board for the public. Rather than justifying the Big Five, we will presuppose it in our replication, which will start very easy but end up a bit more difficult.

 

Gamera and Gyaos: The First Two Draft Picks

 

 

Unlike the Godzilla series, there are really only two kaiju that have appeared in every era of the franchise, that being Gamera himself and Gyaos. Gamera is an upright turtle with tusks (think the icon that appears on the Mountain Dew Code Red logo) that breathes fire and can fly like a UFO, while Gyaos is a batlike bird with a yellow beam called the sonic scalpel. Gyaos has actually gotten less humanoid as the technology for puppetry or CGI have improved in the series, and he largely exists as a horde monster though in most circumstances of a Gyaos horde, there will also exist one large specimen to fight Gamera one on one.

 

In case you doubt the obviousness of these picks, in the 12 Gamera films, Gamera has been in all of them, and Gyaos has had a major role in 6 of them. More than just “he’s here half the time,” Gyaos’ role often informs the themes of a particular film or contextualizes the kind of threat in the film. Space Gyaos represents the destruction via technological innovation of the Terans and establishes Guiron as a threat when he preys on them. Similarly, the Heisei Gyaos was a created species that destroyed their creators, and the reemergence of them alongside Iris in that film raises the stakes considerably. Four Gyaos star in the opening of Gamera The Brave, and apparently the authorial intent was to have Zedus, the villain of that film mutate by eating their carcass (though that is not only not shown in the film but high improbable given the timeskip the film does show), so this is a similar mid film torch-passing to the Guiron example.

 

Every other kaiju, at least in the movies, is locked into their specific era. Design cues from some monsters transcend the eras, but Iris was its own monster instead of an updated Viras, and S Gyaos was inspired from Super Gyaos and Zedus but is not either of those characters. 

 

The Third Slot

 

I am trying to be somewhat objective here without just relying on boosting my favorites. Gamera and Gyaos would be in the Big Five no matter what, but, from here on out, we probably need to consider the other reappearances. In the Showa series (counting the stock footage of Gamera Super Monster), Gamera had 8 films and Gyaos appeared in 3 but Barugon, Viras, Guiron Jiger and Zigra had their first film as well as Super Monster. Of these 7, all but Barugon also have now appeared in Gamera Rebirth, so there is the first exclusion. (Barugon, while Gamera’s first opponent, can fairly be excluded from a Big Five because Anguirus, Godzilla’s first foe, is not part of the original Big Five.) But how do we narrow it down from Viras, Guiron, Jiger or Zigra?

 

 

Ultimately, Viras is my first pick of these because, taking the Gamera series as a multimedia franchise, the television show Gamera Rebirth played him up as a Big Bad over the other kaiju, and the Dark Horse comics set in the Heisei timeline use him as a main villain. In the Nintendo Game Gamera the Guardian of the Universe, Viras is the second opponent after Gyaos. From the angle of suit construction and design, director Yuasa was the most proud of Viras (the costume had multiple tentacles hanging that disguised the actor's legs as the two central tentacles). Also, as I'll touch on in an upcoming video on our YouTube channel, Viras is the connecting thread that inspired many of the lesser kaiju in the series and thus is important even beyond his own contributions.

 

Though this claim conflicts with previous reporting, Hiroyuki Seshita (the man behind Gamera Rebirth) recently stated that the 2015 proof of concept anniversary short’s unidentified tentacled monster was actually meant to be Viras and was a great inspiration on his own version of Viras. That short features Gyaos as a horde beast in the backstory but Viras as the main overarching villain, and we may be reaching a point where Viras as the big bad in a movie still featuring Gyaos is possible.

 

The Fourth Slot

 

Okay, this is where it gets substantially harder and a bit more…mathematical. The Big Five is essentially a metric of the pop culture impact, and Gamera kaiju more so than even his films exist in the pop culture through cameos and references. Some of these are very subtle and obligatory; Pacific Rim Uprising shows icons for and lists Gamera, Gyaos, Guiron, Jiger and Zigra as existing kaiju in the universe. While it does nothing to advance these characters, that is fairly a feat under the names of Guiron, Jiger and possibly Zigra for consideration in this fourth slot.

 

Thankfully, Wikizilla has a page devoted to Gamera references in popular culture, so we can very easily measure the footprint of each of these kaiju. An episode of the cartoon series Franklin uses the likenesses of Gyaos, Jiger, Viras and Barugon, and an episode of Pani Poni Dash has Gyaos and Viras. It is actually more common for Gamera to appear alongside other series’ monsters than his own, grouped with Godzilla, Mothra and once even Alien Baltan from Ultraman (but Godzilla was still also there). It makes sense that Gamera’s most adapted costar would be Godzilla (everyone has their own idea for how that crossover should eventually be done including me), but we actually have enough data without considering him to select the Big Fourth.

 

Comparing the cameo line-ups, Jiger would be the remaining commonality, and I was a little disappointed I would not get to include Guiron (for reasons I will get to, the fifth and final pick has to be a Heisei kaiju). However, then I started to notice that despite not being in the crowd of adapted kaiju as often as one like Jiger, it turned out that Guiron had a lot of references by himself or set apart in some way, as I noted, something also true of King Ghidorah.

 

 

Badaxtra, from Dexter’s Laboratory, by virtue of being derived from a bladed weapon is as much a Guiron reference as he is a Godzilla one, and the kaiju toy from Turbo Fast (pictured above) is equal parts Godzilla, Gigan and Guiron. (Guiron does not even need Gamera present to appear or inspire pop culture.) Finally, the monster in issue 69 of The Powerpuff Girls comic is literally just Guiron in their artstyle with extra eyes and limbs; he has the same knife shape of the head, same green color, tusks for all that is holy and even the pattern of triangles down its back that are easy to forget if you are not just directly copying the film’s design. (Also, when it came time for Gamera to come to the game Gigabash, it was Guiron specifically that came with him.)

 

Okay so Guiron is a knifeheaded quadruped but previous concepts for the design included fish, and he can swim as well as he can walk and leap, so he is a triphibian monster that shoots shurikens and is second only to Gamera for acrobatics (Gamera Rebirth reinvisioned his more chunky body type into essentially a slinky with a knife on the end to really emphasize the agility of his leaps and precision of his cuts). People do not forget a demented fish knife lizard guard dog, because, as creature designer Akira Inoue put it, “Only Guiron is like this.” Guiron had his own movie (that featured him chopping up Gyaos, a helpful point of fact to his presence in a Big Five) and also reappeared in Gamera Super Monster same as the rest but may have partially inspired Legion’s design in Gamera’s Heisei trilogy. Kaiju fans’ common sense tells them he inspired the Pacific Rim kaiju Knifehead, but there are official statements to the contrary. Still, Guiron casts a long shadow and is a worthy pick here.

 

Ultimately, if you would prefer Jiger for this pick, that is your prerogative. Pop culture has codified Jiger as one of the members of Gamera’s supporting cast if you go far enough down the list, while Guiron has taken on his own genre of parody kaiju. However, this is because there is something undeniably captivating about the acrobatic knife-headed Guiron, and it is an easier sell getting people to care about Guiron any time Gamera gets rebooted than it is for Jiger. That is especially true after Rebirth Guiron stole the show by being Gamera’s toughest fight, and Rebirth Jiger got half of its absurd powers removed.

 

The Fifth Slot

 

 

When designing a Mount Rushmore, you need to consider not only founding and growth but also preservation and development, so, given that the Showa kaiju have been largely interchangeable in pop culture with Guiron only having an edge because of how bizarre he is, we need to pick a Heisei kaiju for this last slot. The only issue is there is really only one choice, and that is Legion, but we’ll get there in a second. 

 

Gyaos is the first villain of the Heisei series and is obviously already firmly in our second slot on this list. Iris, the final villain of the Heisei trilogy, was actually designed after Viras, which makes me think that if Kadokawa were to put out a version of Viras like Rebirth’s that actually resonates, Iris would be a redundancy. (A purist might say that Viras as the boss of an alien invasion is incompatible with the spiritual red herring of Iris, but I would counter that for the majority of Viras’ first film, a similar moral ambiguity exists thematically where you think Viras is not actually the villain, as well as the fact that both of these final fights involve the villain monster impaling Gamera.) As I have already put Viras on the list, there is no room for Iris. (They even rhyme if you say Viras correctly and Iris incorrectly.) 

 

I love Zedus from Gamera the Brave a lot, but not only has his pop culture impact been small, but he has neither preserved nor developed the franchise; his movie killed the franchise. Legion, as the most creative of the Heisei monsters, an invading alien army realized through a truly alien sense of biology and creature design, developed the trilogy’s themes through Gamera’s dependence on Mana to defeat it. A middle chapter kaiju also necessarily keeps a series’ momentum going, and, with the variety of forms, Legion could easily be its own season of Gamera Rebirth.

 

Optional Sixth and Seventh Rangers

 

At the beginning of this article, I identified that technically Godzilla’s Son and King Kong as icons technically should map onto the Big Five given the specific criteria, and we can extend that analogy here. A “Son Of” character appears for Gamera in Gamera the Brave and Gamera Rebirth, and Jiger’s offspring is important to its story in the debut film to the point that Rebirth’s portrayal opted out of an adult Jiger to include a horde of infants (that ate each other to become one massive survivor). The lifecycle of Gyaos is also significant in many adaptations of the character, as well as in the development of Iris.  Though the inherent contradiction of Gamera fighting newborn Barugon or a horde of baby Gyaos is never addressed, it is less common for there not to be child kaiju in some form at some point in the story. (We can also consider the Garasharp short where Gamera is scripted to kill the adult snake but then rescue and rehabilitate its young.)

 

As far as the King Kong IP’s proximity to the Godzilla franchise (where revivals tend to align with each other, and there are times where the same company makes the films for each), Gamera also has an analog: Daimaijin. To my knowledge, Daimaijin and Gamera have not crossed over to the same extent, but Daimajin has a trilogy of films from the 60s with attempts at revivals almost as often as Kong (originally envisioned as the design of Gamera’s first opponent, later planned for an Ishiro Honda led film in the 80s, two projects in the 90s, one in the early 2000s, etc). Daimajin did get a television show in 2010 and a cameo appearance in a Great Yokai War movie recently. Unlike Kong, nothing has come of these characters’ proximity to each other, but, assuming Kadokawa can find their audience this time, a Monsterverse type series crossing Daimajin with Gamera (and maybe even the Whale God or Pairan Seijin) is a natural franchise step.

 

With that, our line-up would be Gamera, Gyaos, Viras, Guiron and Legion (with the “Son of” trope and Daimaijin also important to the conversation). Because this project involved research into not only the pop culture appearances of the mainline kaiju but into other sources indicating the presence of more obscure kaiju, stay tuned for a more complete subjective ranking of all the Gamera kaiju, probably in video form (All 30 Gamera Kaiju Ranked, Except Iris Who Joe Forgot).

 

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.