| “ | Gamera! Gamera! You are strong, Gamera! You are strong, Gamera! You are strong, Gamera! M! M! J! V! M! M! J! V! Monsters coming from Mars, Or some other alien world? Come on, space monsters! Bring it on! Let's cut and poke! Okay, go-go-go! Using spinning jets, He will win! You are strong, Gamera! You are strong, Gamera! You are strong, Gamera! |
„ |
| ~ Gamera' theme |
Gamera is the titular main protagonist of the Gamera franchise, while he is a heroic character, he appeared as the main antagonist of the first film in the franchise.
He is a large turtle kaiju animal who started out as a threat, but was later redeemed and became a protector of humanity.
Gamera was noted on a number of occasions as loving all human children, and he would go out of his way on several occasions to save the lives of such children.
Biography[]
Gamera's appearance is heavily reminiscent of the design from Katsuhito Ishii's 2015 Gamera short film, specifically in the monster's posture, carapace shape, and head shape. However, this Gamera is dark greenish-blue in coloration.
For many years, Gamera slept underneath a field of ice in North America. In the mid 1960s, an American jet shot down a Soviet bomber carrying a low-yield nuclear device. Upon crashing, the bomb detonated, freeing and awakening Gamera.
After destroying the jet with a fireball, Gamera promptly headed for Japan. Gamera then surfaced near the city of Fujisawa, Japan, which he promptly destroyed. After destroying a research ship, Gamera showed off his new flying abilities. Gamera then found his way to Tokyo, which he quickly rampaged around and destroyed.
Scientists and government officials made several attempts to destroy Gamera, none of which were successful. Gamera was finally lured to a missile complex, where they trapped him within a large rocket which they then launched into space on a course for Mars.
While enroute to Mars, Gamera destroyed the rocket and returned to Earth. When an egg retrieved from a remote island grew into another large daikaiju called Barugon. Gamera engaged him in battle. The initial battle resulted in Gamera being frozen solid. The humans desperately tried to destroy Barugon but none of their efforts were successful. After thawing out Gamera, he successfully defeated the injured Barugon by dragging him into a nearby lake and drowned him. Gamera then flew off.
In 1967, a highway construction crew awoke yet another daikaiju named Gyaos. Gyaos promptly wreaked havoc on Japan. Gamera returned to do battle with him, eventually defeating the monster by dragging him into Mount Fuji. Gamera would continue to do battle with other Gyaos over the next several years.
The next year, a group of aliens known as Virasians attempt to conquer the Earth, only to be halted by Gamera who destroys their ship. However, they manage to attach a mind-control device onto Gamera, forcing him to destroy Japan once again, until two kids manage to sabotage the mind-control link and return Gamera to his senses. The aliens combine together to create the squid-like monster Viras, which Gamera defeats by tricking him into impaling his head on Gamera's shell, then flying into the stratosphere, freezing Viras, and slamming him into the ocean, shattering the alien into pieces.
The following year, Gamera traveled to the planet Terra to battle with Guiron, a large blade headed monster that had already dispatched a Gyaos living on that planet. Despite being injured by the sharp shurikens that Guiron flung at him, Gamera managed to destroy Guiron and return a couple of abducted human children to Earth.
In 1970, Gamera approaches Japan after a statue known as Devil's Whistle is taken from an island for the 1970 World's Fair in Suita, Osaka, as well as the monster known as Jiger. After two fights, Jiger stabs Gamera with a stinger from her tail, causing him to faint and turn into a deadly white coloring as Jiger throws the statue in the water and rampages over Japan. Two kids accidentally get onto a mini sub into Gamera's body and discover the parasitic offspring of Jiger inside Gamera and kill it. They then convince the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (J.S.D.F.) to revive Gamera with electricity. After being revived, Gamera flew over to the World's Fair and fought Jiger once again. After stunning her with a body slam, Gamera retrieved the statue from the ocean and shoved it through Jiger's skull, killing her. Gamera then flew back to the island with the Devil's Whistle still impaled in Jiger's corpse.
A large shark-like monster called Zigra invaded Earth in 1971, and Gamera returned to do battle with yet another monster. After giving the monster a through beat-down, including using rocks to play his theme on Zigra's dorsal fins, Gamera delivered the coup de grace by setting Zigra on fire.
In 1973, Gamera would apparently sacrifice himself to stop a swarm of Gyaos that had invaded the Earth. About 16 years after Gamera's death, a new Gamera, named Toto by Toru, hatched from an egg to defend humanity against various monsters, starting with Zedus.
In the summer of 1989, after Tokyo was struck by Gyaos, Gamera saved elementary school students Boco, Joe, Junichi, and Brody from the creatures. Gamera went on to battle five varieties of kaiju in all, ranging from the Gyaos to Jiger, Zigra, Guiron, and Viras, though he received wounds.
Behind the story[]
A book partially supervised by Noriaki Yuasa and Nisan Takahashi and some others theorized Gamera's intention behind his destructive behaviors in the 1965 film Gamera the Giant Monster and his attack on Kurobe Dam in the 1966 film Gamera vs. Barugon. Gamera was driven by intense hunger due to 8,000 years of dormant caused by Atlanteans and lost control of himself. Gamera, being awoken by a nuclear explosion and sensed aircrafts and ships nearby, recognized modern technologies of humanity, and attacked on nearby ships and buildings to cause fires and explosions to feed on thermal energy and electricity, however he was not targeting humans themselves. Gamera was also aware of the fact that causing havocs attracts more foods, military operations against him. His uncontrollable appetite was gradually satisfied, and finally ceased after the 1967 film Gamera vs. Gyaos.[1]
The book also noted that he would also save animals and wildlife and innocent kaiju as he was planned to save hatchlings of Garasharp in the scrapped Gamera vs. Garasharp. Yuasa also noted that the reason why Gamera headed to a waterfront and opened his mouth when suffering the Vampiric Tactic by Jiger was possibly due to his intention to save the Baby Jiger; the baby can free to the sea through Gamera's mouth.[1]
According to the same book, Gamera was often mistook as a threat by humanity and was artificially sealed under the ices of the Arctic by the Atlanteans, and Inuit's fear of Gamera as the "Devil's Envoy" was due to inherited memories of their ancestors and Atlanteans.[1]
Humanity feared and mistook Gamera as a threat because of his appearance and biology and behaviors. Gamera is a gigantic creature with tremendous power and abilities, and many humans took him as a supernatural demon to bring destructions. Gamera often approached humans and their settlements and cities because of his fondness of children, especially after saving humans and sending them back to their homes, and their thermal energies, and humanity including Atlanteans took him as a pest to steal their thermal energies and electricity and radiations which were also vital to them especially in cold regions. At one point, Gamera flew to the Arctic to save children from a disaster, and tried to recover from the coldness and approached a city of Atlantis nearby due to lack of volcanoes nearby. Atlanteans, to protect their energies, tried to drive him away, however any measures were ineffective because of Gamera's abilities and his liking of military operations where he can feed on more thermal energies from weaponries. The civilization then decided to make him to hibernate and isolate forcefully, which was noted to be somewhat similar to the Z-Plan, and lured him to an ice sheet. They set a trap, an enormous pitfall of ice, and exploded ices underneath him and buried him with additional ices. Gamera was unable to free himself from the entrapment because of insufficient energy and continuously fading thermal energy and the nature of ices to block infrared ray and weak sunlight of the Arctic, and a global cooling of that time also reinforced ices. The loss of Gamera's information due to the demise of the Atlantis further enhanced misunderstanding and demonization of Gamera by Inuit. During the events of the 1965 film, Gamera might or might not have had a feeling of betrayal by humanity although he, as above-mentioned, was also out of himself due to an extreme starvation and did not target humans but their energies.[1]
Trivia[]
- Gamera was featured in an episode of ScrewAttack's online series Death Battle!, where he fought and lost against Godzilla. Despite his powerful attacks and surprisingly high intelligence, Gamera lost to Godzilla because he had more combat experience, much greater endurance (he once survived being hit by a giant, city destroying meteor without a scratch and Gamera almost died after being hit by a much weaker nuclear explosion), and was far greater in size and strength (he is multiple times bigger and heavier than Gamera and has lifted monsters even bigger than himself, even matching Marvel's Thor in strength). Gamera was killed with a powerful attack called the "Red Spiral Ray", which has obliterated Kaiju much stronger than himself, such as SpaceGodzilla and Mechagodzilla.
External Links[]
- Gamera on the Gamera Wiki
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| Gamera Villains | ||
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Kaiju Heisei GAMERA -Rebirth- Humans Heisei GAMERA -Rebirth- Aliens | ||
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 OMEGA遊撃隊, Yasuyoshi Tokuma (issuer) , 1995, 強いぞ!ガメラ, pp.18-25, pp.32-35, pp.174-174, Tokuma Shoten, ISBN-10 : 4198602573, ISBN-13 : 978-4198602574