Gamera: King of the Also-rans!
In 1965, Daiei Studios launched a character clearly designed to cash in on Godzilla's enormous success, and like the King of the Monsters, Gamera would often keep the studio afloat from year to year. Also, like Godzilla, Gamera has gone through many foes and many changes. From the Friend of All Children to MST3k staple, to Bad Boy Turtle in the 90s and now back to kid's fare, there is plenty of Gamera for a modeler to make turtle soup from.
This model of a Gamera prototype that went
unused in the 1990s was done for CreatureScape by Jason Walker for
CreatureScape in 2004.
Okay, the first time I saw a Gamera movie I was about 10 years old and I am pretty convinced it happened while visiting my grandmother in Philadelphia. I remember sitting in her living room thinking, "what the heck is this?" Even as a tried and true Godzilla fan, I thought Gamera was a little hard to swallow and with all those dopey Japanese kids in hot pants, I thought it was a cheap knockoff of the worst Godzilla movies, like SON OF GODZILLA and GODZILLA'S REVENGE. Little did I know that in the late 60s, it was actually Toho's Godzilla that was copying the Gamera phenomenon.
Flash forward about 20 years. I next saw Gamera on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and he came in five different films on that show. It became a bit of an obsession with me for a while. I laughed hilariously, but then I found my self wondering, "What on Earth were they thinking?" That, in turn led me to find out a little more about the concept of kaiju.
Kaiju is a Japanese word that is often translated as "monster," but more literally it means "mystery beast." The implication is that the very nature of the creature is not rational and must be accepted as such. It is completely consistent with Asian art and literature as a whole. Unlike the West, they have always known their images are just metaphors, so they run with it and are more willing to suspend disbelief.
This is why Gamera has jets in his legs and eats fire. It doesn't make sense (though there IS a nice explanation in the second series of Gamera films which I will get to later); it doesn't have to make sense. And, Gamera is essentially modeled (pardon the pun) on an ancient Ainu god/protector of the north, Genbu. Sadly, my obsession with Gamera has led me to a great deal of research on the origins, and if you want to read my article on Sci-fi Japan's website, you can check here.
Anyway, let's talk about Gamera models.
The box you see above is the kit I used to create this MST3K inspired diorama inside an old TV set. It features the most repeated scene in all of Gamera stock footage--his emergence from a block of ice (just like Godzilla in 1962).
The kit is made by Bandai and has about 25 styrene (hard plastic) parts. Now, normally I don't like styrene kits, but this one is really good. It is a great starter kit and can be had for about $10 on eBay typically and I might pay a little more actually.
Gamera went through very few changes in his first incarnation, but Daiei had no shortage of design ideas for their Gamera foes. His first challenger was Barugon (not to be confused with Toho's Baragon . . . even though both had a nasal horn.) The Gamera vs. Barugon movie is interesting because it is the only one of the original films that did not focus on a precocious Japanese 2nd grader as a main character. Instead, it tried for more adult themes. Hard to do though when your monster comes from "Rainbow Valley" and has a giant sticky tongue as a primary weapon (no kidding).
Kaiyodo, perhaps the most successful monster model company ever, is one of the few makers to produce a Barugon. The company now only makes toys, but back in 1992 when they produced the first run of this kit, they were the leaders in kaiju kit imports. It was sculpted by Eito Hara and came in 12 pieces . . . first in resin, then in vinyl. It would be a little hard to track down now.
So . . . back to my strange obsession with Gamera for a moment. The movie Gamera vs. Guiron is the one that really drove me crazy. Like a character in a Japanese novel, I became obsessed with. (Again, sadly, I have written extensively about this movie . . . let's just call it therapy and leave it at that. When you dare to, you can read about this here.)
The main foe, Guiron, is a clearly conceived creature whose features we see all the time in nature--a giant sharpened Ginsu head, a visible zipper in his back and magnetically retractable throwing stars. Also, the angle of his eyes makes no sense unless he stands upright--which he NEVER does.
Anyway, this is a kit I am lusting after. For one thing, it includes bits and pieces of another Gamera foe, Gyaos--a strange scene from a kids movie. It also comes from one of the best kit makers in the business, Image. An American kit importer, www.kaijumodeler.com, currently has one for sale, so let me recommend you check out their website. This kit retails for $165 and that includes USA shipping already. If you want to oogle it directly, here is the link.
Gamera began to evolve in his return to the screen in the 1990s, and we finally got an explanation of sorts as to where he got the power to fly. You see, Gamera is actually a bio-mechanical Guardian of earth--a semi cyborg, I suppose. But more importantly, Gamera became a sincere bad ass for the first time and many Godzilla fans had to admit that the story and technical effects were now just as good . . . if not better.
Two of the best representations of the new Gamera came from Tsukuda, a great Japanese model company. Below to the left is the Gamera 1996 version and to the right is the '99 version. I really like both versions and they go on my list for "grab it if you see it and have the cash" kits. I mean, all of a sudden, this turtle looks like he means business. They were both pre-painted and required only assembly (though most regular modelers wanted to re-paint. And the 99 version came with three arms--regular, plasma and "bloody stump."
As Gamera beefed up, so did his foes. One of his original counterparts, Gyaos, returned as Hyper-Gyaos as shown in the kit to the right. That, of course, was not enough of a challenge for the terrible terrapin, so writers came up with a couple of new opponents. Legion (below left) arrived in 1996 and Irys (below right) hit Japan in 1999, ending what many people see as a trilogy. Kaiju otaku (giant monster fan-boys) widely consider these to be some of the best kaiju films ever, but you can see the gradual move away from the more "realistic" creature designs to the more fantastic. The kits shown here are all vinyl kits from Tsukuda and can be found from time to time on the internet.
So, the good news is Gamera eventually got more interesting and intimidating. The bad news is that that trend seems to have reversed itself again with the release of the newest film, Gamera the Brave. Once again the image is softened and we are back to kiddie fare and well, I don't look forward to the kits that will inevitably come out of this. The place to learn more about this film (if you dare) is www.scifijapan.com.
So, until next time, feel free to email me with questions, comments and build up requests at editor@creaturescape.com.
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