Hey kaiju fans!
I'm Kyodai Kino, and today we'll be taking a look at the Guardian of the Universe,
Gamera from the Heisei Trilogy!
In 1995, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original "Gamera" film,
Daiei chose to reboot the character in a brand-new film with director Shusuke Kaneko at the helm
and the studio's former rival Toho providing theatrical distribution.
"Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" proved to be a critical darling, providing a sleek,
cutting-edge update to a character who had been dormant for over a decade.
This kicked off a trilogy of films starring Gamera which remain highly-regarded classics
of the kaiju genre.
Rather than the child-friendly giant turtle of the Showa series,
Gamera was reinvented as a bio-engineered guardian created by the super-ancient civilization that inspired
the myth of Atlantis, who developed him through their mastery of Mana, the life energy of the Earth.
When the Atlanteans' previous genetically engineered creation, the vampire bat-like Gyaos,
turned against their masters and began multiplying out of control, Gamera ended their reign of terror.
While the Atlanteans' fate was already sealed, the surviving members of the civilization
sealed Gamera away within an atoll containing an obelisk explaining his purpose and several magatama.
They hoped that Gamera, the last hope, would one day awaken to defend future generations
should the shadow of evil, Gyaos, ever return.
While only one Gamera emerged in the modern day in response to the reemergence of Gyaos,
a graveyard of Gamera skeletons was discovered on the ocean floor in 1999.
The character Shiya Kurata proposed that these were prototypes for the last Gamera,
or "beta versions" as he called them.
The Last Hope, Matt Frank's (now-official!) graphic novel prequel to the trilogy, details
the creation of Gamera and the downfall of the Atlantean civilization in greater depth,
but we'll touch on that later.
There is A LOT of design process and behind-the-scenes details for this Gamera.
As such, it's getting its own dedicated video soon after this one.
Make sure to check it out!
Same deal here.
The blow-by-blow of Gamera's story demands its own separate video.
Now onto "Abilities"!
Gamera is capable of shooting Plasma Fireballs from his mouth, often in groups of three.
These fireballs are extremely powerful, instantly destroying a young Gyaos and doing the same
to a Hyper Gyaos after three consecutive hits.
They can easily destroy buildings and set a great deal of Kyoto ablaze
after Iris deflected them with his tentacles.
In addition, Gamera can fire more powerful variants called High Plasma,
which possess an energy output at least 120% greater than his normal fireballs.
He is able to form High Plasma fireballs in numerous ways: absorbing the flames from
a refinery explosion; exploiting the high oxygen concentration around a Legion Plant;
or simply charging the plasma energy in his mouth for a longer amount of time than usual.
Gamera's blood can absorb heat, flames, high voltage current, and nuclear fuel.
These energies are converted into electrons, protons, and atomic nuclei in his blood
within an organ called the Thermal Energy Conversion Furnace,
after which they are stored as plasma energy which Gamera can use.
Life energy from the Earth (Mana) can be converted as well.
When pushed to his absolute limit, Gamera is able to summon massive amounts of Mana
and absorb the energy into his body.
He converts the Mana into plasma until it reaches his body's storage limit,
then opens the plastron of his shell, directly exposing his Plasma Conversion Furnace
and unleashing a massive beam of plasma energy.
This attack blasted the Mother Legion to pieces and left a massive crater in the ground.
While it is Gamera's most powerful attack, its use comes at a great price:
it greatly depletes the Earth's Mana, creating an environment in which Gyaos can flourish.
This is what leads to the desperate situation in "G3."
When Iris pinned his hand to a wall and threatened to blast him with copies of his Plasma Fireballs,
Gamera called upon a one-shot ability to defeat his enemy called the Banishing Fist,
or Banishing Sword.
Gamera severed his own trapped hand with a Plasma Fireball and absorbed Iris' fireballs
with his stump arm, forming a burning plasma fist which he plunged into Iris' chest wound,
causing him to explode.
Gamera possesses two different flight modes.
The first involves retracting all of his limbs and his head and tail into his shell
and then firing rockets out of the arm and leg holes,
thus allowing him to fly by spinning like a flying saucer through the air.
His brain and eyes were specially designed to withstand this motion.
While battling Iris in this mode, he performed an attack called the Shell Cutter,
using his shell like a saw blade.
In the other mode, Gamera retracts only his legs and fires rockets from the leg holes,
while keeping his head exposed and his arms at his sides, flying like an airplane.
In "G1," Gamera's arms retain their normal shape in this flight mode, while in the following
two films they change shape into flippers reminiscent of a sea turtle's,
which function like aircraft wings.
Gamera is covered in a shell durable enough to protect him from Gyaos' supersonic scalpel.
The underbelly of Gamera's shell is considerably more vulnerable than its armor-plated back,
as it was penetrated by Mother Legion's legs and impaled completely by Iris' arm spear.
However, even the back of the shell was pierced by Mother Legion's Microwave Shell
and Iris' supersonic scalpel.
He is somewhat vulnerable to conventional weapons, with surface-to-air missiles shooting him down
and a tank barrage knocking him on his back, but received no apparent injuries from the attacks.
Gamera's cells possess a remarkable healing factor.
When injured severely enough, he will fall into a hibernation-like state in which
most of his energy will be used to quickly and completely heal his injuries.
Following his near-death during the explosion of the Legion Plant in Sendai,
Gamera's external cells carbonized and solidified while the underlying cells regenerated,
& he was only able to revive himself from his death-like stillness by absorbing a large amount of Mana
and cutting off his connection with Asagi.
After resurrecting, all of Gamera's injuries were healed,
including a large section of his shell which had been blasted off by Mother Legion.
Gamera possesses immense physical strength,
demonstrated most dramatically when he tore off Mother Legion's horn.
He can also regulate his strength, breaking through Iris' chest with his Rushing Claw attack
but extracting Ayana without crushing her.
His other melee techniques include the Hard Slap, which knocked a Gyaos out of the sky & into a refinery,
and the Break Fang, a tusked grip so strong that Super Gyaos had to sever her own foot to escape it.
Prior to his battle with her, Gamera's Elbow Claws were hidden under his skin, but he unsheathed
one and used it to slice into her leg.
After this point, the claws were permanently exposed on both of his elbows.
Gamera also has Calf Claws on his legs, though he didn't use them during his battles.
Gamera is an extremely adept swimmer, able to achieve speeds up to 180 knots,
and can breathe underwater for extended periods of time in a hibernation-like state.
He can also take flight directly from underwater, launching himself into the sky from beneath the waves.
Gamera is able to form a telepathic bond with a human through a magatama,
granting that individual the role of his priest or priestess.
Using this connection, Asagi was able to order Gamera to retreat while facing a Gyaos at Mt. Fuji,
and seemed to play a role in his use of a High Plasma fireball to destroy the same Gyaos.
It does have drawbacks, however, as she experienced the same injuries as Gamera
and maintains a similar state of being; when Gamera was resting at the bottom of the sea to heal,
Asagi was constantly sleeping as well.
Their connection diminished after Gamera defeated Super Gyaos,
and he was forced to sever it entirely to revive himself following his first battle with Mother Legion,
causing all of his magatama to shatter.
Like Gyaos, Gamera can alter his own chromosomes to make his body more suited to combat,
a handy in-universe explanation for the different designs in each of his films.
While Gyaos' supersonic scalpel was able to pierce his skin in "G1,"
by "G3" his skin could deflect the same ray from a Hyper Gyaos.
Although its status as canon to the trilogy is debatable, Dark Horse Publishing released
a four-issue limited series of comic books set one year after the events of the first film,
written by Dave Chipps and illustrated by Mozart Couto.
Incredibly, the series was published before "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" premiered in U.S.,
although Asagi and Nagamine were both main characters.
More in line with the Showa series in terms of tone, the story saw Gamera take on a cloned
Super Gyaos in Mexico, Zigra in the Pacific Ocean, and Viras in Paris.
Along the way, Viras' creator/mind-slave Greta Karbone managed to tap into the frequency
at which Gamera's magatama operated, allowing her to take temporary control of him.
In 2003, Kadokawa published a manga adaptation of the film "Gamera vs. Barugon" set between
the events of "Gamera 2" and "3," although its canonicity is ambiguous.
After destroying Mother Legion, Gamera faced off against another Gyaos.
Meanwhile, an expedition accidentally awakened an ancient monster called Barugon
deep within a cave.
A failed prototype created by the Atlanteans prior to Gamera,
the lizard-like monster grew rapidly and descended upon Tokyo.
With the JSDF unable to harm the creature, Gamera intervened,
but found himself frozen by Barugon's icy breath.
After he thawed out, their final confrontation took place atop a giant iceberg Barugon had created.
Gamera prevailed with a well-aimed fireball to the face, knocking Barugon off of the iceberg
to his death in the water below.
In 2017, Matt Frank self-published a prequel dōjinshi to the Gamera trilogy
titled "The Last Hope," which he sold exclusively at G-Fest XXIV.
It didn't remain a dōjinshi for long though, as Phase 6 published it in Japan in 2018
with Kadokawa's approval alongside Dark Horse's Gamera comics.
The Last Hope chronicles the origins of Gamera and Gyaos
as well as the fall of the civilization that created them.
When Atlantis was attacked by giant serpents called Garasharp,
the Atlanteans developed Gyaos to stop them.
But with their food source depleted, the Gyaos quickly developed an appetite for humanity.
Atlantis created several guardians called Gamera with the use of Mana.
Unlike Gyaos, these guardians possessed a link to humanity through special magatama
that mentally bonded them to a human priest or priestess.
All but one perished driving off the Gyaos, leaving Atlantis vulnerable when they returned,
accompanied by a gigantic Garasharp.
In order to ensure humanity's future, the last Gamera took it upon himself to destroy the Atlantean capital,
knowing its consumption of Mana was what attracted the monsters.
The survivors commemorated Gamera's sacrifice and entrusted him to future generations
by sealing him within an atoll along with magatama and a stone obelisk explaining his purpose.
Mahiro Maeda also illustrated a 12-page comic about the final days of Atlantis
for a making-of book about "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe."
In a 2002 interview, director Shusuke Kaneko said that if "Gamera 3" had grossed one billion yen
at the box office that he would have moved ahead with a "Gamera 4."
While still praised to this day as a classic of the genre,
the film only grossed 600 million yen during its 1999 theatrical run.
Nonetheless, Shinpei Hayashiya directed a fan-made sequel to "Gamera 3" titled "Gamera 4: Truth."
While it received official theatrical distribution by Kadokawa in theaters in 2003,
it has rarely been seen since then and has never been released on home video.
Aside from its recognition from Kadokawa, "G4" is notable for featuring actor Yukijiro Hotaro
reprising his role as Osako.
The upcoming documentary "Kaiju Gaiden," which chronicles fan-made kaiju films throughout the decades,
is set to include footage and interviews from the film.
The Gamera trilogy was the inspiration for a handful of tie-in video games, including
"Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" for the Nintendo Game Boy, "Gamera: Gyaos Destruction
Strategy" for the Super Famicom, and most notably "Gamera: 2000" for the Sony PlayStation—
an arcade-style space shooter in which the player takes on the role of
a member of the Science Defense Academy who gives orders to Gamera.
They fight against an invading alien civilization known as the Bio-Mechas,
who have at their disposal an army of genetically-engineered mutant "Neo-Gyaos."
The Heisei incarnation of Gamera has made appearances in other video games
including the pachinko game "CR Gamera" and "Gamera: Battle" for iOS.
Most recently, Gamera was featured in the survival-horror game "City Shrouded in Shadow,"
combating the Symbiotic Legion and trying to destroy their Plant.
While he is friendly to the human characters, the player can accidentally get crushed
during his battle with the Legion.
Godzilla's in the game too, along with many other icons of Japanese sci-fi,
but of course their paths never cross.
A Gamera suit from "Guardian of the Universe" appeared in two direct-to-video films by Noriaki Yuasa,
who directed all but one of the Showa Gamera films.
In "Cosplay Senshi Cutie Knight," Yuasa himself played a character who gives one of the heroines
a device to summon a human-sized Gamera.
He returned in "Cosplay Senshi Cutie Knight 2," released the following year.
The Heisei Gamera did meet Godzilla on one occasion, directed by Shusuke Kaneko no less...
in the form of two Bandai figures wielded by kids on a playground.
Naturally, the Godzilla depicted is from "GMK," which he also directed.
This moment, from episode 11 of "Ultraman Max," was only meant to appear in the broadcast version,
per Tsuburaya Productions' agreement with Toho and Kadokawa.
The English dub of the show available on Toku also includes it.
Kadokawa pitched a proper crossover between the two franchises in the early 2000's,
but Toho declined, likely due to the prospect of having to share profits with Kadokawa
while providing the more marketable monster star.
Kadokawa did finally produce "Gamera the Brave" for the series' 40th anniversary in 2006,
though it wasn't connected to the Heisei trilogy.
That's it for our Heisei Gamera profile… took us long enough, eh?
If you haven't watched the "History" and "Design" videos, feel free to do that now.
In any case, thank you for watching all the way to the end.
See you later, kaiju fans.