eric's little black star » Introducing Gamera! Gamera is the friend to all children!

eric on Feb 13th 2009 at 8:54 am Movies,Video

Introducing Gamera! Gamera is the friend to all children!

In 1965, Daiei Motion Picture Company in Japan, thought it would be a good idea to enter the daikaiju eiga (giant monster movies) game. Their creature was a giant turtle named Gamera. Almost from the start, they fashioned Gamera as a “friend to all children.” Gamera movies, like Godzilla movies, became kids movies. This isn’t a bad thing, of course.

While Gamera is sort of the poor-man’s Godzilla, he actually has a charm all his own. The early series (Showa era), was much like the 70′s series Godzilla movies – sort of cartoony and kinda goofy. It was five of these seven movies that got the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment. The 90′s (Heisei era), showed a more kick-ass Gamera that proved that he could hold his own. Then, in 2006, they continued the story with Gamera: The Brave about a new Gamera that grows from a tiny turtle into the gigantic Gamera who fights to save Japan with help, of course, from his young friends!

Here’s that trailer…

My friend, Ryan, and his three year old son, Viri, are also big Gamera fans. This is from Ryan’s blog (which is always a good read)…

When Viri woke up, I discovered a fun fact about my boy: His Santa Claus is Gamera. I’ve mentioned before that he loves Gamera. Today, he was bothering his sister, and on a whim I told him to be good, because Gamera helps good boys and girls, not bad boys. He immediately stopped, and profusely apologized. “I’m nice! I’m nice!”

I’ll be reviewing the Gamera movies (in their original Japanese) along side the Godzilla movies. Since the first Gamera flick didn’t surface till 1965, I’ll be able to watch all of of each series in the order they were released. This is geeky and exciting. Mostly geeky.

But you love me anyway.

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Introducing Gamera! Gamera is the friend to all children!”

sarah says:

February 13, 2009 at 8:58 am

gamera is really neat.
Ryan Beggar says:

February 13, 2009 at 9:01 am

He is made of turtle meat!
eric says:

February 13, 2009 at 9:08 am

We all love you, GAMERA!!!

Shell
Teeth
Eyes
Flames
Claws
Breath
Scales
Fun!
Ryan Beggar says:

February 13, 2009 at 8:44 pm

Viri is a bizarrely charismatic young man. I wonder if he’ll be wowing people when he’s our age, with normal things. “Viri turned in this power point on the Jenkins project, I gotta tell you about it… It was awesome.”

Today: “You scratched me Papa, I got an owie. That was bad, bad.”

Bad, bad indeed. Well put!

eric Reply:
February 14th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Viri’s powerpoint presentations are always a delight!

Taviri is really neat!
He is filled with pasta meat!
We all love you, Taviri!

Wiggles
Teeth
Eyes
Trains
Trucks
Donuts
Burls
Fun!