#viras

[mooncalfe-art]

Showa-era Gamera monsters! Barugon, Gyaos, Viras, Guiron, Jiger, Zigra.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

GAMERA -Rebirth- poster by Yuji Kaida. Careful using that sonic ray around Guiron, Gyaos!

[spicypopsicleng]

Gamera Rebirth poster I did in hype of the new anime!

[avartwork]

Viras and Gezora gonna keep ol’ Gamera’s hands full!

[viejospellejos]

Locura…

[gojira-ekkusu]

Artwork by Yuji Kaida

[giantmonsterpolls]

Alright, time for our next poll!

March 15th marks the 57th year anniversary of Gamera vs Gyaos, so I thought I’d shake up the streak of Godzilla or general kaiju fandom polls and give us all a Gamera-centric one, in time for the birthday of his most common enemy. Hoping this gets some traction despite Gamera not being that popular, come on, let’s spread the word of the turtle-

Please remember to reblog so this can get a wider sample size!

[justgoji]

[tyrantisterror]

Drawing some more Gamera monsters. I wanted to play with the fact that Zigra and Viras are both capable of speech - Zigra is actually wearing armor to cover his relatively frail kaiju body, while Viras just exudes a smarmy smugness that makes you want to punch him. I also wanted Viras's design to emphasize the "virus" aspect of the original, since everyone seems to only focus on the squid aspects.

Then I got a fun idea for Irys, since it's basically a stealth homage to Viras already. What if Irys was a small, young kaiju that was frail on its own, but could puppeteer Gamera's dead foes? It starts out by Frankenstein Viras and Zigra's corpses together, inheriting their hatred for Gamera in turn. But things get really bad when it adds Gyaos's corpse to the mix. The story ends roughly the same - Gamera goes through hell and tears out the heart of the monster, only this time it's the tiny parasitic baby kaiju who just wanted to be big and strong because it was afraid. Gamera spares it, because, well, friend to all children and whatnot.

Barugon is a silly boi.

[kevynthedevylman]

GAMERA -Rebirth Trailer 2

All Five Enemies Have Been Revealed!

This is going to be Epic!

[almightyrayzilla]

Prints of my Gamera redesigns are on Storenvy!

---

Also, it just dawned on me that I never posted them all here. I had originally wanted to share the art as I had the stories finished, but then the news of Gamera: Rebirth came about, and...yeah, just couldn’t wait.

[shin-thalia]

Gamera Rebirth is an unexpected, genuine masterpiece

I don't know how they did it, but they were able to turn the six episode resurgence of a goofy monster into the most emotional, exciting, enthralling piece of art I've seen in recent times.

I like everything, pretty much. If it's widely hated, I can find some positives I like; My favorite Godzilla film is still probably KOTM 2019... but Gamera Rebirth genuinely wipes the floor with EVERYTHING Toho has put out in the past decade. While the animation can take some getting used to, and the characters are odd for the first episode, everything from episode three onwards was amazing and kept getting better and better.

I had incredibly low expectations, yet I was not only brought to tears TWICE, but every single fight had my mouth hanging open in pure shock and amazement. The entire battle between Gurion and Gamera is fantastic, and I am being completely honest when I say this is THE BEST Gamera has ever been.

By the end of episode four, I had to keep reminding myself I wasn't watching a theatrical movie. Somehow, for a 6 episode show, the writing and pacing is so ferociously good that I was able to blast through the whole series in an evening. Every little bit I was iffy on originally got tied up neatly, and I honestly can't praise this thing enough. Please just set aside some time and watch this, because I promise you won't regret it.

Best Gamera so far

Best incarnations of the kaiju

Best characters that somehow weren't annoying, and actually made me emotional

GAMERA IS BAAAACK

[chernobog13]

Dear lord! No, Gamera! Naughty Gamera!

[spicypopsicleng]

Happy 58th Anniversary Gamera!

[rustybottlecap]

Slight spoilers for Gamera Rebirth

So, between Gamera Rebirth and the Dark Horse comic miniseries based on the 90s trilogy, I'm noticing a trend to make Viras the "big bad" of Gamera's foes whenever they are all brought back. Granted it's only two examples as far as I'm aware, but I think there is a good reason for this and it's likely to happen again.

Most of Gamera's showa foes are brute beasts. The exceptions are Viras and Zigra, who are super intelligent alien invaders. Yet Zigra appears in both the Dark Horse miniseries and Rebirth reduced to a brute beast both times, while Viras both times is by far the smartest and most dangerous foe and ends up surpassing the humans trying to control him. While Viras is not the final enemy in Rebirth he's clearly the one that rises the stakes the most lore wise.

Why is this? What does Viras have that Zigra doesn't? I think it's because he's a SQUID. We have a long history of associating aliens in media with squid and octopus. They are highly capable of manipulating stuff with their tentacles and thus can come across as both SMART AND ALIEN, and thus scary in a different way than just a brute beast. Zigra, being a shark, even if a cool looking one, can be hard to make look like a highly intelligent and ploting foe. His movements are limited. It's not impossible, but a squid has all that already built in.

And it's amusing, because Showa Viras has arguably the goofiest design and is the hardest to take seriously. He really got lucky.

[tokujenny]

Viras is a really interesting Kaiju honestly.

Obviously giant cephalopods aren't a new concept, Gezora appeared in Space Amoeba the next year and Frankenstein battled the giant octopus a few years earlier in Frankenstein vs Baragon. Viras fits, mostly, neatly into the same category. A giant, squid-like monster. It does have some peculiarities that make it stand out though, like it being the product of several aliens fusing together to become giant, its interesting head which seems to be another set of tentacles which can collapse into a sort of... Blade or arrow? And, of course, that meme worthy face

I do really like this guy, genuinely. It makes for a great B-Movie monster, and more than anything Gamera *is* a B-Movie franchise.