GAMERA: MONSTER ALIGNMENT CHART

 

GAMERA: MONSTER ALIGNMENT CHART

 

Welcome to the conclusion of CCC’s GAMERA-THON! I am wrapping up this month of Gamera content with a fun alignment chart of (almost all) the monsters from all twelve films.

 

First up in the category of Lawful Good has to be Gamera. This is probably the most obvious placement; unlike the Godzilla series, there were never any other monsters who teamed up to defeat villains. Gamera is a one-turtle wolf pack who fights his battles on his own, and even though he attacked Japan a couple of times, he’s primarily known for “his unusual overpowering kindness to children” and has even sacrificed his own life multiple times in the name of saving humanity.

The category of Neutral Good was a tough one fill, with no real obvious choices, but the supporting character of Giruge from Gamera: Super Monster is probably the best fit. She worked for the evil alien Zanon, but used to be part of the Spacewomen superhero force who defend earth. She is brought back to the good side by the Spacewomen before the end of the film, though is ultimately destroyed by Zanon for betraying him.

In the spot for Chaotic Good is the ancient monster Jiger, who is not as evil as she may appear at first. Jiger was awakened after humans removed a statue from Wester Island where she was resting, and Gamera tried to stop them, so she only fought him the first time because of what the humans had done and because Gamera happened to be there. Then, she left the island and attacked Osaka because of the humans again—they took the statue from the island, so still not her fault. She almost killed Gamera by injecting him with a parasitic offspring, but that’s just her natural biology, you can’t blame her for that. She was just defending herself and trying to reproduce. Then, in the end, she was killed by Gamera with that statue, who was revived by humanity. What about that offspring trying to grow inside Gamera? They killed it. Jiger may have been destructive, but all the damage she caused and the distress it brought about for Gamera was all the product of human meddling. 

For Lawful Neutral I’m going with Iris, because this giant monster started off seemingly good, but then his hatred for Gamera manifested as a result of his connection to a young girl who hated Gamera, and Iris’ connection/loyalty to her is the real reason he became an adversary for the giant turtle.  

True Neutral is Legion, from Gamera 2, because this extraterrestrial giant monster is not an invader from another planet with a conscious intent to destroy humanity and take over the world. Legion has a complicated life cycle, with the main threat being The Mother Legion. Legion establishes giant flowers with the intent of spreading across earth, and the movie explains this insectoid creature does this to spread its seeds across the galaxy, so naturally this would make it become a threat to the Guardian of the Universe. Legion doesn’t have any loyalty to any other beings, it is just programmed to spread and survive.  

Barugon is the best fit in the Chaotic Neutral spot, because his existence, just like Jiger’s, is mainly because of humans messing with something they shouldn’t have messed with. He hatched from an opal stolen from a cave in Indonesia, which was accidentally left under a heat lamp, and somehow that made Barugon hatch and grow into a giant extremely fast. Once full grown, he went on a rampage through Japan, but only fought Gamera out of pure instinct. Yes, he did cause lots of destruction, but unlike other monsters to come later in the series, he never seemed to act maliciously unless attacked or provoked, which keeps him out of the Evil categories, but he definitely was never in the Good categories at any point, either.    

To me, Guiron is the most definitive Lawful Evil monster in the series, primarily because of his role in the film which bears his name in the title. The alien women of Terra have Guiron trapped underground, and they even have a river running over his prison to disguise it, but they can reverse the water, open Guiron’s enclosure, and let him out whenever they need to defend their civilization from other monsters. When Guiron is unleashed he’s obedient to no end. Sure, there might be a bit of mind control going on, but if Gamera could break free of mind control then he should have been able to as well if he wasn’t evil. Regardless, Guiron was one mean brute who went out of his way to chop up the corpse of Space Gyaos into thin slices and became fixated on killing Gamera even after the last of the Terrans became extinct.

Neutral Evil is the spot that’s hardest to fill with just one monster, but I’m going with the alien squid monster Viras. You could also include Zigra, Zanon, and Zedus in this category (all the “Z” villains) but the reason I went with Viras is because he was the first extraterrestrial monster in the series who came to earth with the intent to take over the planet. This sentient species (known collectively as the “Virasians”) saw Gamera as an obstacle to them taking over and only turned him against the world using mind control for that reason. They are Neutral Evil because they didn’t have any specific hatred for just Gamera, they just had an evil plan and wanted to carry out said plan. Zigra and Zanon were also aliens with the same intent, and Zedus, from Gamera the Brave, was just an angry lizard who wanted to wreck stuff, and showed up inexplicably.

It doesn’t matter what era of Gamera film or what form he’s in: Gyaos is definitely in the Chaotic Evil slot. His mission in Gamera vs. Gyaos is to eat people! He drinks blood, can’t go out in the day, kills people without remorse, and will even mutilate himself to avoid being killed. He’s like if Dracula was a giant monster. In the second era, Gyaos wasn’t as picky when it came to his diet. He would eat any kind of meat, but still preferred humans, and by the end of the trilogy threatened to take over the entire planet. It’s no wonder he’s become known as Gamera’s arch nemesis.

 

That brings Gamera-thon to an end—but only until the new anime series GAMERA: Rebirth is released! I will be back to review it shortly after it comes out. Until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about this series of films and have been entertained by my reviews. Maybe I’ve convinced a few readers to watch some of these movies, but even if not, it’s been fun sharing my thoughts and opinions on them this month and breaking out of the typical marathon of October horror movie reviews to focus on something different for a while. I've looked at the brief history of the entire franchise, reviewed each film, ranked them from worst to best, and even created this alignment chart just for fun. I'll link everything from this month below in case you missed anything from throughout the marathon. The last thing I'll leave off with is the "Gamera Song" from the 1966 American version of the original film, Gammera: The Invincible.

Gamera: A Brief History of Cinema:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/05/cccs-gamera-thon-gamera-brief-history.html

Gamera, the Giant Monster Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-giant-monster-1965-review.html

Gamera vs. Barugon Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-barugon-1966-review.html

Gamera vs. Gyaos Review: 

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-gyaos-1967-review.html 

Gamera vs. Viras Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-viras-1968-review.html

Gamera vs. Guiron Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-guiron-1969-review.html

Gamera vs. Jiger Review: 

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-zigra-1971-review.html

Gamera vs. Zigra Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-vs-zigra-1971-review.html

Gamera: Super Monster Review:  

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-super-monster-1980-review.html

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-guardian-of-universe-1995-review.html

Gamera 2: Attack of Legion Review:    

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-2-attack-of-legion-1996-review.html

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris Review:

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-3-revenge-of-iris-1999-review.html

Gamera the Brave Review: 

https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-brave-2006-review.html

Gamera Movies Ranked: 

 https://cccmovies.blogspot.com/2023/06/gamera-movies-ranked.html