Anime / GAMERA -Rebirth-

Gamera Reborn

Gamera: Rebirth is a Netflix original series produced by Polygon Pictures and ENGI starring the Kaiju Gamera in his first major appearance since 2006's Gamera the Brave, released on Netflix on September 7, 2023. The series concerns 4 children, Boco, Joe, Junichi, and Brody. The former three are worried about their futures, and matters aren't made any better when Brody, the son of a US commander in Japan, steals the money the three of them had saved. Enraged, they try to get it back, but matters quickly take a turn for the worse when Tokyo is, out of the blue, ravaged by Gyaos. Wherever there's Gyaos threatening children, however, there's Gamera, who quickly intervenes. And so starts the "Monster Summer" as these 4 children witness the Guardian of the Universe take on 5 kaiju one after another.

The first trailer is viewable here.

The second trailer is viewable here.

A prequel manga called GAMERA -Rebirth- code thyrsos is also being produced, detailing the backstory of the kaiju.

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Gamera: Rebirth contains examples of:

• Abusive Precursors: In the second to last episode, it's revealed that a highly-advanced civilization called Hemueden existed 100,000 years ago and created the orylium and Kaiju as bioweapons to exterminate most of Earth's population, leaving only those deemed worthy to repopulate. However, a traitor reprogrammed Gamera and it's implied they lost control of Viras when it consumed a minus-coded child, leading to the civilization being decimated. The Eustace Foundation is all that remains, with it being implied that the board members somehow attained a form of immortality that allowed them to stay alive until they could re-enact the plan.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Unlike the Heisei Era where kaiju were able to be at least challenged by the military, the fully grown kaiju are effectively military proof. Notably, the adult Gyaos is powerful enough to wipe out an entire naval fleet and multiple squads of jets by itself.
  • In the same way the Dark Horse comics did so, Viras is the Final Boss and shows off Shock and Awe powers, along with the ability to fire a baryon beam from his open head.
  • Super Gyaos is a gargantuan monster here that takes Gamera busting out a special move to defeat, while they were only Gamera's size in their movie and only a match for him.
  • Gamera himself compared to how he had to fight all these Showa opponents. Aside from Viras all of them had to be fought two or three times for him to beat them. Here he's able to beat each of them in one fight, albeit with varying amounts of damage taken.
• Adaptational Heroism: A downplayed example with Gamera; he's not always been portrayed as a heroic figure in the past. In the Showa era, he started out as a destructive monster, only becoming a protector in later films; in the Heisei Trilogy, he's portrayed as an Anti-Hero at best, mainly focused on stopping the Gyaos and other threats while occasionally helping humans (the third movie even had him forgo humanity's presence to kill the Gyaos) with only in Gamera the Brave Gamera (as Toto) being portrayed as fully heroic outright. In the series, Gamera is heroic right from the start, always arriving just in time to save our main leads and taking care not crush any buildings or humans underfoot, which even Toto wasn't careful to do in his battles.
• Adaptational Nonsapience:
  • In Gamera vs. Zigra, the latter monster not only had human level intelligence, but was capable of verbal communication, and was the Big Bad of the film. Here, Zigra is depicted as animalistic in behaviour and a bio-weapon of the Eustace Foundation, no more intelligent than the other animalistic Kaiju.
  • A similar thing happens with Viras, who was also an intelligent alien in their debut film and even the captain of their own ship, but is little more than a living weapon here.
• Adaptational Species Change: Downplayed. Though the animal they're based on remains intact, Viras and Zigra were alien kaiju in their debut films, but are bioengineered Earth-originating kaiju here.
• Adaptational Wimp: While Showa Jiger always seemed to be at a disadvantage strengthwise, she outmatched Gamera with her tricky powers of flight, x-ray beam, larvae injection, telekinesis and spine projection. This one only has a stabbing tail.
• Alternate History: With this show being set in 1989, besides the kaiju attacking Tokyo throughout the summer of that year, The Stinger also reveals smartphones of the same caliber as modern iPhones being invented shortly after said summer.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Kaiju are actually part of a 100,000-year-old plot by the Eustace Foundation as a means of "purifying" the Earth of the majority of humanity. This also doubles as a Corporate Conspiracy as the Eustace Foundation is a huge corporation that's (publicly) dedicated to researching the Kaiju. It's implied that 100,000 years ago, one of the Kaiju devoured a child with a "minus code" that caused them to lose control of it, the subsequent rampage decimating the ancient civilization and forcing them to put the purification plan on hold.
• Bait-and-Switch: In-Universe. When the Eustace Foundation base on the moon gets a massive energy reading, the board assumes their "purification" plan has begun. They were right. It just wasn't Earth that was being purified.
• Behemoth Battle: The advertising places great emphasis on how Gamera is up against five different kaiju.
• Big Bad: The board of the Eustace Foundation are collectively the main villains. They're intentionally reviving the kaiju in order to 'purify' the earth. Of them, Nora Melchiorri is the only one that is really fleshed out, though she and her partners appear to have equal power and authority in their operations. Nora's niece, Emiko, is the most active antagonist, operating on the Board's behalf, before attempting to branch out on her own; however, Emiko is killed shortly after her betrayal by a baby Gyaos, leaving her aunt and her partners as the sole antagonists in the finale.
• Bioweapon Beast: All of the Kaiju were created 100,000 years ago by the Eustace Foundation as a means to enforce population control on the planet. This also includes Gamera, who however was stolen and reprogrammed to stop them.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Emiko was only pretending to befriend the children for the first four episodes. In reality, while she does genuinely believe she's befriended Junichi and offers to spare her, she's intending to sacrifice the others to Viras in a plot to genocide most of the human race and rule over the chosen survivors. The only reason she was so protective was because she needed them alive to feed to Viras.
• Bitch Slap: Gamera deals one to Guiron three times, two of which are in rapid succession.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Kaiju are all defeated, the heads of the Eustace Foundation have been killed, and the world is saved. However, Joe is presumed dead after manually activating the shuttle's escape pod to save his friends and Gamera overexerts his power to kill the Foundation, causing him to crumble away into dust. It's not all depressing though, as Gamera leaves behind an egg which hatches into a new Gamera and a Post-Credits Scene reveals that Joe is still alive somewhere in space.
• Bland-Name Product: The cassette that Tazaki recovers to the government in "Childhood's End" is manufactured by Pony.
• The Bus Came Back: Jiger, Zigra, Guiron, and Viras the monsters Gamera faces in this series, 53 years after Jiger's initial appearance, 52 years after Zigra's initial appearance, 54 after Guiron's initial appearance, and 55 after Viras'.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The kids are able to escape Emiko and the Foundation precisely because the code only works if they're Eaten Alive. If they kill them, they won't be able to use it to control Viras.
• The Chosen One: It's revealed that children who come into contact with the kaiju are marked, causing the kaiju to hunt them down and devour them. Boco is a particularly potent code-holder, with the Eustace Foundation intending to feed him to Viras in order to regain control of it and use it to exterminate most of humanity.
• Composite Character: The Gyaos have very long tongues with a spear-like tips similar to Zedus. S-Gyaos also has large, frill-like ears that call to mind Zedus' expandable frill. This makes sense since Zedus was mutated from consuming Gyaos remains.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. Gamera's fireballs are able to burn things they don't directly touch, and the heat wave is felt from hundreds of meters away when he uses a stronger one
• Curbstomp Battle: The first engagement between the military and the Gyaos ends with the jets being obliterated. The adult Gyaos completely demolishes all military opposition put before it, be it an entire fleet or a squad of jets.
• Darker and Edgier: This is probably the most violent, mature Gamera media installment yet besides Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys, with numerous gruesome and bloody deaths from both humans and monsters, lots of swearing, explicit child deaths, and the primary antagonists being a group of corrupt humans instead of monsters or aliens.
• Deflector Shields: All the kaiju are protected from most attacks by a film of energy around them, making it extraordinarily difficult to even injure them, unless you're another kaiju.
• The Determinator: Gamera, true to form, continues to fight to protect humanity despite his increasingly severe injuries.
• Detonation Moon: Downplayed. With his last act, Gamera fires an energy beam that reaches all the way to the Moon, blasting all the way through it and obliterating the Eustace Foundation leaders on their moon base. However, the damage isn't significant enough to be noticeable from Earth.
• Didn't See That Coming: Just in case Super Gyaos was defeated by Gamera, the Eustace Foundation leaders programmed it to inject an RNA virus into Gamera to turn him back into a destructive weapon. However, they never expected that Gamera would have the Heroic Willpower to resist the transformation and immediately retaliate with an attack that reaches all the way to the moon. When their lunar base sensors detect a sudden massive energy spike coming from Gamera, they assume Gamera has begun purification, rather than the fact he just fired off a massive energy beam that is milliseconds away from reducing them to moon dust. All of them are vaporized with smug expressions plastered on their faces, still thinking they've won.
• Dug Too Deep: Seems to be the way the monsters are awoken this time around, as Gyaos, Jiger, Guiron, and Viras are all unearthed by mining operations in their individual synopsis. Zigra is the exception, as his egg is found in the middle of the ocean. Subverted, as the Eustace Foundation woke them up on purpose.
• Eagleland: General Raymond Osborn as a type 1. Whilst gruff and harsh to his son, he is a rational and responsible military commander. When Jiger attacks, he puts all of his forces to hold it off whilst prioritizing civilians to get out of harm's way, even getting in the danger zone himself. His son, Brody, starts off as type 2 as a brash, arrogant, and somewhat racist bully (despite being biracial Japanese himself). But he later grows out of his more negative traits and becomes all the better for it.
• Education Mama: Boco's mother heavily focuses on his education, signing him up for summer school and disapproving of him hanging out with his friends instead of spending all his time studying. The whole reason she allows him to intern for two weeks aboard a ship is because James and Emiko offer to tutor him themselves. And they graduated from Harvard and Princeton.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The Eustace Foundation heads never once considered the fact that their virus would fail to turn Gamera back to his original programming because the kaiju was genuinely benevolent and determined enough to shrug it off by Heroic Willpower. As such, they don't even bother checking if it worked and fail to realize he's not attacking humanity, but aiming directly at them which results in their deaths.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: The last episode ends with a unique credits sequence with an acoustic version of the classic Gamera theme. However, after a brief black screen, it shows James has used orylium to create a smartphone equivalent and Joe somehow survived his apparent Heroic Sacrifice in space and is attempting to contact the others. Only then does the normal credits sequence start.
• Foreshadowing: When learning Zigra sunk a passenger ship containing other kids who encountered the kaiju, Emiko specifically asks if they were eaten. It turns out specific children being eaten by the kaiju is exactly what she actually wants in order to control them.
• Giant Flyer:
  • Gyaos have large batlike wings that enable them to fly, even when they grow to adult size.
  • Like in the Heisei continuity, Gamera can seemingly transform his arms into flipper-like wings while firing plasma out of his shell's leg openings, and also appears to have plasma vents on his wings as well; He can also retract all four limbs and fire plasma out of the openings to spin like a buzzsaw.
  • Viras is able to fly by using its electromagnetic abilities to warp gravity.
  • Surprisingly averted with Super Gyaos. After eating Viras' carcass, they grow so large that they are unable to fly. Their attempt at take-off only results in them splashing in the ocean and they are forced to swim to the island Gamera is on.
• The Heavy: All of the villainous kaiju are this for the Eustace Foundation. As their leaders are just regular people and also on the moon, there's no way they could actually take part in the fights involving Gamera... at least until Gamera fires his energy beam at the moon and instantly eradicates them.
• Heroic BSoD: In the final episode, seeing Gamera dying causes Boco to briefly repress his memories of the events of the series, asking where they are and what happened to Joe.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Joe stays behind when he realizes the space shuttle the kids are escaping from cannot release its escape pods without someone pulling a lever to release them inside the ship, although The Stinger in the last episode shows he somehow survived.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Eustace Foundation attempted to establish a new world order 100,000 years ago by creating kaiju to exterminate most of humanity. Instead, the kaiju turned on them and annihilated their civilization.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Downplayed: The Eustace Foundation Board are the true villains, responsible for releasing the monsters and trying to resurrect Viras in their bid to cull over 99 percent of humanity while they remain on their moon base. However, the final episode also features humanity coming together to save Gamera's life and then to raise him again once he reincarnates, showing humanity's brighter side in contrast.
• Karmic Death:
  • Emiko, who sought to feed the children to Viras and slaughter most of humanity, is eaten by a baby Gyaos.
  • The leadership of the Eustace Foundation re-corrupted Gamera to force him to attack humans. They're the only humans he actually kills after he quickly breaks out of their control.
• Lightning Bruiser: Crossed with Impossibly Graceful Giant and Faster Than They Look, Gamera is incredibly bulky in this series, yet he moves with an incredible amount of speed and fluidity within combat. Best shown when he outright breaks into a sprint and charges at Jiger, along with how he easily parries Guiron's attacks by beating him to the punch. And Guiron's rebooted design is incredibly graceful, aerial, and fast.
• Monster of the Week: Although the plot's continuity is very tight, every episode features Gamera fighting another new kaiju. However, the last episode has Gamera fighting Gyaos again, albeit a much stronger 'super' variant.
• Mythology Gag:
  • During their fight, Gamera blows off the adult Gyaos' right foot. This was the same foot that Gyaos lost in the original film.
  • During the fight with Jiger, Gamera superheats his right arm and plunges it into Jiger similar to how he finished off Irys in Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys. However, unlike Irys, it doesn't completely kill Jiger and Gamera has to finish her off with a fireball instead.
  • During the fight with Guiron, Gamera loses his right arm, similar to Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys.
    • Likewise, in that moment, Boco feels pain in his own right arm, much like how Asagi would feel Gamera's injuries in the Heisei Trilogy.
  • In episode 5, the oryllium flashback shown to the four children includes an ancient human calling Gamera "our last hope," a quote from Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.
  • When Gamera dies at the end of the final episode, he leaves behind an egg which hatches into a new Gamera. This harkens back to the origins of Toto from Gamera the Brave.
  • The final Gyaos has splotches of white on it invoking the albino Gyaos from the fan film Gamera 4 Truth.
• Never Was This Universe: The setting initially seems to establish itself as an Alternate History version of 1989, where certain technology is a bit more advanced than our own world, such as a floating island base, electromagnetic propulsion ships, and even a permanent lunar base. However, it's later revealed that there was actually a precursor human civilization that predates the current civilization by some 100,000 years, and some of its survivors are still manipulating society behind the scenes.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: As shown in the trailers, and especially in the series, Gamera is quite brutal with his enemies, such as how he pins Gyaos' neck underfoot, crushing its windpipe as a result, and attempting to yank its limbs off. Furthermore, he outright strangles Gyaos before hurling him with enough force to audibly create what sounds like a sonic boom, and this is after he gouges its eye out.
  • He rushes down Jiger and flat-out punches her in the face and lifts her clean over his head, which he later follows up by slamming her by the tail with so much force that he sends the surrounding buildings flying into the air like they were sand on a trampoline. Then he shoves his superheated hand down her throat and chucks her like a baseball.
  • He violently slaps Guiron three times in a row, the last of said strikes seeming to give him a minor concussion due to the slight dizzied motions Guiron makes afterwards.
  • Another shot shows him violently biting down on the back of Zigra's neck, with clouds of purple blood spurting out into the sea.
  • Viras inflicts this on Gamera with ease, pummeling him so badly he appears to be nearly dead.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Eustace Foundation has been feeding children to the kaiju in an attempt to find a child which contains a special code that will make the kaiju controllable. Boco is a particularly strong code-holder, so the Foundation needs him alive.
• Power Glows: Gamera's chest inexplicably outputs an electrical aura when charging his fireballs, and Zigra has a purple energy aura as it prepares to ram Gamera. Viras also has an electrical aura when using his electrical abilities.
• Psychic Link: Boco seems to share one with Gamera, to the point where Boco even feels Gamera's pain, like when Gamera loses his right arm to Guiron. Given how we learn later on that the Kaiju can only be controlled when they eat a child with a certain "code", it can be inferred that this link between Boco and Gamera is because of said code.
• Reconstruction: Like Gamera the Brave before it, this series is a love letter to the Showa era films over the Heisei trilogy. Whilst keeping a serious tone and very Heisei inspired look for the titular monster, Gamera is back to being the Friend to All Children as a protector for the child character leads over the near unknowable anti-hero god he was in the trilogy. The child characters’ appearance and backgrounds even closely resemble those from the Showa series, but with more nuance and diversity. Additionally, all of the antagonist kaiju are from the Showa era but have been updated with recognizable, but more menacing appearances and powers to put them on the level of the Heisei trilogy antagonists.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: All of the other monsters sans Gamera have red eyes that constantly glow a faint crimson. And as usual, none of them are benevolent. Gamera gains these after briefly succumbing to a virus attempting to restore his original programming, but loses them after overcoming the virus.
• Reused Character Design: Gamera and Gyaos' designs for the series are similar to their designs from Katsuhito Ishii's 2015 Gamera short film.
• The Reveal: In the fifth episode, it's shown that all the monsters are actually bioweapons created by an ancient precursor civilization to exterminate most of mankind, and the survivors of this civilization formed a secret society which still intends to fulfill this goal by sacrificing the children to Viras. Also, Emiko is part of this secret society and was leading the children to their doom this whole time.
• Ruder and Cruder: In the English dub at least. There's far more swear words than any other Gamera media, from both the adults and child characters. Lots of toilet humor, too.
• Sequel Hook: The last scene is the voice of Joe, having somehow survived aboard the plummeting space shuttle, attempting to communicate with Boco from an unknown location.
• Ship Tease: Brody gains a brief crush on Junichi when he learns she's a girl at the end of episode 3. After giving some development to this one sided crush in episode 4, it is never brought up again.
• Shout-Out:
  • When looking at the Gyaos from a distance, Junichi says that they look like Aura Battlers.
  • The final laser beam Gamera fires at the Eustace Foundation Moon Base seems similar to Godzilla Earth's Atomic Breath.
  • Zigra's new design heavily resembles Betterman Aqua.
  • At the start of Episode 6, the Eustace Foundation board members compare the baby S-Gyaos to the titular protagonist of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
• The Starscream: Emiko works for the Eustace Foundation with the same goal of purifying humanity, but she intends to kill off the entire leadership and usurp them, because the current leader, her own aunt, murdered Emiko's mother to assume power. She doesn't live to see her betrayal come to pass however, as she is killed by a Gyaos in the final episode and her plans are thwarted by Gamera.
• Super-Persistent Predator: Any kaiju not Gamera will relentlessly hunt and eat any children due to being made that way by the Eustace Foundation.
• Swallowed Whole: Several subadult Gyaos are shown scaling skyscrapers and swallowing civilians whole. A baby Gyaos does this to an unfortunate victim.
• Those Two Guys: Commander Sasaki and Major Enatsu of the JSDF appear at least once per episode, the latter delivering status updates to the former, who is usually found sitting in his tank being frustrated by the Japanese government's bureaucratic red tape sidelining them from helping fight the kaiju, eating caramels... and folding the wrappers into origami of the Monster of the Week, even though he's never seen any of them himself.
• Token Heroic Orc: Once again, Gamera is the only benevolent kaiju, and every other kaiju is a destructive, rampaging monster. It's shown that all of them, including Gamera, were created to be bioweapons by the Eustace Foundation, but a renegade reprogrammed Gamera into a protector.
• To Serve Man: With Gamera as an exception, all the kaiju actively target and eat humans. Turns out this is entirely intentional, as the kaiju were created to 'purify' the earth by culling humanity. Gamera was made to be the same, but reprogrammed to be a protector.
• Tunnel King: Guiron is able to burrow underground, likely a nod to how he would emerge from the ground in his original movie.
• Turned Against Their Masters: All of the kaiju were originally created 100,000 years ago by the Eustace Foundation as bioweapons to cleanse humanity, leaving only the chosen survivors behind, but they went berserk and destroyed everyone indiscriminately instead. Gamera is a special case, as he was intentionally repurposed as a benevolent protector by a defector, and he also turns on and eventually kills all the Eustace Foundation leaders, to rid humanity of their evil forever.
• Underestimating Badassery: The Eustace Foundation heads and Emiko have a really bad habit of underestimating how strong Gamera really is. Initially, they assume Viras will easily defeat him, only for Gamera to bisect the Golden Devil in a fit of rage. Later on, they assume S-Gyaos' virus will work without a hitch, only for Gamera to overcome it's effects and kill them in retaliation.
• Vibro Weapon: Guiron's blade is officially described as one of these
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Brody's other American friends are not seen or heard from after they managed to get away from the Gyaos in Episode 1.
• The Worf Effect: Throughout the trailers, Gamera is seen fighting the kaiju with little to no hassle. All except for Viras, who is shown having the upper hand so far.
• Would Hurt a Child: While the Kaiju (sans Gamera of course) are seen feasting on humans in general, Tazuki says that they have a special appetite for children. We later learn that they were designed that way by the Eustace Foundation, as when a Kaiju eats a child with a specific "code", it allows the Foundation to control it.

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