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There aren't as many Kaiju in this series of films as Godzilla, but they are certainly memorable, so let's learn about them. The main page is here. Go here for the characters from GAMERA -Rebirth-.


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Gamera

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/330px_gamera_1965_9.jpg
Guardian of the Universe
Click here to see his Heisei design 
Click here to see his 2006 design 
Click here to see his 2023 design 

Portrayed by: Teruo Aragaki (1966-1968), Umenosuke Izumi (1961-1970), Takateru Manabe and Jun Suzuki (1995), Akira Ohashi (1996), Hirofumi Fukuzawa (1999), Toshinori Sasaki (2006)

A gargantuan tusked turtle-like monster, Gamera has had different origins depending on which era he is involved in. In the original Showa Era, he has some absent connection to Atlantis, but not much in the way of details is presented; he is simply one of many monsters who roams the world and is frequently lured to do battle with other monsters. In the Heisei Era, he is a bio-engineered Super-Soldier created by Atlantis after previous misuse of the same technology produced the horrors known as Gyaos, given life for the purpose of slaying Gyaos and surviving through the eons to ensure they are exterminated.


  • Adaptive Ability: His Heisei version has a slow functioning but noticeably potent one, as he slowly increases in power as his body adjusts itself for combat.
  • Alternate Company Equivalent:
    • Odd as it may sound, and at least on a storytelling front, Gamera is to arch-rival Godzilla as Spider-Man is to Superman; yes, he's powerful, but his enemies are usually much, much stronger or have abilities that can immediately put him out of the fight. This forces him to fight with smarts as much as claws, and to learn from his mistakes. (Usually this comes after he's on the losing end of a brutal ass-beating by the Monster of the Week.) Though this only considers the Showa era incarnation.
    • His Heisei counterpart on the other hand is actually capable of defeating monsters with just his powers and can evolve to grow in power, putting him more in line with Godzilla's power and role. Further reinforcing this is the fact that by the time of the last film of the trilogy, Gamera is flat out unstoppable, and only Irys manages to even harm him.
  • Anthropomorphic Shift: Started off just as a vicious animal with very little personality (Most notably in his first two films), but gradually became a Friend to All Children who was smart enough to repair an alien spaceship, and by the Heisei series, stopped walking on all fours and gained a more heroic streak, albeit retaining his aggressiveness towards enemies.
  • Atlantis: Gamera's origin in all continuities, though it's not gone into much detail in the Showa Series.
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space:
    • In the Showa era, he could spin through space without much harm coming to himself.
    • The Heisei era version of him can too, though it's only shown in one shot alongside the Super Gyaos in the first movie.
  • The Berserker: Gamera does not play around in a fight, simply put. He never shows any hesitation with any of his enemies, and is extremely brutal and aggressive with them, doing things like gouging eyes, biting throats, tearing off body parts and even entire organs, and even outright ignoring pain and damage in order to land hits.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Gamera is about as nice as a Kaiju can get on a good day, making sure the people around him are safe and even going as far as to play with children when he gets the chance. However, if you so much as harm a hair on the head of his Protectorate, may God have mercy on your soul.
  • Big Bad: Was actually the main villain of the first movie, as the sole kaiju rampaging. Mostly chalked up to Early-Installment Weirdness.
  • Big Good: He is this for the series as a whole.
  • Blade Below the Shoulder: Has spikes on his elbows but he only really uses them once.
  • Breath Weapon: In the Showa era, he pretty much has flamethrower breath. In the Heisei era, he shoots fireballs.
  • Characterization Marches On: His first movie had him as a violent and destructive monster that attacks and kills people totally unprovoked. Gamera vs. Barugon portrayed him as a lesser evil and every film since has unambiguously had him as a heroic monster that defends humanity from evil monsters.
  • Combined Energy Attack: His Mana Cannon/Ultimate Plasma from the Heisei era is a Kamehame Hadouken fired from his chest.
  • Destructive Savior: His battle with two Gyaos in Shibuya should tell you everything you need to know about what he can be like when he's desperate.
  • The Determinator: His defining character trait besides being a Friend to All Children, because simply put, come hell or high water Gamera will not quit. He regularly endures injuries that would normally take most monsters out of the fight or just flat out kill them, including getting beaten, slashed, whipped, gored, frozen, and blasted, yet just keeps fighting until he just physically can't.
  • Energy Absorption: Gamera is able to absorb staggering amounts of energy, including thermal energy, electricity, and even nuclear radiation. The problem being that all of his enemies have deadly attacks that aren't based in any of those. If they are, however, he's able to take them with remarkable ease.
  • Expy: The Heisei's incarnation may possibly (perhaps unintentionally) be one of Godzilla (1994) before it was scrapped and replaced with the much disliked 1998 result. Both the scrapped 1994 Godzilla and Heisei Gamera were created by ancient civilizations to combat a greater menace.
  • Flanderization:
    • While he is the Trope Namer for Friend to All Children, it was really more of a single Out-of-Character Moment in the original film, considering he mercilessly slaughters countless without provocation bar the main child character (who Gamera put into danger in the first place!). By the third film though, he's totally flipped to being a friendly monster, even taking a boy he rescues to an amusement park. The Heisei era does dial it down a bit, with him still being a Friend to All Children, but not being quite as careful about the collateral damage and possible deaths of his battles.
    • It was off-handedly mentioned that Gamera may have originated from Atlantis in the original film while discussing his possible origin, but it's never confirmed. By the Heisei reboot, this is his definitive origin and ties in heavily with his character this time. Tropes Are Not Bad, however, as it added a more unique spin to his character.
  • Friend to All Children: The Trope Namer, the later versions of his Showa incarnation going out of his way to be friendly and protective towards children.
  • Genius Bruiser: Gamera's intelligence is far less ambiguous than most kaiju tend to be depicted, with him explicitly gesturing and emoting towards individual humans, and having very clearly defined motivations. He's also able to work out winning strategies through analyzing his opponent's behavior, such as how he immediately started attacking from behind after figuring out Gyaos couldn't turn it's neck.
  • Gentle Giant: Gamera is the size of a skyscraper, has a near invulnerability to traditional weapons, is able to wipe a city off the map with relative ease, and is also the Trope Namer for Friend to All Children.
  • Glass Cannon:
    • While he is all but impervious to traditional military weapons, as is standard for a Kaiju, he is often badly injured by his opponents in some rather gruesome ways. He does have a healing factor, and while it can generally patch it him up from almost anything, it doesn't really work mid-fight unless he absorbs fire.
    • His Heisei counterpart, however, averts this completely, by the time of the third film, it takes Irys' attacks to harm him, and he no-sells everything else.
  • Good Is Not Nice: In the final film in the Heisei trilogy. He's so determined to destroy the Gyaos, he kills and injures 15,000 - 20,000 citizens in the Shibuya ward. But considering the Gyaos threaten to (literally) eat every single living being to extinction and reproduce quickly and endlessly, it makes his carelessness more understandable.
  • Good Is Not Soft: A protector he may be, Gamera is not an All-Loving Hero, being perfectly willing to inflict a truly jaw-dropping No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and Cruel and Unusual Death on each of his opponents.
  • Growing Wings: Of a sort. Heisei Gamera could transform his forearms into sea turtle-like flippers while only using his leg-rockets to fly.
  • Guile Hero:
    • Gamera is generally weaker than any of his kaiju opponents, and usually gets knocked out in his first confrontation with them. However he's also smarter, and once he gets his Heroic Second Wind and starts using his head, is able to turn the tide and defeat them.
    • The Heisei era averts this on the other hand, aside from the Mother Legion, all of Gamera's opponents are at best equals and at worst, Mooks.
  • Healing Factor: Has quite a powerful one, but it's not exactly one that's fast enough to work properly mid-combat. Unless he absorbs fire, in which case it's nearly instant.
    • Heal It With Fire: Can absorb fire in order to repair his injuries, and in his first film, it was stated that nuclear weapons would only empower him. In fact, a nuclear explosion is what jumpstarted him to begin with!
      • He even generates a fire hand to destroy Irys in the finale of the Heisei trilogy, right after blasting off said hand to cut himself loose off Irys.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: The Showa Gamera dies by sacrificing himself in a kamikaze attack on Zanon's star destroyer. The original Gamera in Gamera the Brave blew himself up to finish off a swarm of Gyaos. His incarnation in Rebirth does this as well, using his Orylium Cannon to kill the Eustace Foundation heads, albeit at the cost of his life.
  • Immune to Fire: Simply put, heat and flames can do nothing to hurt Gamera. For example, when Jiger's heat ray blasted him directly, the part that bothered him was the noise it made rather than the city-vaporizing heat.
  • Impossibly Graceful Giant: Gamera, despite being a turtle, is incredibly agile in a way that most monsters of leaner build can only dream of being. There's a very good reason him flipping on a giant pole like an Olympic acrobat is considered par for the course when it comes to him.
  • Last of His Kind: The Heisei Era reveals Gamera isn't the only one of his kind Atlantis made, only the last surviving one. This is in part due to being the only one who was able to be successfully bonded with the Earth according to 'The Last Hope.'
  • Lightning Bruiser: Despite his immense size and power, Gamera is also scarily fast for a Kaiju. Not only is he able to fly fast enough to reach space in under a minute, he's also able to react and move fast enough to do stuff like catch projectiles, parry attacks and blindside other monsters with ease.
    • Rebirth puts this on full display, with him not only being able to hurl and smack around other monsters like ragdolls, but outright break into a sprint, leap through the air, and keep pace with the immensely fast Guiron in melee combat.
  • Made of Iron: A rare Kaiju example. Gamera gets injured a lot in his fights, yet his ability to keep fighting despite some truly gruesome injures is nothing short of awe-inspiring. Probably best shown during his fight against Irys, in which he gets impaled multiple times, is beaten to a pulp, has some of his life energy drained out, and blows off his own hand. His reaction to all of these injuries after the fight is over is to act mildly winded.
    • In Rebirth, he gets his torso sliced up, his arm cut off, blinded in one eye, impaled all the way through by a blade the length of his entire body, thrown around repeatedly, electrocuted, beaten to shit by Viras, and falls from orbit with nearly zero time to rest. He survives.
  • Messianic Archetype: Yes, really. The Heisei incarnation is surprisingly one of these, up to getting crucified. Hell, Word of God states he's meant to be a partial Christ allegory.
  • Nerves of Steel: Coinciding with his Determinator status, Gamera is almost comically brave. No matter the overwhelming odds, no matter how badly injured he is, Gamera will charge into battle with no showings of hesitation or fear.
    • Most prominently is that during the events of Rebirth, Viras is a gargantuanly powerful destroyer of civilizations, and is also a monster that Gamera likely knows considering his past. His response to this thing being awake, even though he's in incredibly poor shape? Ram into it and start pummeling it.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: At his most aggressive he becomes this, immediately jumping into extremely violent overkill. For example, he doesn't try anything complex against Gyaos in Shibuya, instead constantly spamming finisher-tier fireballs with reckless abandon regardless of whatever is around of him, like the humans beneath his feet.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Gamera is incredibly courageous, that much is true. Yet, even he seems to be unnerved by how threatening Legion is, expressing what can only be described as genuine shock as she gets up despite the fact that he badly damaged a vital point of her body mere moments ago.
  • One-Man Army: Gamera, due to his complete lack of Kaiju-sized allies, is this by necessity. This is taken up a notch in the Heisei series, with him regularly taking on hordes of similarly sized monsters in both the movies and supplementary material.
    • In Super Monster and it's manga adaptation, Gamera vs 6 Great Monsters, he fights a gauntlet of previous foes.
    • He really kicks this into high gear during Manga Boys Special Edition, demolishing most of his rogue's gallery even in a 5-on-1.
    • Rebirth depicts him single-handedly fighting through another gauntlet of monsters with minimal downtime.
    • In Gamera 2000, he relentlessly barrels through swarms of Bio-Mecha and Neo-Gyaos.
    • The official manga Legend depicts him fighting an army of Super Gyaos with nothing but his bare hands. Just to get an idea of how many he's killed, he's also Atop a Mountain of Corpses.
    • The finale of 3 consists of him preparing to a fight an army of Hyper Gyaos numbering in the thousands, while badly injured. The kicker? According to the director, he wins.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Most Kaiju are this, but Gamera takes it a step further by having almost all of his destruction be unintentional collateral damage outside of the first two movies. Despite this, the amount of destruction he causes in his battles can get to the point where it looks like a nuke went off.
    • His fight against the Gyaos in 3 has him decimating Shibuya as collateral.
    • In the 2015 short film, he wipes out a seemingly miles-wide chunk of Tokyo in a single blast just to kill a Gyaos swarm.
    • His fight against Barugon in the 2003 manga implicitly causes tectonic activity, causes hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, all but annihilating the southern Japanese coastline as a result.
  • Posthumous Character: In Gamera the Brave he's dead by the end of the prologue, but his son/reincarnation carries on his legacy and his actions' influence drives the plot.
  • Sea Monster: Dwells in the sea a lot, and is based on a turtle.
  • Spectacular Spinning: His most iconic mode of aerial transportation.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: This primarily concerns his durability, which wildly fluctuates across not just multiple movies, but even within the movies themselves. For example
    • In Vs Jiger, he is annoyed by light arms fire, yet later completely shrugs off the full force of Jiger's city-wiping heat beam. Although this seems to be more of a result of his Immune to Fire status.
    • In Guardian Of The Universe, he is knocked out of the sky and pained by missiles, yet later sustains no damage from falling onto an exploding refinery from orbit.
  • Super Prototype: According the The Last Hope (originally a fan comic but made canon), he's this compared to the rest of the Gamera in the underwater graveyard. While all of the Gamera were intended to be bonded to the Earth like he is, it only worked with him and made him much stronger than the others. He was also bonded to the Northern General who conceived his creation rather than soldiers like the rest of them.
  • Taking You with Me: His "Fireball Ejection Suicide" attack. He only used it in Gamera the Brave after the Gyaos swarm had mutilated his jaw, thus leaving him unable to use his fireballs. It is powerful enough to vaporize an entire island, but at the cost of Gamera's life.
  • Token Heroic Orc: Yet another thing that sets him apart from Godzilla is that he's the sole heroic Kaiju in his world. Every other monster is at least some combination of highly aggressive, sadistic, invasive, or destructive.
  • Took a Level in Badass: The Heisei Era Gamera to the Showa one. To put it simple: Gyaos in Showa gave Gamera a hard time everytime they fought, in the end of the Heisei era, regular Gyaos and it's evolved forms can't even scratch Gamera, with their beams bouncing off his hide effortlessly.
  • Toothy Bird: A turtle kaiju with large tusks and sharp teeth.
  • Underdogs Never Lose: Gamera is an incredibly strange example. Unlike Godzilla, whose enemies are usually on or around his level, Gamera's Rogues Gallery consists of monsters that are much more dangerous than him, often with a Superpower Lottery to boot. This forces him to fight with his wits as much as his fists. Yet, despite his underdog status, he is absolutely nothing to scoff at in terms of raw power even compared to his enemies, being able to easily hurl around and ruthlessly pummel his foes when he gets his claws on them. Problem is that they're also all able to do the same thing to him if they get the chance, and have the powers to get said chance quite easily.
    • The Heisei version averts this for the most part, with Legion being the sole exception.
  • Villain Killer: Despite being a Friend to All Children and Gentle Giant, Gamera does not practice mercy towards other monsters at all. Just ask Barugon, Gyaos, Viras, Guiron, Jiger, Zigra, Legion, Iris, or Zedus. Oh wait, you can't, they're all dead.
  • The Worf Effect: Gamera, to the point of it being borderline Once an Episode, has a tendency of completely tanking some absolutely insane things, including a fall from the exosphere onto an exploding refinery, a nuclear explosion going off right on top of him, and an asteroid hitting him square in the face. Yet this is mostly done to establish how dangerous the villainous monsters are, considering they can inflict some serious Gorn on him.

Toto

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/toto_4.png
Guardian of the Universe Jr.
Click here to see him as a baby 
Gamera's "son" (actually his reincarnation) and the titular kaiju of Gamera the Brave.
  • Badass Adorable: Fights against Zedus, a kaiju who's effectively Godzilla without the Breath Weapon, even when the cards are stacked against him due to not being full grown nor having recovered his full power while his opponent grows in size and power after each confrontation. And wins.
  • Breath Weapon: Has only flamethrower breathe at first but upon eating the red rocks left behind by his predecessor, he is able to use a fireball as a finisher against Zedus.
  • Drama-Preserving Handicap: Before he ingests the red stone in the climax, his physical strength is far lower and he can't fly or shoot fireballs, making his fight against Zedus much tougher.
  • Gigantic Adults, Tiny Babies: As a hatchling he's the size of a normal baby turtle, but he eventually reaches apartment building size.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Toru persuades him to not pull this in order to defeat Zedus, unlike his father/predecessor.
  • Legacy Character: The reincarnation of the first Gamera, but with a more child-friendly appearance.
  • Miracle-Gro Monster: He starts off as the size of a normal baby tortoise and rapidly grows to full kaiju size within several days.
  • One-Man Army: In one of the novelizations, Toto fights almost the entire Showa rogues gallery and Zedus at once.
  • Plot-Relevant Age-Up: In the space of a week, Toto grows from a cute hand-sized turtle to a cute house-sized turtle. It's heavily implied that the red rocks scattered around Japan had a hand in this as they are shown powering him up throughout the film.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Seriously. Just look at him as a baby.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Can do this when young but is incapable in monster form until eating the red rocks.
  • Stock Sound Effects: In stark contrast with his father's screech, his entire vocal library is made of generic monster roars and growls, most of which come from King Kong (1976).

Barugon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Barugon_Rainbow_Beam_8062.jpg
Click here to see his manga design 

A massive, crocodile/chameleon-like kaiju of little intelligence but considerable destructive power, the first enemy monster battled by Gamera in the Showa era.


  • Adaptational Badass: The manga-only Heisei version of Barugon is able to create massive ice storms and icebergs with his freezing powers. His rainbow is even stronger, considering a single blast on a battleship creates a massive tsunami that wipes out a chunk of the Japanese coastline
  • Alien Blood: He bleeds purple.
  • Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A diamond was used to lure Barugon into a lake but he just snapped it up with his tongue instead.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: His rainbow attack as he learned the hard way.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: His rainbow beam abilities and goofy design might not make him look like much, but as the military and Gamera found out the hard way, Barugon is more than capable of cleaning house with his rainbow beam outright vaporizing even metal and his freezing breath being capable of reducing even tanks and jets to icy rubble instantly.
  • Expy: Very strongly based on the Godzilla kaiju Anguirus, being a quadrupedal reptile monster with a spiky body and horned head who is the main kaiju's first opponent that he fights with a pagoda in between them. However, he's also been compared to another Godzilla kaiju, Baragon, due to their horned designs, stance and that their names are only one letter apart.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The military attempts to kill Barugon by reflecting his rainbow beam back at him. It works, but Barugon simply stops firing his beam and the plan instantly falls apart.
  • An Ice Person: Can shoot ice out of its Overly-Long Tongue. Even froze Gamera in place for some of the movie, his ice is so cold it can shatter tanks and planes instantly.
  • Kill It with Water: He's drowned by Gamera.
  • Mix-and-Match Critter: Resembles a cross between a chameleon and a crocodile, but with weird powers such as freezing breath and a rainbow beam emitted from his back.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile: Bears a strong resemblance to a crocodile, albeit with some chameleon-like features such as the horns and tongue.
  • Non-Malicious Monster: At the end of the day, Barugon was just a lost animal in an unknown land. His rampage wasn’t malicious but of confusion. Compared to Gamera’s later opponents who are either completely evil or part of a greater evil, Barugon is possibly the least evil opponent Gamera has ever faced.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Probably the closest thing the series has to a dragon besides the Gyaos, and a really weird one.
  • Overly-Long Tongue: He even uses it to punch buildings down.
  • Starter Villain: Not only is he the very first antagonistic monster to battle Gamera in the Showa series, but he's also this for the entire franchise.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Cannot swim and the military and Gamera uses this to their advantage.

Gyaos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gyaos_3864.jpg
I appeared in more films than you did!

Most iconic of Gamera's foes, Gyaos are blood-sucking pteranodon-like kaiju with laser beams. They first appeared in the third Gamera film of the Showa era and were later revealed to have spacefaring relatives. In the Heisei era, they were presented as the arc-villains of the trilogy, having been accidentally created by the people of Atlantis and then gone amuck, necessitating the creation of Gamera to destroy them.


  • Always Chaotic Evil: There doesn't seem to be a single sympathetic member among their entire species, with all of them being nightmarish killing machines who exist to cause mass carnage and devour people by the thousands.
  • Ambiguously Evil: Interestingly, Showa Gyaos can be viewed as this. While clearly a dangerous threat to everyone, Showa Gyaos seemed more content with just being left alone in his cave and only eating either those that intrude his home or what he needs to survive. Notably, Showa Gyaos only goes on a rampage after he is attacked by the military on his own turf. However, he does seem to enjoy the chaos he causes and on occasion does play with his food. So while Showa Gyaos does display evil tendencies, he was also provoked a bunch of times by the humans and seemed like he was fine slumbering in his cave unless disturbed.
  • Arch-Enemy: To Gamera. At least in the Heisei series. Also could be considered his arch-nemesis as a whole by virtue of simply being the only other kaiju to appear in every continuity.
  • Bat Out of Hell: The Showa era incarnation is a sort of giant bat. The Heisei era are referred to being giant birds, despite still retaining bat-like features.
  • Big Eater: Gyaos have huge appetites, which is the motive behind their rampages. Not to mention that they eat a lot.
  • Bioweapon Beast: The Heisei incarnation was created by the Atlanteans to fight against the Garasharps. Unfortunately, once the Garasharp were gone, the mindlessly aggressive Gyaos quickly Turned Against Their Masters.
  • Breakout Villain: Appeared in more than one Showa film, which led to their revival in the Heisei era and further cemented their iconic image. They even appear as pivotal antagonists in the first few minutes of Gamera the Brave and were the first of Gamera's five kaiju enemies to be confirmed for Gamera: Rebirth.
  • Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": They are commonly referred to as "birds", despite the fact they have no feathers or beaks, possess membraneous wings, and more resemble pterosaurs, bats, or just straight-up demons.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: It's a general rule of thumb that the more Gyaos there are in one place, the more easily Gamera can deal with them, especially in the Heisei trilogy.
  • The Corruption: Their flesh contains mutagenetic properties towards animals, to the point where mutation can start the moment one so much as licks a piece of them, as Zedus shows.
  • Giant Flyer: They are giant bat/pterosaur-like creatures.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Of Gamera the Brave as it's their remains after Gamera killed them all, that mutated the creature Zedus was into a giant man-eating monster.
  • Healing Factor: The Showa one was able to regenerate, and regrew his severed foot.
  • Super-Scream: Their cuttings beams are actually super sonic screams.
  • Monstrous Cannibalism: In Guardian of the Universe an old nest is discovered full of the half eaten corpses of baby Gyaos, suggesting that the three Gyaos attacking Japan ate their siblings.
    • Again in the 2015 short film, when one Gyaos that's chasing after the protagonist is eaten by a second larger Gyaos.
  • Mook: By the end of the Heisei era they are pretty much this to Gamera, to the point that their strongest forms can only hope to Zerg Rush Gamera, and even that proves ineffective.
  • Mysterious Past: In the Showa incarnation, where's it's never explained where he came from, although the existence of Space Gyaos might imply him as extraterrestrial. The Heisei incarnation has a clearer origin.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: A giant vampire-pterodactyl kaiju.
  • One-Gender Race: In the Heisei series, reproducing asexually.
  • Progressively Prettier: Inverted to horrific degrees. The Gyaos, every time they show up, get more and more disgusting and disturbing to look at, with their red-raw skin texture, bulging, outwards-facing eyes, and an Overly-Long Tongue. Their Rebirth incarnation was a little better, if only due to their coloration — but then we have S-Gyaos, with not only a sickly red and white color scheme, but extremely tattered wings, a bizarre looking frill instead of horns, and six unevenly sized eyes.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: In Gamera the Brave they only appear in the opening scene, but it's them who force the original Gamera to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, and their remains are eaten by a sea creature that ends up mutating into the film's Big Bad, Zedus.
  • The Soulless: The Last Hope mentions that unlike all other lifeforms, Gyaos do not produce Mana. They're just empty shells incapable of anything beyond mindless, endless consumption.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Became the most frequent monster in the Heisei series and obtained two new forms, they also lost their weakness to sunlight.
  • To Serve Man: Humans are their primary source of food.
  • Turned On Their Masters: The Heisei incarnation were created by ancient Atlanteans but soon over-breed and ate their creators into extinction.
  • Vampire Bites Suck: In the Showa era, the bites suck since you could be killed by a single chomp.
  • Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Double Subverted in 3. The Hyper Gyaos are superior variations of the Super Gyaos, apparently. Doesn't help them against Gamera, who inflicts a Curb-Stomp Battle on them.
  • Villainous Glutton: Because of its ravenous, borderline endless appetite, Gyaos will never stop eating, and will constantly consume food in large amounts, be it humans, wildlife or livestock. Heck, it even extends to cannibalism.
  • Weakened by the Light: The Showa version doesn't like the sun, and in fact would die if exposed to the ultraviolet rays for too long. The Heisei ones also preferred night at first but after growing protective eye plates they could fly during the day without much hassle.

Space Gyaos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Space_Gyaos_5355.jpg
This is the skin of a killer FROM SPACE
A space-faring strain of Gyaos that appears in Gamera vs. Guiron, it is essentially a Gyaos that can fly from planet to planet under its own power.
  • Apocalypse How: Almost a Class 3. Makes you wonder why they haven't gone after earth next.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: How Guiron dismembers the Space Gyaos. Its head even lives a few seconds longer beyond decapitation!
  • Giant Flyer
  • Made of Bologna: When Space Gyaos is chopped to bits by Guiron, we see its insides are just solid purple without bones or organs.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Shiny Silver Gyaos from space that are immune to sunlight and attack planets.
  • Palette Swap: Basically the Gamera vs. Gyaos suit painted silver. But it's so shiny!
  • Recycled IN SPACE!: Gyaos, but shiny silver and IN SPACE.
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Originally meant to be a flying squirrel kaiju called Monga, but budget constraints caused Monga to be scrapped and replaced with a repainted Gyaos.
  • The Swarm: Attacked Terra offscreen and wiped out most of the inhabitants, the last two protected by Guiron.
  • Weakened by the Light: Averted. The Space Gyaos attack the planet Terra during the day without any apparent harm. Can Presumably fly through space surviving starlight.
  • The Worf Effect: It took Gamera a whole movie to get the hang of killing Gyaos. The Space Gyaos has no sunlight weakness and is carved up by Guiron in a few minutes.

Virasians/Viras

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Viras_4350.jpg
Invading Squid FROM SPACE
Click here to see his 2023 design 

Viras was the undisguised leader of the Virasians, a sapient race of cephalopod-like beings who desired to conquer the world by exploiting Gamera's friendship with children.

Voiced by: Genzo Wakayama

  • Adaptational Badass: In the film, he goes down after a fairly short battle with Gamera which ends with the giant turtle flying him to the upper atmosphere, where Viras gets frozen and is later thrown into the sea where he explodes. In the Dark Horse comics, he puts his telepathic abilities to good use to brainwash the very scientist who created him into being his slave in his plan to enslave mankind. He also lasts for the comic's four issues until he meets his end in the last one. He is also the second to last opponent in Gamera Rebirth
  • Adaptational Dye-Job: Goes from silvery gray to gold in Rebirth.
  • Adaptation Species Change: Subverted. In the Dark Horse comics set in the Heisei continuity, he's no longer a space alien but is instead a genetically-created monster made by Dr. Greta Carbone... Or at least that's what they mind-controlled her into believing, turns out Viras really was an alien collective in the end and manipulated and controlled Greta into nurturing them.
    • Played straight in Rebirth, as he's a bio-engineered Kaiju like the rest, albeit one that has a distinctly alien biology and appearance even compared to the rest.
  • Alien Invasion: He and his fellow Virasians want to colonize Earth for unknown reasons. Talks about how it's similar to their planet hint their world may be dying.
  • Big Bad: Of his debut movie as well as the Dark Horse comic.
  • The Bus Came Back: Viras returned in Gamera Rebirth as one of the five kaiju that Gamera battles. He is even the second to last opponent and definitely one of the toughest.
  • Cold Ham: Both his Japanese and English voices have an emotionless, menacing tone, albeit one that's attached to some pretty over the top stuff.
  • Combat Tentacles: He fights Gamera with six of them.
  • Composite Character: Is given aspects of Legion for his appearance in Rebirth, such as his more insectoid body posture and ability to fire a particle beam from his open head.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Can combine his three head tentacles into a razor sharp weapon to skewer opponents with. He also meets this fate itself in one of the American comics when Gamera throws it onto the Eiffel Tower.
  • Octopoid Aliens: He and his race are extraterrestrial Tentacled Terrors.
  • Sea Monster: Can swim underwater, but is from another planet.
  • Shock and Awe: Possesses the ability to fire out lightning from his open head flower, but only according to guidebooks. However, in the Dark Horse comics and in Rebirth, he puts his lightning abilities to good use, shocking Gamera severely.
  • The Swarm: Was originally just the leader of an invasion force with underlings using human disguises. Then those underlings combined with Viras for a Kaiju battle

Guiron

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guiron_7566.jpg
Angry Guard Guillotine
Click here to see his 2023 design 

The titular monster of Gamera vs. Guiron, this horror is a bio-engineered Super-Soldier created to protect the dying world of Terra from any and all assailants, predominantly the starfaring haemovores known as Space Gyaos.


  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: It can even put cuts on Gamera's carapace. In Rebirth, it's shown cleanly slicing through buildings and battleships, although Gamera is able to tank a number of blows.
  • Angry Guard Dog: Can and will absolutely attempt to butcher any intruders.
  • Attack Reflector: Reflected the Space Gyaos's beam back with his face, cutting off its foot
  • BFS: Has a truly gargantuan blade for a head and absolutely isn't afraid to use it
  • The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: How he meets his end.
  • The Bus Came Back: Returns well over 50 years after his original appearance for Gamera Rebirth
  • Brainwashed: How he's persuaded to do his guarding duties by the brain eating Human Aliens.
  • Evil Laugh: When slicing up Space Gyaos.
  • Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better: Normally walks on all fours but can stand on his hind feet.
  • Fuuma Shuriken: Has a pair of shurikens in its head which can be launched and guided by psychokinesis. In Rebirth these are swapped out for sharpened scales he can launch from his back, guiding them via electromagnetic currents.
  • Half the Man He Used to Be: After having a missile explode in his head. The Rebirth incarnation suffers a similar fate, but is sliced in half lengthwise by Gamera's razor-sharp shell spines.
  • Impossibly Graceful Giant: Similar to Gamera himself, he's fast when he starts jumping around. This is taken to incredible extremes in Rebirth, as he does backflips and launches himself hundreds of meters with complete ease.
  • It Can Think: Despite his brutish appearance, he's quite crafty. He set up Space Gyaos so he could render it defenseless (by cutting off a wing, no less) and chop it to pieces, and used his shuriken to prevent Gamera from flying.
  • Meaningful Name: Named after the guillotine.
  • Monstrous Mandibles: In Rebirth, the lower half of his blade splits into a pair of mandibles when he opens his mouth.
  • Rubber Man: In Rebirth, he has a highly elastic torso which allows his blade to strike targets with greater force and from much further away.
  • Tunnel King: Is given the ability to burrow through the ground in Rebirth
  • Vibroweapon: His blade works like this come Rebirth

Jiger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Jiger_9427.jpg
"Gamera...you're pregnant. And I'm the mother."
Click here to see her 2023 design 


  • Adaptational Ugliness: Looks much more disgusting in Rebirth, with an emaciated appearance, bruised flesh tone, along with sunken red eyes.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Lacks the ability to parasitize Gamera with eggs, shoot spikes from her horns, the holes to suck and blow out air, and fire a heat ray in Rebirth, being reduced to only physical attributes for attacking.
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: Has a deadly stinger hidden in her tail she can use to implant her offspring in other monsters.
  • The Bus Came Back: After decades, she finally returns in Gamera: Rebirth as one of the five monsters Gamera will fight.
  • Cats Are Mean: Jiger's Gamera: Rebirth design gives her a face that is feline in appearance.
  • Composite Character: In Gamera: Rebirth she looks like an updated version of her Showa design but also appears to have heavy design influences from fellow Daiei kaiju Mammoth Nezura whose movie went unproduced.
  • Disintegrator Ray: Her heat ray vaporizes flesh and entire city blocks. Doesn't have the same effect on Gamera, but still damaging nonetheless.
  • Female Monster Surprise: Her gender is discovered when she implanted an egg in Gamera's lung. And it hatched.
  • Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Implanted an egg into Gamera's lung, stunning him. It hatched in his lung and would have probably made its insides a meal if the heroes hadn't killed it.
  • Hell Is That Noise: In-Universe, her main weakness is an idol that makes a sound that's able to both weaken her and cause severe illness in humans. White noise is also discovered to be this to her. Her Disintegrator Ray also operates on this.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: And she will use the nearest monster as the incubator for that egg. Gamera is free.
  • Monstrous Cannibalism: Rebirth depicts Jiger as devouring one another if no other food is available. They started as dozens, but whittled themselves down to just one giant individual.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In-Universe, her name is described as a Mu word meaning Devil.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Wipes out large swathes of Okinawa with singular shots of her heat ray
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Was sealed away under the earth by the Devil Whistle thanks to it making a special sound which weakens her, keeping her in suspended animation.
  • Spike Shooter: One of her numerous powers is the ability to shoot javelins of "solidified saliva" from the horns behind her nose, which she impales Gamera's arms and legs with.
  • Sticky Situation: The baby Jiger can't solidify its saliva into spikes yet, and instead shoots a glue-like adhesive.
  • Superpower Lottery: Can shoot quills that keep Gamera in place and take down jets, has a massively destructive heat ray, the ability to suck opponents toward her, jets behind her head that can grant flight, and can impregnate opponents with her stinger tail.

Zigra

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/495px_zigra.jpg
Space Shark. Enough said
Click here to see his 2023 design 
Voiced by: Keiichi Noda

  • Adaptational Species Change: In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Zigra is no longer an alien, and is instead a monster that hatched from an egg discovered in the coastal waters of Rapa Nui
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: His fins act like this and are his preferential weapon.
  • Alien Invasion: Wanted to enslave the humans as cattle for his race.
  • Anthropomorphic Shift: Inverted. The Showa Zigra was clearly sapient and walked on land bipedally. The Rebirth incarnation merely has animalistic intelligence and can only crawl awkwardly on land.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Mind controlled a captured woman to be her agent and even gave her some brainwashing powers as well.
  • The Bus Came Back: Zigra makes his return in GAMERA -Rebirth- as one of the five kaiju Gamera battles.
  • Combo Platter Powers: Zigra has a formidable repertoire of powers, such as teleportation rays, paralysis beams, a blast that can cause earthquakes, the ability to transform between a land and sea form, and sharpened fins. Come Rebirth, he loses basically all of these besides his amphibious nature, but gains several new abilities in return, such as a prehensile, extendable tail, the ability to create a supercavitation that allows him to move extremely fast underwater, and energy projectiles in the form of micro-metallic projectiles.
  • Composite Character: In Gamera: Rebirth, Zigra has a design that takes heavy inspiration from the Ray Gyaos from Gamera 2000 and the Aquatic Gyaos from the 1999 comic Gamera Gaiden Ver.2.5 (ガメラ外伝Ver 2.5). The shape and design of his head also appears to take heavy design influences from fellow Daiei kaiju Iris. Aside from that, the design of Zigra's tail is nearly identical to that of Gyaos.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Moreso in the English dub of the movie. Have a listen!
  • The Paralyzer: The beam from the jewel-like organ above his beak can freeze an opponent in time.
  • Sea Monster: Like Viras, he's from space.
  • Sinister Stingrays: Zigra's Rebirth design appears to resemble a ray or skate.
  • Threatening Shark: Resembles a goblin shark made out of blades and wants to take over the Earth and use mankind as larder.
  • To Serve Man: His race eats humans. They want a fresh supply of them, so...
  • Villainous Breakdown: Gamera destroys his ship, so he snaps and attempts to murder humanity as payback.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Gamera vs. Zigra is mostly a kid friendly film. Zigra, however, is played straight and comes across as a genuine threat.

Garasharp

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Garasharp_220.jpg
THIS IS FOR CANCELING MY MOVIE!

  • Alien Blood: Just like Barugon, she bleeds purple.
  • Arch-Enemy: Would have been this to Gamera, as Word of God says she was intended to be the "Ghidorah" of the Gamera series. That role ended up going to Gyaos (and to a lesser extent, Iris) instead.
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: Has a spiked tail which it uses to impale Gamera.
  • Breath Weapon: She could have possibly breathed fire or let out poisonous smoke.
  • Children Are Innocent: Gamera believes it anyway, since he may have killed their mother but rescues the two babies from the military and takes them to a distant tropical island to live alone in peace. He is the friend to all children after all.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Of Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera trilogy, as several of them have attacked the Atlantean capital in the past, ultimately leading to the Atlanteans creating the Gyaos and to an extent, Gamera.
  • King Mook: The Last Hope ends with a Garasharp that's much bigger and more vicious than the others facing down Gamera, whose forced to blow up Atlantis in order to kill it.
  • Monster Is a Mommy: Upon dying, two babies wriggled out and Gamera rescued them from the military, since he's the friend of monster children as well!
  • Multiple Head Case: One plan for her was to have two heads.
  • Poisonous Person: One of her proposed powers was unleash a poisonous smog.
  • Predecessor Villain: In the Heisei continuity prequel comic The Last Hope (originally an unlicensed doujinshi, but retroactively considered canon by Kadokawa), Garasharp was what prompted the Atlanteans to create Gyaos.
  • Pregnant Badass: In the end, it's revealed the creature had two babies inside of it.
  • Snakes Are Sinister: Intended to be Gamera's nemesis and resembles a gigantic cobra.

Legion

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/queen_legion_front_view.jpg
Queen of The Swarm

  • Alien Invasion: Though the conflict comes from the fact the conditions perfect for the Legion are negligible to the humans and the human technology interferes with Legion communication.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: The Queen Legion is the biggest, strongest, and smartest of the swarm.
  • Bee People: Her soldiers are this. They even seem to reside in a Honeycomb-like part of her body.
  • Big Bad: of the second film in the heisei trilogy.
  • Bizarre Alien Biology: They are silicon-based, are powered by electricity, and move through compressed gases in their body rather than with muscles. When their bodies are punctured, the gas leaks out like steam through the wound hole.
  • Energy Absorption: They feed on and are attracted to electrical energy and their bodies are described as resembled as similar to semiconductors.
  • Giant Flyer: Played straight with the soldiers, but the queen gets her wings destroyed soon after her appearance and relies on burrowing thereafter.
  • Hive Queen: The Queen Legion is the brains of the smaller ones.
  • I Am Legion: One of the characters quotes from the bible passage and that's the creatures' name from then on.
  • Insectoid Aliens: Legion and her drones resemble giant arthropods, and even have an ant or bee-like hive structure.
  • No Body Left Behind: Completely vaporized by Gamera's "Ultimate Plasma/Mana Cannon".
  • Not So Stoic: Upon her horns being ripped off, she goes ballistic and starts using red energy whips.
  • Outside-Context Problem: Unlike every other Heisei-era Gamera foe, Legion has no connection to Atlantis whatsoever. This is probably a slight contributing factor as to why Gamera struggled so much against them.
  • Planetary Parasite: Legions' life-cycle has them landing on a planet in a swarm of comet-like pods, growing their numbers and then nurturing a giant symbiotic plant that fires more of these pods into outer space to repeat the process. Firing these seed pods causes massive collateral damage, enough to obliterate a large city.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: Upon her horns being ripped off which reveals she's Not So Stoic.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Much stronger than Gyaos, and is debatably the toughest monster Gamera faces in the Heisei era.
  • Super-Toughness: While Legion is all but immune to the frontal assault by the JSDF and No Sells almost every attack Gamera hits her with, once they figure out that the joints on her smaller claws are vulnerable, they're able to blow them off with anti-tank missiles. It still takes Gamera's strongest attack powered by the entirety of the Earth to put her down.
  • Tunnel King: Her ability after being dewinged.
  • Villainous Breakdown: See Not So Stoic.

Iris

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iris_6.jpg
Click here to see it's baby form 


  • Ambiguously Evil: Multiple possible explanations are given for her existence, some of which imply she was actually not inherently evil and was corrupted by Ayana's hatred. While she's undoubtedly a dangerous monster and the film's main villain, it's unclear if she does the things she does out of a malicious nature or simply because she thinks its what Ayana wants her to do.
  • Ambiguous Gender: The dubs, subs, original cut, extended material, and even fan opinions include almost every pronoun under the sun.
  • Arch-Enemy: It's implied throughout the film that Iris and Gamera are natural enemies. At one point they are compared to the Chinese gods of the South and the North, who were rivals; and two explanations for Iris' past say that she was either created to destroy Gamera or is a mutation of the Gyaos, whom Gamera was created to destroy.
  • Big Bad: Of the third film in the Heisei trilogy.
  • Combat Tentacles: They have many uses. From the usual uses to doing things like enabling flight, shooting sonic scalpels, and draining life force.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Gamera. They are both giant monsters created by the Atlanteans (possibly in Iris' case) that end up forming psychic links with human girls through the use of mystical stones.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Ayana named them after her dead pet cat.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: It's never made clear where it came from, what it is, what its goals are, or if it's even really sentient. It's not even clear why it fights Gamera — it could have been corrupted by Ayana's hate, or it could be that it's just evil.
  • Giant Flyer: Flies using plasma energy in the form of wing-like membranes between it's tentacle.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Manipulates Ayana's hatred for Gamera for a power up... Maybe. The film is very ambiguous whether or not they manipulated her or her hatred and anger corrupted them.
  • Meaningful Name: Her name in the kanji representation means "Evil God" or "False God."
  • Multiple-Choice Past: Are they an evil spirit? A monster created to stop Gamera that was corrupted by Ayana's hatred? Or a mutated Gyaos? The film never really gives a clear answer.
  • Our Monsters Are Weird: Iris is probably the most abstract of Gamera's opponents, most of which could still be described in relation to some sort of animal, even at their most bizarre. Iris is just some sort of glowing... Spiky... Shelled... Tentacled... Thing.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: If they were inherently evil. Was confined to the Moribe shrine where a turtle-like rock sealed it. A sumo wrestler couldn't pick it up. Ayana could.
  • Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Similar to Legion prior, is much more threatening than Super Gyaos, and can overwhelm Gamera, who at this point is strong enough to mow through Hyper Gyaos, in close quarters
  • Ultimate Life Form: One possible explanation for her existence is that she's the ultimate evolution of the Gyaos.
  • Villainous Breakdown: When Gamera rips Ayana out of his chest, Iris pins him to a wall by his hand, drains some of his energy, and attempts to use his own weapon against him. Unfortunately, Iris did not count on Gamera being a flat-out pyrokinetic.

Zedus

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/495px_gtb___zedus.png

  • Adaptational Abomination: While it's not on display in the movie, Zedus in the novels goes into borderline Draconic Abomination, possessing things like.
    • His spear tongue having multiple protruding spears that snatch up people by impaling them
    • Literally Growing Wings out of completely nowhere
    • The ability to effectively coerce anything with Gyaos cells to follow his lead
    • Each of his body parts able to move even when separated from him.
    • Most importantly, it's also stated that Zedus would continue evolving in more and more drastic ways if Toto didn't stop him in Nagoya.
  • All There in the Manual: Only in supplementary material is Zedus' origin story told (he was an ordinary lizard mutated after feeding on Gyaos remains).
  • Big Bad: Of Gamera the Brave
  • Composite Character: Word of God is that Jiger, Baragon, Zilla and Varan went into his design.
  • Expy: To the Gyaos. Which makes sense as he is a creature mutated by their remains.
  • Final Boss: For over a decade, he was the final villain of the Gamera series until Gamera: Rebirth finally came about.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: In the movie itself, Zedus just appears randomly and starts attacking cities and eating people, with no explanation of where he came from, what he is, or even how he got his name. Only in an accompanying guide does it give some backstory that helps clear things up.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Gamera the Brave starts off light-hearted aside from a bunch of scenes, but the moment Zedus enters the story, the stakes are raised immediately. To put it simple, his first scene has a very bloody human death.
  • Lighter and Softer: Downplayed. But he is still a far more grounded and less creepy monster compared to the other Heisei kaiju.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: He's modeled more after a kaiju from Toho, rather than the more fantastical appearance of those made by Daiei.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: We don't get to see him in his first scene, where he eats a human stranded at sea. All that we see is the aftermath of his rampages.
  • Not Zilla: A far less parodic form than most, being a horrifyingly vicious maneating monster that's effectively Godzilla without his Breath Weapon on all other accounts.
  • Overly-Long Tongue: Uses it to stab Toto repeatedly.
  • Sea Monster: A sea creature that ate Gyaos' remains and was mutated into a giant monster as a result, developing a taste for human flesh in the process..
  • Starter Villain: He's Toto's first opponent and basically a Warm-Up Boss by Gamera standards since he has no long-range attacks or special abilities outside of a chameleon-like spear tongue, with the only reasons Toto has so much trouble with him being both Zedus' physical superiority and how he can't shoot fireballs or fly yet. Once Toto gets his full strength and abilities back, Zedus' advantages go out the window, leading to Toto easily trouncing him.
  • Tongue Trauma: Toto rips out his tongue.
  • To Serve Man: His recent preferred food source that kicks off the conflict. Given that he's for all purposes a Gyaos-mutant (With the Gyaos being well-known man-eaters) this makes sense.
  • Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Gamera the Brave is a mostly light-hearted throwback to the Showa Era films with a lot of slapstick, protagonists which are young children, and a much cuddlier-looking Gamera. However, Zedus is one of the most violent and vicious monsters in the entire franchise, bloodily devouring crowds of people and relentlessly brutalizing Toto during their battles.

     Non-Movie Kaiju 

Doublius

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/doublas_1.png
One of the monsters in Manga Boys Special Edition: Gamera

Garansharp

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/garansharp.png
A cobra-monster that appears in Manga Boys

Futakobukarappa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/futakobukarappa.png
Another monster from Manga Boys

Geboras

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/geborasumangaboysgamera2015may01_1.jpg
A seaweed-like monsters Gamera straight up eats in Manga Boys
  • Eaten Alive: Gamera consumes it for some unexplained reason
  • Lamprey Mouth: Has a circular mouth lined with sharp teeth
  • Our Monsters Are Weird: Just look at it.
  • Planimal: Heavily resembles living kelp, which is backed by it's title, Seaweed Monster
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Gamera encounters it attacking a freight liner in the middle of the ocean and effortlessly kills it before eating it. That's all we know.

Harinezura

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/495px_harinezura.png
A mole-like monster that appears in Manga Boys
  • Tunnel King: Can burrow beneath the ground, with the nickname of Subterranean Monster only adding to this fact.
  • Mix And Match Creature: Resembles a combination of a stag beetle and a mole
  • Mole Monster: Works like a giant mole, bursting from beneath the ground with its giant claws.
  • Mutual Kill: Marugarappa kills it, but at the same time it seemingly kills him
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Is stabbed by Marugarappa, but inflicts this on it's opponent at the same time

Marugarappa

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/marugarappa.png
A kappa-like monster who appears at a baseball game in Manga Boys
  • Be the Ball: Can seemingly curl up or retract into a ball-like shape, allowing him to be thrown with high speeds.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: His motivation for fighting Gyaos and Harinezura, as he remembers the kindness humans showed him before
  • Fastball Special: Has a baseball player do this to it so it can strike at Gyaos, growing as it goes along.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Is violently maimed in defeating Harinezura
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Harinezura stabs it, but it returns the favor at the same time
  • Make My Monster Grow: Can shrink and grow from the size of a baseball to big enough to hold Gyaos's head down in an instant.
  • Mutual Kill: Kills Harinezura, but is seemingly killed in the process
  • Token Heroic Orc: The only other monster in the franchise to be good, as it helps to distract Gyaos and deals with Harinezura, albeit at the cost of it's own life.

Phoenix

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gamera_vs_phoenix_4.jpg
An actual phoenix unleashed from far beneath the Earth's crust by ozone damage.

Morphos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/morphos_1.png
A mercury-like monster, created by a scientist to replace Gamera as humanity's protector. Unfortunately, it goes horribly wrong, with it escaping it's containment and growing to gargantuan sizes. It also imitates Gamera's appearance and powers.
  • The Assimilator: Can absorb inorganic material into itself to gain size and power
  • Beam Spam: Mimicked a laser that was used against it, allowing it to both escape containment and attack Gamera.
  • Blob Monster: Is a massive blob of living metal, T-1000 style
  • Healing Factor: Can regenerate from almost anything. Unfortunately, Gamera unleashing the heat of the Earth's core on it was a bit too much to bounce back from.
  • Miracle-Gro Monster: Went from the size of a softball to dwarfing Gamera in mere days by consuming outside material
  • Mirror Match: Initially pulls this with Gamera, as it perfectly imitates his powers and attempts to kill him.
  • No Body Left Behind: How Gamera kills it, with it being completely disintegrated by his supercharged fireball
  • Power Copying: Can copy the look and traits of anything it sees, right down to stuff like being left handed. Except in Gamera's case, it cannot mimic the level of heat resistance he has, which leads to it's defeat

Bio-Mecha

An invading alien force of biomechanical spaceships that Gamera fights in Gamera 2000


  • Alien Invasion: Maybe
  • Ambiguous Situation: The exact origin of the Bio-Mecha is incredibly mysterious. Their language is near-identical to the Atlantean symbols seen in the Heisei trilogy, they share Gyaos genes in their biological halves, but they're also from space.
  • Ambiguous Robots: They're all biomechanical in nature, but to what extent seems to vary based on type.
  • Cyborg: All of them are massive half-machine, half-organic fighters.
  • Elite Mook: Have several, such as the hulking M-Machine Dread VII, or the fast and agile Quicksilver (Dolphnid)
  • Maker of Monsters: Created the Neo-Gyaos to help in their invasion plans
  • Zerg Rush: They're not exactly hurting for manpower, so unless they have an elite unit out, this is the best they can do against Gamera.

Neo-Gyaos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/untitled_drawing_1_2.png
Genetically modified Gyaos clones that are commanded by the Bio-Mecha
  • Angry Guard Dog: The Gyaos-Dogs.
  • Bioweapon Beast: Much more explicitly so than their movie counterparts, as they're Gyaos clones specifically designed to be weapons. And it shows, considering they take on a wild number of forms, including ones that barely look like Gyaos, such as the Gyaos-Armadillo or Gyaos-Dogs.
  • Bishōnen Line: Gyaos-Man looks much more humanoid than any other Gyaos. The power boost that usually comes with this however is subverted, as it's not that strong compared to the others.
  • Evil Is Bigger: Can be utterly enormous, as in Gyaos 3's case.
  • Multiple Head Case: The Neo-Gyaos that Gamera fights at Alcatraz has two heads.

Dragon Fortress/Bionic Gyaos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/biogyao.PNG
The final weapon of the Bio-Mecha, an extremely powerful Neo-Gyaos created from combining Gamera and Gyaos DNA
  • Climax Boss: Is not the final boss of Gamera 2000, but is easily the bigger threat over the relative victory lap of the Bio-Mecha mothership
  • Combat Tentacles: Has tentacles in it's second form, but drops them in it's final form
  • Evil Is Bigger: At roughly the size of a small island, it absolutely is.
  • Living Structure Monster: Takes the form of a fortress before taking enough damage.
  • No Body Left Behind: Gamera completely obliterates it with the Ultimate Plasma after weakening it enough.
  • That's No Moon: Starts out as an absolutely enormous Bio-Mecha fortress. That is until you damage it enough, causing it to explode out into it's true form.

Unnamed Tentacled Monster

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bubble_kaiju_6.png
A monster that appears in the 2015 short film, 10 years after Gamera wiped out a swarm of Gyaos when the protagonist was a child.
  • Combat Tentacles: Has multiple tentacled limbs, which it uses to toss around buildings and destroy things
  • Disintegrator Ray: Can seemingly cause objects to disintegrate and explode with the blasts from it's tentacles
  • Energy Ball: On contact with an object, it's beams become large spheres that cause whatever is caught in them to degrade and explode.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: Has no explanation or origin whatsoever other than that it exploded out of a building in Toyko, started rampaging, and as a result was faced with Gamera.
  • Tentacled Terror: Has an unknown number of tentacles, some of which can fire out blasts of highly destructive energy.

     Unmade Kaiju 

The Ice Giant

A giant of ice who was also the trump card for the "Ice-Men" invaders.
  • An Ice Person: While not much is known about it's powers, the fact that it's masters are "Ice-Men," who freeze the planet, indicates it would have had ice-based properties.
  • Our Giants Are Different: Apparently made out of ice despite being a living thing, and is based on the Jötunn of Norse Myth.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Apparently would've been the only humanoid opponent faced by Gamera.

Monga

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/monga_concept.png
A flying squirrel-like monster that was replaced by Space Gyaos

W

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1200px_wiv.jpg
A monster Gamera would have faced in Gamera vs the Two-Headed Monster W.

Namagon

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gaira.PNG
A monster Gamera fought in the unmade Gamera 3D

    Humans 

Heisei Trilogy

Asagi Kusanagi

Portrayed by: Ayako Fujitani

  • Alternate Company Equivalent: She's Gamera's version of Miki Saegusa, a human with a psychic link to the main kaiju.
  • The Heart: To Gamera. He's more savage once their connection is severed.
  • The Lancer: To Gamera in a way.
  • She Is All Grown Up: She was a high schooler in the first movie. In college by the third film.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Asagi grows up to be a bit of a tomboy by the time she reunites with Nagamine in the third film.

Inspector Tsutomu Osako

Portrayed by: Yukijiro Hotaru

Dr. Mayumi Nagamine

Portrayed by: Shinobu Nakayama

Midori Honami

Portrayed by: Miki Mizuno

Ayana Hirasaka

Portrayed by: Ai Maeda, Aki Maeda (child)

  • Evil Counterpart: To Asagi, though she's not outright evil, just hurt.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Starts to regret her bond with Iris near the end of the film after watching the death and destruction Irys brought.
  • The Corrupter: One potential backstory for Irys is that Ayana's hatred and anger corrupted him into the monster he's become.
  • The Quiet One: Due to her trauma she's quiet and reserved.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Not only involves herself with Irys, but Gamera and the Gyaos, too.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She lost her parents during the battle between Gamera and the first Super Gyaos, her adopted family openly talks bad about her, she and the one part of her foster family she cares about are bullied by the neighborhood. Yeah, she's directly responsible for Iris (and depending on which choice you pic from his Multiple-Choice Past, perhaps directly responsible for what he became), but the poor girl's been through hell.

Mito Asakura

Portrayed by: Senri Yamazaki

  • Affably Evil: Despite her ambitions, Asakura is shown to be quite polite.

Tatsunari Moribe

Portrayed by: Yu Koyama

Gamera the Brave

Toru Umeda

Played by: Ryo Tomioka

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ryo_tomioka.jpg
"Your name is going to be Toto. Grow up and be strong, you hear?"
The main protagonist of Gamera the Brave. A young boy that finds the original Gamera's egg and bonds with Toto helping the reborn Gamera against the threat of Zedus.
  • A Boy and His X: One of the main plot points of The Brave is the relation between him and Toto, his pet tortoise that grows into the reincarnated Gamera.
  • Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: Though The Brave is a Continuity Reboot to the Heisei Trilogy, Toru can be considered one to Ayana, who while antagonistic was one of the previous film's main characters, in various ways:
    • While both children suffered from losing their parents (in Ayana's case both her birth parents during Gamera's fight with Super Gyaos and in Toru's case, his mother in a car accident) in accidents and it clearly impacted them, the way they both dealt with it differentiates them; Ayana allowed her loss to fill her with resentment and hatred towards her new adoptive family, whereas Toru mostly remained happy with his life and father.
    • Both bonded with a baby kaiju until its adulthood, but while Irys grew into a violent and uncontrollable beast or had his evil further amplified due to Ayana's influence eventually refusing to listen to her in the climax, Toto grew into a caring and heroic kaiju thanks to Toru's unconditional kindness and love and even listens to him when Toru begs Toto not to sacrifice himself.
    • Ayana wanted Gamera dead, Toru wants to prevent Gamera/Toto from dying or sacrificing himself.
  • Cynicism Catalyst: The death of his mother made Toru gain some levels in cynicism, Toto's entrance into his life ends up helping him recover his optimism.
  • Free-Range Children: He's able to get around very freely in both his town and others nearby. However, it's implied that he only has that much free range because his father is busy at work, notably when he goes to Osaka to deliver the Red Stone to Gamera/Toto, his father ends up very angry at Toru going missing and nearly ending in the risk zone of Zedus' rampage.
  • Kid Hero: One of the main protagonists of the film and a kid who takes in the infant Gamera/Toto.
  • Missing Mom: His mother died in a car crash a year before the events of the film, her loss still impacts him and plays a part in his character arc in the film.
  • Ship Tease: Friends: Gamera the Brave, a novelization of the film, shows him slowly develop feelings for Mai; this was actually meant to be shown in the film itself but the scenes of it were cut out.

Mai Nishio

Played by: Kaho

A friend of Toru who lives next door with her balcony being right next to his, she has a heart problem that requires her to be sent in the hospital for an operation. She also knows about Gamera and helps Toru find out more about the turtles' legacy and past.
  • Deuteragonist: She's one of the film's main characters who while out of action for some parts, still has a big presence in the film itself.
  • Girl Next Door: She's a close friend of Toru who lives next door and serves as one of the deuteragonists of the film.
  • Implied Love Interest: She and Toru are very close and have many familiar romantic tropes, despite this the film ultimately only shows them being friends. The novelization, Friends: Gamera the Brave does change Mai into a full-blown Love Interest however.
  • Nice Girl: She's in general a nice girl to Toru and everyone else. Once she realizes that Toru's found an infant Gamera she makes a big effort to help him keep the turtle safe and a secret from his father.
  • Secret-Keeper: Initially helps Toru keep Toto's existance a secret from his father.


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