Gamera: Guardian of the Universe/Gamera 2: Attack of Legion – Blu-ray Review

The Films:

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe:

“The Last hope, Gamera. We bestow it to the cradle of time.”

Gamera is back and like you’ve never seen him before. Daiei’s rival to Toho’s Godzilla proved successful with its kid friendly tone and campy nature. However, the films have lessened in quality over the years, and the series was to be discontinued in 198o with Gamera: Super Monster. With Godzilla ending its Heisei series in 1995, it was time for Gamerato return. This time, director Shusuke Kaneko was brought in to give a more mature take on Gamera, and leave behind the kid friendly tone of the Showa series.

Gamera: Guardian of the Universetakes what everything that was done in the Showa era films, and improves on it. The kid friendly tone is replaced with a darker tone. Gamera’s “friend to all children” role is dropped, but still keeps his benevolence with humanity – just with a bit more attitude. While there was some connection between Gamera and his love for children in the Showa series, this film gives Gamera, literally a connection to humanity with Asagi Kusanagi (Ayako Fujitani). This helps Gamera still remain a protector of humanity.

But with the return of Gamera comes another familiar foe, The Gyaos, who first appeared in Gamera vs. Gyaos (Return of the Giant Monstersas it’s known in the US). Like Gamera, Gyaos was updated to a more sinister appearance look than its 1968 counterpart. Unlike the Showa era, Gamera and Gyaos have a connection this time rather than just another monster to fight. Gyaos’ still portrayed as an uncontrollable killing machine, which adds a level of danger in the movie. This also makes for more intense battles, and enough city destruction to satisfy Kaiju fans.

Since its creation, Gamera has always been seen as a rip-off of Toho’s Godzilla, and Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is a great way to separate itself from that reputation.

Gamera 2: Attack of Legion:

While Shusuke Kaneko’s Gamera: Guardian of the Universe wasn’t a financial hit, it did bring the monster back into the public eye and was taken seriously for the first time. That meant Kaneko had to one-up himself, and exceed the previous installment with the sequel. That’s something few sequels have done, but Gamera 2: Attack of Legion does just that.

While the previous entry was somewhat of your typical “Monsters Running Amuck”, but with more developed characters and story, Gamera 2: Attack of Legion adds a more original take on the Kaiju genre. The plot still features the classic: monster invades Earth, and Gamera comes to stop it. However, the villain’s motivation this time is not destruction, but reproduction. This is done in a way that wouldn’t allow for humanity to survive or co-exist with Legion. And Kaneko offers a unique lifestyle for Legion that’s similar to everyday insects. That adds to the overall threat Legion brings with it.

The sequel also sees Gamera continue to grow, and leave behind the kid friendly days of the Showa series. Gamera gets a new look to reflect the monster’s maturity. And with Gyaos out of the picture, Kaneko had to come up with a new villain, or villains in this case, to challenge Gamera. The Legion proves to be a very powerful opponent for Gamera, and to make matter worse, Legion has brought it’s children as well. This makes for an interesting strategy that forces Gamera to have help from the JSDF (Japanese Self-Defense Force). That’s something that hasn’t been done since the Godzilla titles of the 70s. It shows how humanity could possibly reach an understanding with Gamera, and is done in a way that doesn’t venture into the campy area of the Showa series.

The human characters from the previous installment do take a backseat, and are reduced to a cameo or not in the film at all. That’s excluding Asagi Kusanagi of course, who maintains her role as Gamera’s connection. Gamera 2: Attack of Legion does well to stand on its own and only makes a few references to Gamera: Guardian of the Universe to maintain continuity. The CG does get a bit sub-par in some scenes, but doesn’t hurt the film at all.

Few sequels have managed to top its previous film, but Gamera 2: Attack of Legion does that in every way possible.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video: Mill Creek Entertainment offers a great transfer for their Region 1 Blu-ray debut. Some of the darker scenes in both movies feature some grain, but is overall a great transfer given the age of both films.

The release  features a 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS HD  for the Japanese audio track and 5.1 Dolby Digital for the English dub track for both films. However, fans may be leaning more toward the original Japanese track as the much of the films’ quality is lost in the English dub.

The films are presented on a single-disc with no extras. You have the choice of selecting either films in the menu.

Conclusion: While Mill Creek Entertainment could have featured a few extras considering the films’ popularity, this release is nice for the fans. Hopefully, Mill Creek can add few extras if they ever get around to releasing Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris in the near future.

The Films: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating:

Matt Keith

I’m just your everday movie nerd.

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