In preparation for the upcoming Netflix series, I got out my Gamera Blu-Ray sets yesterday and watched the original:
Gamera is a lot of fun. It was created by a Japanese studio called Daiei Studios, with the obvious intent of competing with Toho's Godzilla. Unfortunately, they never had the kind of budgets that Toho had, so as the series progressed through the '60s and '70s, they started relying a lot on clips from previous films, with the last film being mostly a clip film. Still, they're a lot of fun. Gamera VS Barugon is next:
That's a good one, they switched to filming in color and they featured Gamera's first fight against another monster. If I remember correctly, that one doesn't have too many clips, which is good because you can always tell when they use clips from the original because they're in B&W. Also, as the series progresses Gamera becomes a friend to and protector of children. So, he went from a discount Godzilla to having an identity all his own as the series progressed.