Gamera 1995 (Bandai/Movie Monster Series)

Gamera is the Guardian of Earth, savior of children, protector of humanity... and completely ridiculous. He's a giant turtle with tusks that breathes fire and has jet engines that light up when he draws his arms and legs inside his shell. None of that is anywhere as crazy sounding as his roar. Ever been super emotional and stub your toe? It kinda sounds like the noise you'll make. His adventures usually revolve around rescuing some kids whom somehow found themselves in danger from some other giant monster or space aliens who specifically kidnapped them and have a giant monster. Despite how silly it sounds (and is)... Gamera is completely bad ass. His fights with other monsters are absolutely BRUTAL beat downs full of carnage.

In 1995, Gamera got a much grittier reboot with a new series of films that took away all the corniness of the older movies and gave the world the hardcore Gamera he always was. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and it's sequels were amazing kaiju movies that I fondly watched after classes in college. They revitalized the big turtle and even though newer appearances (like the recent Netflix series) have returned him closer to his more friendly roots, nobody has forgotten how hardcore he is since. This soft vinyl of Gamera represents his appearance in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. It's a newer figure, released around 2020 (I think) by Bandai (the best) in their Monster Movie Series. It was a Christmas gift from my wife who somehow tolerates all my nonsense. Gamera fits in wonderfully with my other Bandai kaiju and represents the character very well. His sculpt practically mirrors his on screen appearance and while articulation is the standard amount for a toy like this... it feels like all he needs. This is a great figure of our protector and I'm proud to call it mine. 

Sega dreams of Gamera (and so do I)

I've had Gamera on my mind today, because I like him. It's a little unfair that Gamera doesn't have the most shinning legacy, admittedly being widely perceived as a low rent wanna be Godzilla will do that for you. But man, it's really hard to hate a giant fire breathing turtle. For one thing, Gamera's fights have always been crazy violent. In his goofier children's movie roots to his more darker and gritty 90's movies... Gamera's fights are usually full of blood shed, severed limbs, and carnage all around. It's just insane.

The commercial above is for a Gamera VMU mini game. Gamera has had some good showings in video games and while the Dreamcast may have been short lived, it's still pretty well regarded. The VMU was really before it's time. A memory card that served as a portable gaming device. It was pretty limited, but in time I could have seen it developing into something special. Sadly we'll never know as the Dreamcast, as great as it was, pretty much had all it's momentum killed by the PS2.

The game is called Gamera: Dream Battle. Basically it was for sale in a neat package loaded on a VMU with an included Gamera figure. Pretty dang neat. It was the standard virtual pet/monster fighter type game that was all the rage at the time. If somebody had the prior released Mothra: Dream Battle VMU, they could battle those as well. That's pretty dang great, Mothra vs Gamera, the winner is you.

Gamera, it's about time for you to have an adventure

I was thinking about old 90's CD ROM games and how they seemed like the wave of the future back then. There was a charm to them, and just adding the CD to anything's name made it badass by default. The Playdia by Bandai never got a release outside Japan. It was a CD ROM game system that was heavy on the FMV style games aimed more towards a younger crowd. Though I could see myself having fun with it at the time. For example, I would have loved this Gamera game.

The Moons- Gamera

Wreck the Halls with lots of Kaiju, your buildings will fa la la la la la all down

I know I plan to be putting in some kaiju time over my holiday break, how about you?

Robots in Disguise Twinferno (warrior class)

Despite having the legion version of Twinferno for some time now, I've been chomping at the bit to get the larger warrior class toy. RID has featured some really great figures and Twinferno is one of the more imaginative Transformers to come along in some time. Twinferno is the newer trademarked name for the G1 character Doublecross, and while his Titans Return figure was a direct homage to the G1 toy, this is a new twist on the bot.

Instead of a double headed dragon, Twinferno changes into a spaceship with dragon headed pontoons. The ship is very similar to Samus Aran's ship from the Metroid game series, which lends to it's cool factor. Though with the two dragon heads, it's almost like some neat cyborg kaiju. Seeing as he's not used in any fiction, and his bio alludes to the two heads have two different minds, it's not much of a stretch to imagine him as some sort of cyborg space dragon. Is it realistic? Well, no, but considering it's 100% an imaginary creation, realism is out the window already.

Twinferno comes with two fire ... thingies that can be held in the robots dragon heads to simulate them breathing fire as a projectile or maybe even some sort of flaming sword. Which is neat. In vehicle/beast mode, the flame things can either be used as flames coming from the engine or in the dragon mouths as fire breath. This goes along with the cyborg kaiju idea a little more and come to think of it, he's kinda like a cross between the ship from Metroid, Ghidorah, and Gamera in his flying form. I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I like it. It's that crazy that just works hard for the money.

So you better treat it right.

Twinferno is a great toy whom has a name that causes more red underlines when I type it than I think is allowed (I rebel in the face of proper grammar). But, just as there's a ton of red underlines as I write this, his palette is so freaking red. Just as the toy in a whole manages to homage the original Doublecross and reinvent at the same time, the colors do as well. It draws from the originals colors and mixes them around making Twinferno look like a Technobot. Which really works for the design as a whole. He could have another name and just be somebody else, while still being that guy. It's a super cool toy that both makes me sad for the end of the awesome Robots In Disguise (2015) line and look forward to Cyberverse as I can see some of the bleed over from the idea pool going in there.