Gamera: Super Monster

***Gamera: Super Monster*** (宇宙怪獣ガメラ *Uchū Kaijū Gamera*?, lit. *Space Monster Gamera*), also known as ***Super Monster***, is a 1980 tokusatsu kaiju film produced by Daiei Motion Picture Company. It is the eighth and final entry in the Showa Gamera series, and the last Gamera film written by Nisan Takahashi and directed by Noriaki Yuasa. Finally, this will be the last Gamera film up until Gamera: Guardian of the Universe that was released in 1995.

## Plot

When the evil alien Zanon comes to enslave the Earth in his mothership, all hope seems lost. The Earth's resident superheroes, the Spacewomen, are powerless to stop him. They must enlist the help of a young boy who has a special connection with Gamera. The friend of all children then fights and kills the revived Gyaos, Zigra, Viras, Jiger, Guiron, and Barugon. He then sacrifices himself to kill Zanon by destroying his spaceship.

## Appearances

* Gyaos (Stock Footage)
* Guiron (Stock Footage)
* Barugon (Stock Footage)
* Jiger (Stock Footage)
* Viras (Stock Footage, as "Zanon")
* Zigra (Stock Footage)
* Zanon
* Spaceship Zanon
* Virasian Mind-Control Device (Stock Footage)
* Flying Van

## Alternate Titles

* ***Space Monster Gamera*** (Literal Japanese Title)
* ***Super Monster*** (Original English Title)

## Theatrical Releases

* Japan - March 20, 1980
* Finland - April 2, 2006 (Night Visions Film Festival)

## Trivia

* In 1995, two pieces of media in the Gamera franchise were made that depicted Gamera surviving his conflict with Spaceship Zanon in one or another.
	+ The first is in the manga *Manga Boys Special Edition: Gamera*, Gamera was revived by descendants of Atlanteans with Atlantean technology (an artificial sun based on plasma energy), and reincarnated into a new Gamera identical to the Heisei Gamera before been sent back to the past with a time machine to eradicate evil monsters and monitor humanity, so the history of humanity was changed to a better one.
	+ The second is the Bandai Playdia game *Gamera: The Time Adventure* - which showed the Time Patrol aiding Gamera in destroying Spaceship Zanon during his kamikaze attack, thus allowing Gamera to survive the events of the film.
* Every one of the monsters fought by Gamera in the Showa series appears in this film via stock footage, each with a subtitle regarding their name. In order, he fights the revived Gyaos, Zigra, Viras, Jiger, Guiron and Barugon.
* The music played by Gamera with Zigra's back fins is different from that in *Gamera vs. Zigra*.
* The end of the film features the death of the Showa Gamera, as he sacrifices himself destroying Zanon's spaceship.
* The Spacewomen arrive on Earth using a teleporting van.
* The "Gamera March" theme song is absent from this film, and a new theme song, "Love for Future," appears multiple times.
* This film, because of the heavy use of stock footage (which took up over a third of the film), featured only about two minutes of new Gamera footage.
* As can be seen from the poster, the film features a spaceship which bears a suspicious resemblance to an Imperial Star Destroyer, an obvious attempt to capitalize on the success of the *Star Wars* films.
* As Gamera originally fought Guiron on an alien planet (Terra), a plot device was created for this film that allowed Gamera to travel to his enemies' locations.
* At one point in the movie, Gamera knocks over a billboard. The camera then zooms closer to revealing it as an advertisement for a film titled "*Sayonara Dojira*," featuring artwork strongly resembling Godzilla, Gamera's box-office rival. Ironically, the Godzilla series had been in a hiatus for over 5 years by the time of the release of *Gamera: Super Monster*, meaning that there was little competition on the market for Daiei to go up against.
* The name of the main antagonist in this film, Zanon, appears to be a corruption/transliteration of the chemical element Xenon, a noble gas. This is ironic, given that Zanon is particularly villainous.
* One scene shows Gamera flying with *Yamato* from the anime *Space Battleship Yamato* and another shows Gamera chasing the Galaxy Express 999 from the titular anime, both of which combine live-action footage of Gamera with animation.
* Daiei contracted Equis Productions to create new Gamera suits and props for this film, as the existing ones had been destroyed in a fire after Daiei went bankrupt. Equis created a suit and a prop for the film, although Daiei ultimately decided to primarily use stock footage from previous films, relegating the prop to a few brief scenes and the suit to a single shot of its lower body.