GABARA

Dans Godzilla's Revenge, le petit Ichiro rêve qu'il est sur l'île des monstres où Minya affronte le pas trop méchant Gabara ! One of the more peculiar enemies that Godzilla has ever faced, is the bully monster Gabara, from 1969's "All Monsters Attack" aka "Godzilla's Revenge".

Based on the Oni, which are ogre-like brutes from Japanese mythology, Gabara is meddlesome giant that lives on Monster Island. And whose favorite pastime is constantly tormenting Minilla, the Son of Godzilla. Although no where near as evil, nor as deadly as Godzilla's more significant opponents, like King Ghidorah or Hedorah, Gabara is non-the-less a wicked soul. And is quite relentless in his mean-spirited actions against Minilla, even going as far as to lash out against Godzilla himself, if the father monster gets in his way.

 Gabara also has the ability to produced electricity, which he painfully employs against his victims through direct physical contact, which is too inspired by the aforementioned Oni, who were sometimes associated with the elements of thunder and lighting.

 But what truly makes Gabara so strange, is the fact that he may not even be real at all!

 The events of "All Monsters Attack" largely takes place in the daydreams of Ichiro; an imaginative but lonely latchkey child, growing up in urban Tokyo. And who often takes trips into his own imagination to visit Monster Island, and hang out with Minilla, with the monstrous Gabara standing in for real-life bullies from the local neighborhood.

The story twist was largely done as a production measure on Toho Studio's behalf, mainly because aging special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya was in ill health at the time. And most of the influential artist's latter time was spent on his own television endeavors "Ultra Seven" and spy adventure series "Mighty Jack".

Despite the famed Godzilla director Ishiro Honda behind the cameras once more, "All Monsters Attack" was a low budgeted production, largely using stock footage from the other 'island located' films "Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster" (1966) and "Son of Godzilla" (1967), with Gabara being among the original scenes made for the newer entry.

 The plot of the 1969 film has also put into question "All Monsters Attack's" place within the continuity of the Showa-era cycle of films.

 Is this the same world where giant monsters outside of Gabara are real, but the focus is instead put upon the smaller scale story, of young Ichiro who dreams about them when they're not attacking cities? Or is this a totally new continuity altogether, the so-called 'real world', where Godzilla and the other monsters ARE just fictional characters, and related escapism for lonely Ichiro?

Beyond his only appearance to date in the Godzilla film series, Gabara would return in the extremely low budget TV shows (segments) "Go! Godman!" and "Go! Green Man", where he would do battle against the respective super heroes. But by this point, through the years 1972 and 1974, the Gabara costume itself was deteriorating with age, and lost its original turquoise coloring and more defined, bumpy skin texture as well.

Gabara: images offertes par Keizer Ghidorah, Raf C Gonzalez, extra thanks to The Giant Pacific Octopus for pics from "Go! Godman!" and "Go! Green Man", text by Raf C Gonzalez, thanks !.