Flashback to Tokyo ten years in the past. A boy named Manafu (Rui Takahahi) and his father (Kankuro Kudo) are racing down a city street in Tokyo. There are explosions and throngs of running people everywhere. Manafu’s father is encouraging his son to run as fast as he can. Behind them the sky is filled with Gyaos attacking people. One Gyaos zeros in on Manafu’s father as he is running behind his son. Manafu’s father pushes his son out of the way as a large Gyaos bites down on the father. His last word to his son was “Run”. As another Gyaos bears down on the boy a giant foot comes down and crushes the Gyaos. Manafu looks up and sees Gamera. Swarms of Gyaos again fill the sky. Gamera takes in a huge breath of air and breaths out a blast of fire disintegrating the Gyaos.
Ten years later there is another attack on the city. Another monster. Gamera is once again in Tokyo, and so is Manafu.
“Gamera 2015” was released at the New York Comic Con, held on October 8th, and was directed by Katsuhito Ishii. It is a four minute teaser film shown to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Gamera. The short or trailer was a proof of concept for a feature length reboot of the franchise. All of the monsters in the short were created using CGI. Katsuhito Ishii was announced as the director for both the short and the upcoming movie. Reportedly the film itself was supposed to be done in a year or so but no release date was actually given. A website was created dedicated to Gamera’s 50th anniversary. The website had very little additional information.
Since then there has been nothing else released. There was lots of hype at the time but now over five years later there is still nothing. It leads one to speculate that the four minute short was either just to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Gamera or as a concept feature to determine whether or not there is enough interest to warrant the big budget it would take to make the movie. Whatever the answer is, nothing has been communicated. There are still throngs of fans waiting just in case the film does eventually come to fruition. By the looks of the short, I’d love to see it too.