Film / Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys

Spoilers for this film will be marked as usual. However, since this is a sequel to Gamera: Guardian of the Universe and Gamera 2: Advent of Legion, it does contain unmarked spoilers for them. You Have Been Warned.

"Gamera will continue to fight... even if he's alone."

Gamera 3: Awakening of Irys, also known as Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris, is the 1999 sequel to Gamera 2: Advent of Legion and the final installment in the Heisei trilogy. It is directed by Shusuke Kaneko, with the screenplay by Kaneko and Kazunori Ito. The film was released on March 3, 1999.

In 1995, the battle between Gamera and Gyaos left much of Tokyo destroyed, but buildings were not the only casualties in the city. A young girl named Ayana Hirasaka (Ai Maeda), recovering from an appendectomy, could only watch in horror from her family's van as her house, and her parents and pet cat within, were crushed by Gamera.

In 1997, Gamera fought the Legion, but in order to defeat the Legion, he had to take drastic measures, which broke his connection to Humanity.

Now, in 1999, under the sea, a graveyard of Gamera skeletons has been discovered. Coinciding with this, reports have been surfacing all over the world that tell of flying, man-eating bird-like creatures. The Gyaos have returned in greater numbers than before, and Gamera (now played by Hirofumi Fukuzawa) is more desperate than ever to stop them... regardless of how many cities he has to pave through to do it. As the death toll rises, the war on Gyaos escalates, and Gamera's reputation sinks like a stone, Ayana, who is now living in a village in the mountains, has grown into a bitter young woman, and she often thinks about revenge. Ayana learns of a local legend that says a mythical creature, corresponding to the Red Bird of the South in Chinese lore, is imprisoned in a small cave shrine near the town, and that this being is the sworn enemy of the Black Tortoise of the North. She fixates on the idea that this could be the instrument of her revenge, and finding the shrine, moves the ancient protective stone that seals it in place. When she returns she finds an egg of sorts in the cave, along with a glowing stone bead, reminiscent of the one that Asagi Kusanagi (Ayako Fujitani) used to have. She takes the bead, and when a tentacled creature hatches from the egg, she quickly becomes friends with it, naming it after her deceased cat, Irys. Ayana decides to raise Irys (Akira Ohashi) to kill Gamera and avenge her parents.

Needless to say, this isn't going to end well. This is not your father's Gamera.

The secondary title character Irys is not to be confused with the Project: HOPE idol of the same name.

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This film contains examples of the following:

• Alliance with an Abomination: Subverted; At first it seems like Irys and Ayana have teamed up to stop the rampaging Gamera. But, it turns out Irys is using Ayana's hatred of Gamera to make itself stronger and allow it to assimilate Ayana into its body so it can become strong enough to kill Gamera.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: How Gamera is perceived by a growing number of people, and it's hard to deny. He's as much of a destructive monster as any other kaiju, just one that happens to target worse monsters and "only" kills people indirectly as collateral where the others are actively malevolent.
• Ambiguous Situation: A lot about Irys is purposefully left unanswered, like where precisely it originated from, what motivates it, how much of its actions are entirely its own and how many are because of Ayana's influence.
• Ambiguously Evil: Irys's exact origins are left somewhat up in the air, and the possibility of him being another Guardian monster is raised, as both Irys and Gamera are suggested to be members of The Four Gods. Irys appears to represent Suzaku, the Vermillion Bird of the South, who stands opposite to Gamera who represents Genbu, the Black Tortoise of the North. After Irys finally manages to capture Ayana during the final battle, he presents his memories of attacking the village to her as if he were a child telling its parent about the things it did, suggesting that his Dark Messiah tendencies are a direct result of him absorbing the hatred of his human surrogate. However, just as the other origin theories for Irys remain unanswered, so too does this one.
• An Arm and a Leg: Faced with the prospect of being drained and blasted with Irys while pinned to a building, Gamera has to blast his own left arm off to free himself.
• Animalistic Abomination: What the kaiju are portrayed as. Gamera is no longer a cutesy giant turtle but hulking, pitch-black monstrosity resembling a cross between a dragon and a snapping turtle, and his fire powers drain the very lifeforce of Earth itself to function. The Gyaos are a terrifying swarm of ravenous demons that eat literally anything in their path. Irys is a towering Dark Messiah thing that gets compared to a bird less because it is one and more because that's the closest thing one can compare it to in a human frame of reference.
• Battle in the Rain: Gamera's fight with Irys in Kyoto happens while the city is being hammered by a typhoon.
• Beware the Superman: Gamera and Irys are both brutal, destructive, and inscrutable to humans. The only difference that the public can perceive with the limited knowledge they possess is that the former kills by accident because he doesn't care what gets between him and his enemy, while the latter is actively malevolent.
• Bittersweet Ending: Gamera wins yet again, Ayana forgives him, and the military moves to help him once more. It comes at the cost of a lot of dead people and Gamera's left arm, plus a huge swarm of Gyaos bee-lining to Kyoto to try and finish off their wounded nemesis. The film ends leaving it for you to decide whether or not Gamera will be able to overcome the final attack.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The violence is significantly more graphic and realistic than in the prior films, befitting the darker tone.
• Bolivian Army Ending: The movie ends with Gamera, who lost an arm in his battle against Irys, heading out to face every Gyaos in the world as they all descend on Japan. Word of God notes that it's less a question of whether Gamera wins and more a question of whether the audience believes he can.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The reaction to the Shibuya fight has this. On one hand, Gamera's fight with the Gyaos kills or injures 15,000-20,000 people, on the other, the man-eating Hyper Gyaos would likely have ravaged the city had he not done it and the end of the movie shows the Gyaos have multiplied to the point there are literally thousands of them.
• Cerebus Call-Back: To the Showa films, when Gamera protects a small child from one of the Gyaos during his battle in Shibuya. There it's because he was depicted as a Friend to All Children. Here, he does it mostly by accident, doesn't seem to even notice the kid is there, and leaves the poor boy traumatized.
• Cerebus Retcon: Hey, remember that one building that Gamera smashed in order to get at Gyaos during their final battle? Well, Ayana's parents were in there. Also, remember how the runes of that tablet said, "The last hope, Gamera?" Well, turns out that they really meant the "last hope", as Gamera is not only the last defense against the Gyaos, but also the last Gamera, period. Oh, and that cool mana blast Gamera used to kill Legion in the previous film? That was a last resort weapon with some very nasty consequences...
• Cerebus Syndrome: Already darker than the first two movies, this film itself just keeps getting darker and darker, with the Gyaos swarm at the end making things seem almost hopeless.
• Cloudcuckoolander: When Kurata isn't portending doom or giggling like a loon, he's cheerily awaiting the destruction of mankind. He even spends his final moments of life laughing about how scary the avalanche of debris about to kill him is.
• Combat Tentacles: Irys, which it can use to drain the life out anything and create and fire sonic beams similar to Gyaos, and after draining some energy from Gamera, his fireballs too.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Gamera has gotten strong enough that he casually annihilates Gyaos in one-on-one combat with them, which gets demonstrated by his utter decimation of two in Shibuya who can't even do scratch damage to him. The finale flips it around, however, as a combination of lacking his psychic bond to Asagi and being injured by the military means that Gamera gets dominated by the healthier, hate-empowered Irys in their battle.
• Darker and Edgier: Definitely darker than any previous Gamera movie, and most Kaiju films for that matter, showing the full repercussions of giant monsters in the world in full force.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Gamera is roughly textured and has a dark color, compared to Irys who is shiny and bright, with red and silver coloration.
• Dark Messiah: What Irys is speculated to be by Kurata. A rival champion to Gamera meant to either kill him if he becomes a threat to humans or get him out of the way so the Gyaos can destroy the world.
• Death by Cameo: Hirofumi Fukuzawa (Gamera) plays a man in a telephone booth who gets blasted away by Gamera's attack.
• Demoted to Extra: Not so much extra, and he is VERY much a major force, but Gamera got a lot less screen time in the third film with only two scenes. While he's not shown much onscreen, it's mentioned often that he's fighting off the Gyaos all over the world for much of the film.
• Destructive Savior: The destruction that Gamera causes during his battles is shown in explicit, horrifying detail. It causes the JSDF to turn on him to boot.
• Elephant Graveyard: Early in the film, a mass grave of skeletons resembling Gamera is found under the ocean, revealing he's the last of his kind.
• Evil Counterpart: Irys to Gamera, essentially flipping his psychic connection to humans into a weapon of evil.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Ayana and Mito both learn the hard way that Irys is not some pet they can boss around just because they hold its amulet. The former when it absorbs her into itself, the latter when it tramples her during his battle with Gamera, seemingly not even noticing she's there.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: While Gamera's not technically evil, his design in this film is much more savage-looking when compared to the previous two films. It helps to symbolize his disconnect from humanity and apparent disregard for the destruction he causes.
• From Bad to Worse: The film starts with Gamera being pushed to his limits trying to stop the onset of Gyaos swarms and Ayana deciding to rear Irys as a weapon against Gamera. Things get much worse from there.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Kurata's theory about the Gyaos is that they're the planet's immune system that activate to wipe out humanity anytime they start growing too advanced and disruptive to the global ecosystem. While his opinion is tainted by his extreme misanthropy, Asagi and Nagamine grimly observe that aspects of his theory would explain some apparent incongruities in how the kaiju function. The question is also raised as to whether Gamera is defending humanity or Earth, and what he would do if one became a threat to the other.
• Genre Deconstruction: To Kaiju and Tokusatsu. Giant monsters and huge superheroes fighting and rampaging through model cities is only fun when the camera isn't lingering over the horrific carnage of thousands of innocent people dying in the crossfire. The monsters are terrifying and eldritch creatures, with even good ones like Gamera being destructive and inscrutable to humans, seemingly not caring about the Collateral Damage they cause. Meanwhile, the more humanoid Toku hero meant to fight them, Irys, is an equally inhuman and inexplicable monster itself, bent on killing Gamera for unclear reasons. There are two kids with proverbial remote controls, but the one connected to Gamera has had her bond violently severed (which contributes to his increasingly violent behavior) and grown into an adult haunted by her experiences, while the other is a mentally unstable young girl whose negative emotions give Irys power, and it's implied that the creature is using her even as she's using it. The action scenes are much more realistically quick and graphic than usual for the genre, and there aren't a lot of them; the primary focus is on the drama and terrors of being a normal person in a world where gods walk the Earth.
• Giant Flyer: Gamera, the Hyper Gyaos, and Irys.
• Good is Not Nice: Gamera, while still the good guy, ends up killing hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people in his attempts to stop the Gyaos.
• Great Offscreen War: Gamera's battles against the Gyaos all over the world. The audience only gets to see the fight taking place in Shibuya, with more alluded to throughout the film.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Beneath her talk of saving the world, Mito is mostly motivated by jealousy towards Asagi and resentment towards Gamera over the fact that the latter didn't choose her as his avatar even though she's of Atlantean blood.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: After the destruction Gamera caused at Shibuya, the world turns against him with the military focused on ending the giant turtle's life. They finally accept Gamera again at the end after they realize that he's been fending off thousands of Gyaos.
• I Will Fight Some More Forever: Gamera will continue to fight the Gyaos until his last breath.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: Explored and terrifyingly deconstructed. Not only has Asagi grown up with her life deeply affected by holding Gamera's control for so long, but her losing her connection with Gamera shows what happens when the "kid" loses their control; the thing they were restraining loses said restraint, with tragic results. Meanwhile, Ayana and Irys shows the horror that ensues when the kid with the controller is a maladjusted, mentally ill one, as her monster ends up bringing much death and suffering.
• Last of Their Kind: Gamera is revealed to be this in the opening after the graveyard is discovered.
• Lovecraft Lite: Straddles the line between this and full-on Cosmic Horror Story with it's depiction of the kaiju. The film really explores just how terrifying it is to live in a world where gigantic, ineffable beasts with godlike power seem to fight every other day with no regard for the puny humans caught in their path, with even ostensibly heroic ones seeming more concerned with killing things than protecting anyone. Just about the only thing keeping it from tipping all the way into the latter trope is that Gamera ultimately shown to truly be well-intentioned.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Kurata believes that Irys and the Gyaos are a kind of immune system for planet Earth that is meant to destroy humanity, and he hates his fellow man so much that he almost seems to salivate at the thought.
• Mook Horror Show: The Kyoto battle shows Gamera is as terrifying to the Gyaos as he is to the humans. One is gruesomely smashed into a building by a fireball and spends it's final moments screeching in horror and pain as if pleading for mercy, all while Gamera ominously looms over to deal the final blow. Another tries to avenge it's kin, but it's attacks barely phase Gamera and it gets killed just as mercilessly. For a brief moment, one almost forgets how destructive Gyaos are and feels bad for them.
• Multiple-Choice Past: What exactly is Irys? Is it just a mutated Gyaos that happens to be similar to Gamera with its ability to connect to humans? Is it what Asakura claims, and is the safety measure to control Gamera should Gamera become a threat to humanity? Is it another creature like Gamera, created to fight the Gyaos as a last-ditch effort? Is it an attempt to create the Ultimate Lifeform? Who knows, take your pick.
  • Also, what were its motivations? When it shows Ayana all the terrible things it did, like killing her adopted family, was it being malicious or simply showing its mother what it had done for her? Or is it even actively showing her anything, and not simply their memories intertwining as their bodies merge? Irys certainly has a mean streak, but is it because of or in spite of its connection to Ayana? Irys might have originally been benevolent and just twisted by Ayana's vengeance, or it could have always been a cruel, vicious monster, we just don't know.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After being absorbed by Irys, Ayana witnesses memories of her monster's rampage, including its murder of her relatives and realizes that her revenge has cost her almost her entire family. Shortly after, she gets the full context of her parents' deaths and how it was a tragic accident, just before being rescued by the target of her hatred, leaving her with even more guilt.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The JSDF make things much worse by attacking Gamera during his first fight with Irys, allowing the latter to reach Kyoto and ensuring the former is running on fumes when he finally catches up. The resulting confrontation is a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle where Irys plows through the city while pummeling Gamera.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Ayana sees Irys less like the eerie monster it is and more as a cute pet that she can train to attack the things she hates, which ends about as well as to be expected. Kurata as well, who seems to take creepy delight in the idea of humanity being destroyed by the kaiju.
• No Endor Holocaust: Darkly averted and deconstructed, as the film explores the collateral damage caused by giant monster fights and how even good ones like Gamera cause destruction just by walking around, simply through being that big, as well as the effects this has on society.
• No-Sell: When a Gyaos' beam hits Gamera's hand, it draws blood but Gamera shows absolutely zero signs of actually be in any kind of pain. It just pisses him off even more, in the process showing how much stronger he's become.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both Mito and Kurata want to stop Gamera, believing him to be an evil monster.However, as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Mito's antagonism against Gamera is implied to be spurred on by jealously towards those that Gamera willingly forms bonds with as well as anger at the turtle for not choosing her despite her being of Atlantean lineage. And Kurata's just plain crazy and doesn't seem to actually care all that much who wins.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It's mentioned during the course of the film that Gamera is fighting the Gyaos all over the planet. The only one of these battles the audience actually gets to see is the one in Shibuya.
  • According to Word of God, Gamera wins the impending final battle against the massive swarm of Gyaos approaching Japan, or at least you're supposed to believe that he can win.
• Once More, with Clarity: Ayana has nightmares about the day her parents were killed by Gamera. It's only getting absorbed by Irys that Ayana finally remembers in full detail that it was an accident while fighting the Gyaos.
• One-Man Army: Gamera is basically fighting the war against the Hyper Gyaos single-handed. During the ending, thousands of Gyaos close in on him before the credits roll. The kicker? According to the director, [[spoiler;Gamera emerges victorious from the impending battle as long as you believe he does]].
• Parental Abandonment: Ayana lost her family to Gamera's battle with Gyaos in Guardian of the Universe.
• Pet the Dog: Gamera saving Ayana's life in the climax makes clear to the viewer and characters alike that, for as much as he's changed, the big turtle's still ultimately a good guy who genuinely does want to protect humanity as a whole.
• Psychoactive Powers: Irys edges out above Gamera in terms of power because it still possesses a link to its bond human and is thus empowered by her rage, whereas Gamera can no longer draw extra power from Asagi's emotions.
• Riddle for the Ages: Whether Gamera survived the final battle against the Gyaos swarm at the end. Word of God says that it's really a question of whether you believe he wins.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The first battle between Gamera and another monster ends in a city being completely devastated, thousands of people dead, and the public calling for Gamera's head on a spike. That's what happens when gigantic animals kill each other in the middle of a major metropolitan area.
• Took a Level in Badass: Gamera's always been badass, but while in the first movie he engaged in a lengthy duel with Super Gyaos, here he inflicts a Curb-Stomp Battle on two of the stronger Hyper Gyaos in his first scene in the film, completely no-selling their rays and putting them on the defensive throughout the whole fight. By this point, he's fully stopped holding back in battle and has developed into his most mature and powerful form.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Mounting desperation to stamp out the Gyaos and the loss of his connection to Asagi have resulted in Gamera becoming an increasingly brutal and ruthless Anti-Hero who seems to care little about what gets caught in the crossfire of his fights and attacks his enemies with such needless savagery that one almost sympathizes with the Gyaos.
• The Tokyo Fire Ball: Gamera creates one while fighting the Gyaos in Shibuya. As horrific as it is, the effect actually does look pretty good.
• Undying Loyalty: Despite the loss of her magic connection to him and his turn for the darker, Asagi remains Gamera's biggest supporter and clearly still feels a sense of kinship with him.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Gamera has only gotten stronger and stronger, while the Gyaos seem to cap out at about the level of strength of the Super Gyaos from the first movie. As a result, he now obliterates the monsters with zero effort in one-on-one fights, and the Gyaos' only hope against him is engaging in a Zerg Rush. This is averted in the case of Irys, who manages to thoroughly curbstomp Gamera through the majority of the final battle.
• Zerg Rush: The ending sees all the Gyaos across the globe massing together into a single giant flock and descending on Kyoto to try and finish off their nemesis by overwhelming him with numbers while he's convalescing from the fight with Irys.