Gamera vs King Ghidorah and Rodan

[Nagoda]

I saw the Godzilla vs Gyaos match and thought, What if Gamera took Godzilla’s place in King of the Monsters?

Gamera vs King Ghidorah & Rodan

Rules: Gamera’s weight is scaled to make this fair.
Ghidorah’s Storm is in the sky.
G3 Gamera

Arena: Boston (KOTM)

Verdict: I’m giving this to Gamera. Rodan can’t really do much to the Guardian of the Universe other than serve as a source of energy for him to drain. Even if he does try clawing at him, he then runs the risk of getting an explosion to the chest. King Ghidorah’s melee will be tricky to deal with, but Gamera should be able to be free of the dragon with his spinning flight, and his far faster speed. Ghidorah flies at around Mach 1, while Gamera flies at Mach 3. The Plasma Blasts could do some heavy damage to King Ghidorah, while the opposite could end badly as apparently Gamera was able to absorb electricity in Guardian of the Universe to help refuel his energy reserves. Ghidorah could bite onto and try draining Gamera, but that also runs the risk of getting sliced open by those sharp claws of his as well as getting a point blank plasma blast. Plus, King Ghidorah’s main way of killing Godzillas was to drop them from really high in the sky, something he can’t quite do to a monster which can also fly, and also survived a similar drop from that height in a weaker form.

[GodzillavsRayquaza]

Rodan’s not accomplishing much, either tackled out of the sky or blasted with fireballs potent enough to send him plummeting. Which pretty much leaves this as Ghidorah vs Gamera, which I have a lot to say:

I think Gamera’s durability is undersold in a lot of debates, especially G3’s. He retains the standard immunity to military weaponry that most kaiju have, yes he is knocked out of the sky in G1 by missiles, but that is moreso Gamera being really easy to knock out of the sky, in G1 at least. He gets sent plummeting by a cut on the cheek from Super Gyaos’ beam just as much, despite not actually being much damage. When the military is laying into him in G1 they don’t really accomplish anything, we can literally track how Gamera’s doing through Asagi. And she’s fine until Gyaos swoops down and attacks Gamera, not showing any pain from the military except for when they drop bombs directly on Gamera’s stomach, and the reaction is holding her stomach like she had bad Taco Bell instead of anything like a strike to the gut. Not exactly amazing durability for a kaiju to still be in pain I’ll admit, but G3 Gamera is magnitudes above G1 in terms of durability, as shown with reflecting Hyper Gyaos’ beam. While yes you can say his skin may have specifically adapted to deflect Gyaos beams instead of this just being the result of an increase in durability, the fact that this distinctly does not come up against Iris and he still seems to be in pain when it’s striking his hand suggests to me it is just a matter of durability. Speaking of Iris, the jets hitting him with missiles while in flight in G3 and causing him pain and making him slow down also has an explanation, mainly that it happened just after an aerial fight with Iris that included Gamera getting the hell blasted out of him with beams that cut through his shell and made him geyser blood. I don’t think those were “super missiles” or anything, just simply anything would have fucked with him at that point.

There is also the common comparison of “oh Godzilla tanked a city-wiping explosion, Gamera was put in a coma by one”, but that misses a few things. Gamera didn’t just take an explosion, he was in the path of the seedpod when it launched. He was essentially getting hit with a directed blast as opposed to being next to an explosion, hell I think you can even see the thing embedded in his chest in the intial shot of his paralyzed body (unsure, watched the movie on a small screen, thought I saw that, could have just been the patterns of his abdomen).


Now, I say all this, perhaps a bit too much, as I ultimately do think Ghidorah will win. I am mostly just arguing Gamera won’t fall apart immediately.

Here’s the thing. Gamera may be comparable to Godzilla in terms of raw strength, with pushing over the massively heavier than him Legion Flower with one hand (absolutely nothing compared to lifting it, majorly different forces involved, but still an impressive strength feat, just one that isn’t absurd in the realm of kaiju) and being able to even push back Legion in a shoving match, but… MV Godzilla is better at melee. He just has a much better build for engaging in melee and using his weight, and can run much faster than Gamera. And Ghidorah can handle getting smacked in the leg by Godzilla’s tail without anything breaking. Gamera attempting to engage in melee with Ghidorah will find him being pushed back and overwhelmed, and yes he does have the elbow claw, but it’s not large enough to leave a meaningful wound against Ghidorah.

And I went on that whole spiel about Gamera being more durable than he’s given credit for, but, MV Godzilla is pretty obviously more durable. The difference in the makes of the explosions they withstood doesn’t really change that Gamera was at death’s door while Godzilla was unphased. Strikes from huge, bladed limbs need to be delivered multiple times with momentum to break Godzilla’s armor while Gamera geysers from pokes. Godzilla was defeated by a terminal velocity drop while Gamera seemed to be fine after one, but Godzilla had been battered and shocked beforehand while Gamera’s fall actually got slowed down relatively close to the ground by Gyaos escaping, lessening the impact. He’s also got that big shell to distribute the impact over a wide area, as opposed to Godzilla taking it all on his spine.

Gamera’s fireballs could potentially destroy Ghidorah’s heads if he connected those shots, but that’s not happening. He aims for center of mass, always, which means King Ghidorah can endure the fireballs well enough. Godzilla’s atomic ray had the force to lift him up and push him several hundred meters, and it didn’t punch a hole in him. Gamera should be able to handle the Gravity Beams well enough, they won’t be as potent as the Microwave Shell, but they’ll knock him down and open him up to Ghidorah pouncing on him. Gamera can absorb electricity, but being able to absorb energy doesn’t make you necessarily immune to it as a beam. Legion’s Microwave Shell still did what it did, and even Gamera’s own fireballs were able to blast his hand off. Hell the fact that he chose to blast his own hand off when Iris was charging up fireballs tells me Gamera saw losing a limb as a preferable alternative to taking two shots to the front from essentially his own fireballs.

Ghidorah won’t drain Gamera’s energy. He did not do that at any point before having Godzilla crippled and actively rising in energy due to an outside source, which Ghidorah was reacting to. But in turn, Gamera won’t hang back and try to leverage his superior flight speed and range unless Ghidorah tries to engage him in a dogfight, he loves to get up close and start clawing and biting against grounded foes. And Ghidorah if he does go for an aerial fight should be durable enough to survive Gamera buzzsawing into him, and likely take it to the ground after that.


TL:DR, Gamera smacks Rodan’s shit and then gets into a fight with Ghidorah that the Three-Headed Devil holds key advantages in, the Guardian of the Universe will give it a brutal fight but he’s just too outmatched in strength and durability without anything to really give him a win.

[ShinGojira14]

Giving this to Gamera. Rodan’s gonna drop fast, and between the dragon and the turtle Ghidorah is gonna be hating life when Gamera starts repeatedly blasting holes in him with his fireballs.

[Spuro]

Like GodzillavsRayquaza, I also tend to place a lot more value on Heisei Gamera (and Legion and Iris) than most of the FM community.

That said... Legendary Ghidorah AND Legendary Rodan at the same time? What the hell did the poor turtle do to deserve this? If Ghidorah wasn't here, I'd give him odds against Rodan... but that's about as far as I can support Gamera here.