All right, got it watched. It was pretty good! Toshio definitely did turn out to be a dangerous, emotionally unstable nutjob, but his presence and advocacy for Gamera did a lot to make the movie unique, at least for the time. It would've been a fairly by-the-numbers, forgettable monster story otherwise. Off the top of my head, I think this was the first kaiju film to feature a monster-obsessed kid in a starring role, wasn't it? If so, that really makes
Gamera, The Giant Monster an underappreciated landmark. It started one of the genre's best-known tropes. I mean, it's a trope 90+% of the fandom hates, but still.
And it's a shame Daiei slashed the film's budget. The effects were actually pretty well-done and impressive at times, and I'm sure it could've been something special if there had been more money to work with.
"Stop wars and no more accidents. I guess that's all I can ask." -Akio