Gamera the Brave

After Gamera self-destructs to destroy three Gyaos in 1973; the tale picks up 33 years later in 2006, when the son of one of the survivors of that incident finds an unusual egg, from which a baby turtle hatches. The boy, Toru, raises the turtle, quickly realizing it as being remarkable in that it hovers and breathes fire. The turtle quickly outgrows the house, is relocated by Toru and his friends to maintain secrecy and then disappears.

Concurrently, many shipping disasters occur in the area, the cause of which is the kaiju Zedus (ジーダス), a monstrous amphibian which soon thereafter rampages through the city. It corners Toru and his friends, but the boy's former pet, now significantly larger, intercedes. The young Gamera is wounded in the fight and captured by government officials, who hook the creature up to a machine which infuses it with liquid derived from mysterious red stones found in the vicinity of the egg and which scientists theorize give the Gameras their power.

Zedus attacks again and the new Gamera, now larger, goes out to battle him. The human characters determine that the still-immature Gamera must consume the red stone which Toru had found with the egg in order to gain its full power. The egg is located and, with some difficulty, delivered to Toru, who throws it into Gamera's mouth during the battle. Gamera's power of jet-propelled flight manifests itself and it defeats Zedus by breathing a fireball at it. The kaiju escapes further government investigation with Toru's assistance and flies off as the boy wishes him farewell.

Gamera the Brave was released theatrically in Japan on April 29, 2006, and was distributed by Shochiku.

Andrew Kasch of the website Dread Central gave the film a score of 3 1/2 out of 5, writing that "Even with its kid-centric approach, Gamera the Brave is guaranteed to please most kaiju enthusiasts, and the new franchise should be enough to fill the empty hole left in Godzilla's absence."[2] Tom Mes of Midnight Eye called the film "an agreeable time waster that introduces the tried and true kaiju formula to a new generation", but wrote that "anyone aged 13 or over will likely be looking elsewhere for their monster movie fix".[3]

In the years following the film's release, a hoax circulated online which claimed that a giant ancient tortoise, shown in photographs being transported on a flatbed truck, was caught in or around the Amazon River.[4] In actuality, the tortoise shown in the photographs was a full-scale, 15-foot-long prop of Toto which was used in the film.[5]

Gamera the Brave was released on Region 1 DVD in 2008 by Tokyo Shock.[6][7] The film received a Blu-ray release in July 2016 by Kadokawa Daiei Studio, as part of a box set with 4K digital restorations of the previous films in the Gamera franchise's Heisei era.[8]

• Gamera the Brave on IMDb
• Gamera the Brave at SciFi Japan