NAME: 
Gabara (ガバラ)
FIRST APPEARS IN:
All Monsters Attack, 1969
DESIGN FEATURES:
– a catty cat-face
– a shock of red hair
– scales that are a soothing shade of aqua
– tri-horned head
SKILLS AND QUIRKS:
– creating serious psychological issues for Minilla (Godzilla’s idiot son) through relentless bullying
– being a fucking jerk
– getting beaten up by fully grown adult monsters (ha!)
– firing electricity through one of his horns
– existing only in a child’s dream
MONSTER SOUNDS:
I’m going to do my best to avoid talking in too much detail about All Monsters Attack, Gabara’s sole Godzilla flick appearance, because I reviewed it a while back. To summarise my previous article: All Monsters Attack is a fucking nightmare of stock footage, imaginary monsters (the film mostly takes place in the damaged mind of a demented child), and a talking Minilla. I actually planned to write this month’s article about Minilla, Godzilla’s idiot son, but FUCK, I hate Minilla so much I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So, anyway, Gabara…
Gabara is a pretty pathetic monster. He doesn’t tear down cities. He doesn’t send the human race to the brink of destruction. No. He bullies Godzilla’s son. Yup, he’s a kaijū schoolyard bully. He is, however, a fucking vicious bully. He really enjoys electrocuting Minilla, which is, of course, extraordinarily satisfying.
Gabara looks like a cat with a bad Carrot Top wig. I wonder how much love went into designing him. A lot? None at all? I don’t know. Gabara’s face makes me want to throw wild unfocused punches. I suppose Toho knew what they were doing when they designed Gabara. He really does have the braindead face of a shit bully.
I also like Gabara a lot. He’s one of the best things about All Monsters Attack — not that he has much to compete with. He’s a hateable villain, and that’s a good thing. When he receives his inevitable beating, it is almost as satisfying as watching Minilla being electrocuted. Almost.
Gabara is the only monster in our Kaijū Menagerie that exists purely as an imaginary monster within his own story world. Everything that takes place in All Monsters Attack is bubbling away in the mind of a severely traumatised child. Somehow Gabara’s lack of existence makes me like him more. Maybe I’m just a sucker for trip-out sequences with giant monsters superimposed over slow-motion footage of a panicking child?
Gabara would only appear once in the Godzilla franchise, though he would return in the series Go! Godman and Go! Greenman for some reason. According to Wikizilla, in Go! Greenman, Gabara has the ability to “engulf children into his body”. What the fuck, Gabara?
