The DKE List's 1st Giveaway Contest:
Who's your Favorite Gamera Adversary?

by Bob Schneider

On February 12, 2001, Robert "Sleestak" Porter created a new DKE List tradition by organizing our first Giveaway Contest. He asked list members to simply post a message to the list stating who their favorite Gamera adversary from the original series of films is and why. From all the entries, a winner would be selected by random draw and the lucky list member would receive a prize donated by Robert himself: a brand new Bandai Gamera model kit.

When the dust settled, Doctor TOC's post praising the icy iguana Barugon claimed the prize. However, Robert generously contributed a variety of runner up prizes to anyone who entered the contest, assuring that everybody was a winner.

Congratulations Doctor TOC, and thanks to all of you who participated.

Doctor TOC's Winning Entry

My Favourite Classic Gamera enemy is probably Barugon, but it's for a *very* sad reason. As we all know, Toho's Baragon and Barugon bear a distinct resemblance to each other. Being the sort of person who enjoys making fan chronologies and linking things in to each other (one step up from a trainspotter in many people's estimation), I like to pretend that they're either the same beast, or are related. Thus Baragon/Barugon form the link between the Toho-verse and the Gamera movies (at least as far as I'm concerned). Thus my affection for Barugon comes entirely from his symbolism of the possibility of that most desirable Kaiju grudge match, Godzilla vs Gamera, rather than anything to do with the monster itself. All that said, he is pretty durn cute :-)