GAMERA -Rebirth- summary and ending explained

GAMERA -Rebirth- sees the rise of Gamera, a turtle kaiju that saves Boco and his friends from other human-eating kaiju. The series is now streaming on Netflix.

Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers

Plot summary

In the summer of 1989, three friends — Boco, Joe, and Junichi — wish to buy a transmitter, as Boco is going to summer school and the three of them want to keep in touch. When they see a turtle stuck in between the roots of a tree, Boco saves it without caring about his own safety.

A group of bullies, led by a boy named Brody, take away the money Boco, Joe, and Junichi had saved to buy the transmitter and beat them up. When Boco and his friends go to confront the bullies, small flying creatures attack the city.

A fight takes place between the US fighter jets and the creatures, but the fighter jets do not stand a chance. Soon, a bigger creature appears and starts attacking Boco and Brody’s groups. Brody’s friends leave him behind, but Boco and his friends rescue him.

Boco, Brody, Joe, and Junichi are then saved by a giant turtle that appears out of nowhere. Once the turtle defeats the creature, people from the Eustace Foundation come there and take the four children to their research center to question them.

The Eustace Foundation is a global organization that develops energy resources. It even has a base on the Moon. James Tazaki, an agent of the Foundation, and Emiko Melchiorri, a scientist, tell the children that the giant creatures are being called kaiju. The kaiju that attacked them was Gyaos.

About ten years ago, in the layer of earth that lies beneath the seabed, the Foundation found a cavern that had a massive corpse inside. The specimen is estimated to be 100,000 years old. It is frozen solid but is perfectly preserved.

The creature is dangerous to human beings, as it eats them, especially children. The Foundation has discovered similar caverns across the world, and Gyaos came out of one of them. They do not know whether the turtle kaiju wants to eat humans like Gyaos or not, and Boco names the turtle kaiju Gamera.

Tazaki and Emiko give children communication devices to keep in touch with them. The next day, Brody, whose father is a general in the US military, tells Boco and his friends that tiny Gyaos are currently in the sewers. The four kids then go to fight the Gyaos on their own, much to Joe’s dismay.

The children come across a cavern and encounter another kaiju, Jiger. When the children are in danger of being eaten by Jiger, Gamera appears. The military starts attacking Gamera as well because they do not know whether he is also going to attack humans or not. 

Brody, who is always trying to please his father, stands up to him and asks him not to attack Gamera. His father listens to him, and Gamera is able to kill Jiger. He saves Boco and his friends from a kaiju once again. Furthermore, Brody is now part of Boco’s friend group.

Tazaki then convinces Boco, Joe, Junichi, and Brody’s parents to send the children to the Foundation’s Yonaguni Island Mining Base with him and Emiko to be examined. The children will be away from home for two weeks, and they will get to go to the island on a high-tech Eustace Foundation ship. 

Emiko shows the children a crystal called orylium. The properties of this rock are used to detect traces of kaiju presence. Orylium is found in kaiju’s bodies, and it also keeps their corpses from deteriorating.

On their way there, Tazaki and Emiko find out that another kaiju, called Zigra, is targeting children who have encountered Gyaos, which means that Boco, Joe, Junichi, and Brody are also in danger. 

Soon, their ship is attacked by Zigra. Gamera comes to save the children, but Zigra has the upper hand underwater. Gamera still manages to disorient Zigra, and the children hide underwater in a submarine. Junichi, who is very smart and loves learning about technology, comes up with a plan.

When the captain refuses to take the risks that she is suggesting, her friends support her plan. Junichi had earlier started questioning whether Boco, Joe, and Brody were her friends or not, but now she knows that they have faith in her. 

Emiko, who has also befriended Junichi, convinces the captain to follow Junichi’s plan. The plan works. They lure Zigra out of the water and make it lose its sense of orientation again. On land, Gamera has an advantage and is able to defeat Zigra.

The children finally reach the Eustace Foundation’s Yonaguni Island Mining Base, where Emiko takes them to see the kaiju she had told them about when they first met. This kaiju is called Viras. It is different from the others, as it does not decompose even without orylium in its body. 

Joe does not trust the Foundation and tries to convince his friends to return home. This results in Joe and Boco arguing. The children are locked in a room, so Joe and Junichi use the vents to leave the room.

Joe and Boco realize their mistake very soon and do not want to fight anymore. Before they can return to each other, the island gets attacked by another kaiju. This kaiju is called Guiron, and it ate Zigra’s corpse. Tazaki, who had quit his job, has to take charge again when the kaiju attacks. 

While Tazaki goes to save Emiko, Gamera fights and defeats Guiron. Boco and Joe also reconcile. As the base has been destroyed by the kaiju, Boco and his friends end up underground, where Viras’s body is being kept.

There, the children see that the orylium is no longer in its protective case. When Boco touches the crystal, he and his friends see visions from an ancient past. They find out that the Foundation wants to purify the planet by killing human beings and has been using the kaiju for the same.

100,000 years ago, the Foundation had tried to sacrifice the chosen children to the Viras to accomplish their goal. However, their plans were foiled by those who betrayed them and stole Gamera. The Foundation is trying to do the same thing again, but Gamera still stands in their path.

GAMERA -Rebirth- ending explained in detail:

What is Emiko’s plan?

While the board members of the Foundation are safe on the Moon, as the Foundation has a base there, they have been trying to make the kaiju kill all human beings by trying to feed Boco and his friends to the kaiju. 

Emiko is the niece of one of the board members, and she knows about this plan. She wants to kill her aunt and get revenge for her mother’s death. Emiko is just as evil as her aunt.

She has been so nice to the children because she needs them to accomplish her plans. She finds out that Boco is the chosen child who needs to be fed to a kaiju, and that will make the kaiju devour everyone.

She stops the shipments being sent to the Moon Base to deprive the board members of necessities. She plans to revive Viras, feed Boco and his friends to the kaiju, and control Viras. She will go to the Foundation’s orbit station and then the Moon Base with her trusted people, leaving Viras to kill people on Earth.

Does Viras eat Boco?

Emiko starts reviving Viras and puts Boco and his friends in a cage to be eaten. However, the children manage to escape. Tazaki, who had earlier pretended to be on Emiko’s side, helps them run away.

Tazaki and one of Emiko’s men, Dario, had changed the system’s settings to prevent Emiko from controlling the revival of Viras. They then take the children to the space shuttle that Emiko was supposed to use for her escape. Viras gets revived and attacks the shuttle to stop Boco from leaving. 

The space shuttle catches fire, and the children fail to get out of it in a pod, as the pod does not get ejected. To save his friends, Joe sacrifices his life and goes to eject the pod manually. The children and Tazaki leave the space shuttle in the pod, but Joe gets left behind in the burning shuttle.

At the same time, Viras follows Boco, but Gamera arrives there. Gamera not only defeats Viras but also saves Boco, Junichi, Brody, and Tazaki by making their pod land safely. By the end of it all, Gamera is severely injured.

Is Gamera healed?

Due to Gamera and Viras’ fight, the Foundation’s Yonaguni Island Mining Base is completely destroyed. Emiko is still alive and comes across a tiny Gyaos. The creature eats Emiko and becomes a kaiju.

Meanwhile, Boco convinces Tazaki to save Gamera’s life. Tazaki then meets with the government and uses his negotiation skills to get them to bring the best scientists and doctors to save a dying Gamera. While they try to heal Gamera, the Japanese military protects him.

Boco sends a message to Joe using the communication device that they were given by the Foundation, but he does not get a reply. Boco, Junichi, and Brody show the scientists how orylium was used 100,000 years ago on Gamera, something they had seen in the vision that was induced after touching orylium. 

With this information, the scientists figure out a way to heal Gamera, but before Gamera is fully healed, Gyaos arrives there and attacks. The Japanese military fights Gyaos efficiently, but the kaiju cannot be defeated by them.

Is Gamera dead or alive?

After losing Joe, Boco refuses to let Gamera die, so he distracts Gyaos to give Gamera time to heal. Boco’s friends and Tazaki also follow him and put themselves in danger, but they are all saved by Gamera in time. 

While fighting Gamera, Gyaos injects a virus into Gamera’s body. Japanese Commander Sasaki and the US Air Force, led by Brody’s father, assist Gamera in killing Gyaos. 

The board members of the Foundation then use the virus to force Gamera to return to its original genetic configuration from 100,000 years ago. This leads to Gamera turning evil like the other kaiju, but Boco does not give up on him. 

Boco brings Gamera back to his senses. Gamera uses the last of his strength to send a laser to the Moon and destroy the Moon Base, where the board members were scheming together. After that, Gamera’s body disintegrates and disappears. 

The world no longer faces the threat of kaiju attacks, and things go back to normal. Tazaki says goodbye to the children and tells them that the Foundation is being investigated by the UN. He then goes on to launch a mobile phone.

Boco also learns to ride a bicycle, something that Joe was supposed to teach him. Now that Joe is gone, Boco and his friends vacate their hideout, and Boco leaves his communication device there, as he does not know that Joe is still alive. Joe tries to contact Boco but does not receive a response.

It is also revealed that this is not the end of Gamera. Boco, Junichi, and Brody are seen going to a lab to visit a tiny Gamera, and Boco thinks that it is their turn to protect him. 


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Muskan Chhatwani
Muskan Chhatwani
Muskan is an editor at The Envoy Web. Her name translates to smile in English, but she likes shows and films that do anything but make you smile. She believes that analyzing and interpreting the tiny little things on-screen can reveal a story that is not visible to everyone, a story of your own.

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