The 1970 Monster Movie That Inspired a Brief But Legendary Crossover

In the rocky wastelands of fictional Wester Island, lightning strikes as a volcano erupts in the distance. Here, a gnarled beast armed with horns and tusks —clad with a tough red-brown hide and boasting a flamboyant frilled spine — awakens with an otherworldly roar. This is Jiger, a fearsome rhino-triceratops monster capable of both flight and telekinesis, who can reduce men to ash and bones through the virtue of her “Super Ultra Wave” ray. Giant flying terrapin Gamera — one of Japan’s mightiest defenders — will prove no match in their opening gambit. And the city of Osaka, preparing for a major global event, is next on her hit list.

The movie is Gamera vs. Jiger, the sixth entry in the Gamera series — and, in fairness, it ticks all the boxes when it comes to monster movie madness. There are intricate miniature sets, men in rubbery monster suits, and even some genuinely striking moments: Jiger’s “190 miles-per-hour” open-jawed attack on a series of ships in the Pacific Ocean, for example, is as eerie as it is explosive. But while the movie’s boisterous baddie and riffs on shrinking-submarine classic Fantastic Voyage make for memorable highlights, this 1970 franchise entry also remains contested in terms of its overall quality. Among the oft-mentioned shortcomings is the film’s dubious emphasis on one particular real-world event — a focus which, for all its head-scratching randomness, also unexpectedly contributed to a brief but legendary monster crossover off-screen.

In the diplomatic words of author and kaiju movie expert August Ragone, Gamera vs. Jiger “took full advantage of the national excitement” for the Expo ’70 event in Osaka that year. A more critical take would be that the movie feels like a feature-length advertisement for the six-month World’s Fair, which would open just seven days before the film’s release. Indeed, it takes but two lines of dialogue for the event to get its first mention in Gamera vs. Jiger, as boy hero Hiroshi excitedly asks whether he’ll be allowed to visit the Expo site — and it’s a constant focus thereafter, mentioned by enthusiastic dock workers and academic boffins, and even branded on heli-planes. During the climax, when the movie’s titular monsters charge towards our brave heroes, the panicked response is not one of concern for human life, it’s: “Is the Expo site safe?”

What’s this occasion that’s got everyone so fired up? Well, the film kindly explains it for you — via a gratuitous montage just two minutes into the opening. An international showcase of technology, architecture and innovation, Expo ’70 “will be held from March 15th to September 13th, 1970 at Senri Hills,” we are told, as images of marvels like Taro Okamoto’s now-iconic Tower of the Sun and the flying saucer-esque Sumitomo Fairy-Tale Pavilion appear on-screen. The US, British, Swiss, and Burmese Pavilions then follow, labelled clearly with on-screen titles as if they were flashy products on a TV commercial, and the narrator continues: “Over 70 countries are participating. We can learn about them in more than 100 stalls.” Young Hiroshi marvels as this year’s theme — “Progress and Harmony for Mankind” — is laid bare: “Wow, it’s like I’m in the city of the future!”

It’s a jarring focus for a monster movie, no doubt. But whether this bizarre puffing for Expo ‘70 was the result of some kind of promotional tie-in or sponsorship — as some fans believe — is disputed. Whatever the case, the evidence certainly stacks. For one, the intricate miniature sets like those of the Wester Island scenes described above certainly suggest the kind of reasonable budget that could well have been inflated by a commercial agreement between Expo ’70 and Daiei Studios. Even more suspect is the fact that the Expo site buildings that appear in the movie emerge completely unscathed despite all the destruction taking place around them — reportedly a condition of their inclusion in the film. Critic Kevin Matthews underlines just how ludicrous the latter concept is in the first place: “Having monsters fight amongst buildings that can’t be destroyed is like Rambo look at a bunch of deadly weapons he can’t equip.”

In any case, Gamera vs. Jiger would be marketed overseas as ‘Monsters Invade Expo ’70’ amidst a flurry of international interest in the Expo that would result in one of the most successful public events in Japanese history. A total of 64 million people — a figure equal to more than half of Japan’s population today, and more than any other World Expo until Shanghai 2010 — would visit Osaka Expo ’70 over the six months it was open. And those that did attend would discover that monsters really had invaded Osaka at the Expo site... if you believe the rumors, that is.

Such little footage exists of the purported Godzilla vs. Gamera one-act show that ostensibly took place at Expo ‘70 that many fans still chalk the crossover up to myth. But what scant evidence there is suggests that Godzilla duked it out with Gyaos, Gamera, and a wealth of other monsters in front of a room full of fans for ten days only at the event site — with legendary Godzilla stuntman Haruo Nakajima and Godzilla vs. Jiger actor Kon Omura among the talents involved. This legendary showdown would mark one of the only times that the two monster franchises have gone toe-to-toe in public. Now that’s a ticket worth the entry price.

Fifty-five years on, and history is seemingly repeating itself — the World’s Fair returns to Osaka in 2025 with a new theme: “Designing Future Society for Our Lives.” Once again spanning six months, this major global event on Yumeshima Island will include architectural marvels like the ‘Grand Ring’ — a two-kilometer elevated walkway certified the World’s Largest Wooden Architectural Structure by Guinness World Records. Anticipation for the April opening has already reached fever pitch, with a projected 28 million visitors expected.

And though there’s no new Gamera film on the horizon, you can never rule out the likelihood of a monster mash-up in Osaka. With the world’s largest Godzilla statue just across the water on Awaji Island — and Super Nintendo World and Harry Potter Land just a few miles away at Universal Studios Japan — the stage could be set for an even crazier crossover at Expo ‘25. Who knows, stranger things have happened!