Jiger

From Wikizilla, the kaiju encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Article

Jiger
Jiger in GAMERA -Rebirth-
Jiger in Gamera vs. Jiger
Alternate names Monster X, Giant Demon Beast X, Gigantis, Lizard
Subtitle(s) Giant Demon Beast (大魔獣,   Daimajū)
Giant Space Monster[1]
White Tiger (白虎,   Byakko)[2]
Species Ancient demonic reptileGvJ, ancient bioengineered monsterG-R-
Height >100 metersHBWC[3]
Length Showa: 80 meters[4][5]
Reiwa: 80 meters,[6][7]
180 meters (with tail)[6]
Weight Showa: 200 metric tons[4][5]
Reiwa: 400 metric tons[7]
Running speed Showa: 300 kilometers per hour[4][5]
Place(s) of emergence ShowaMu → Wester Island[4][5]
Relations Small Jiger (offspring)
Enemies Gamera, Azure Dragon
Designed by Tomohisa Yano
Modeled by Eizo Kaimai
First appearance Latest appearance
Gamera vs. Jiger GAMERA -Rebirth-
Roar(s)
Showa:Reiwa:More roars
Keizer GKC Transparent.png
This article concerns a recently-released film or other piece of media.
More information will be added to the article as it becomes available.
Spoiler.png SPOILER WARNING: This section may contain major plot and/or ending details.
Proceed at your own discretion.

Jiger (ジャイガー,   Jaigā) is an ancient kaiju who first appeared in the 1970 Gamera film Gamera vs. Jiger.

A legendary demon who once inhabited the lost continent of Mu, Jiger was awakened in the modern day when the statue known as the Devil's Whistle was removed from Wester Island. Jiger had a brief skirmish with Gamera before pursuing the statue to Osaka, Japan, where Gamera arrived to challenge her again. Jiger defeated Gamera by infecting him with her parasitic young, then moved on to the location of Expo '70, where she threw the Devil's Whistle into the ocean. Fortunately, Gamera was cured by humanity and returned for a final duel with Jiger, where he successfully killed her by retrieving the Devil's Whistle and throwing it into her skull. In Gamera Super Monster, Jiger returns as a pawn of the pirate spaceship Zanon, with her appearance being depicted entirely through stock footage. In GAMERA -Rebirth-, she was used to assist the Eustace Foundation in the purification of humanity only to be killed by Gamera.

Name

Jiger's name means "terrible as a demon" in the ancient language of Mu. Jiger was originally given the placeholder name Giant Demon Beast X (大魔獣X,   Daimajū Ekkusu) during development of Gamera vs. Jiger, and is also referred to as Monster X in American International Television's English-dubbed version of the film.

Development

Jiger concept art

Jiger was designed by special effects artist Tomohisa Yano. Several pieces of concept art for Jiger indicate that she originally was going to have a more aquatic, fish-based design. Jiger's final design bears resemblance to bovids and ceratopsian dinosaurs.[8] As Ex Productions was currently busy working in Taiwan and South Korea, Jiger's suit was instead made by Eizo Kaimai's Kaimai Productions. The suit was reportedly very difficult to move in as the suit actor was required not to have his knees touch the ground, and was designed with an emphasis on "look and feel." A 6-shaku (Japanese foot) model of Jiger was also used.

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger's torso was was partially inspired by a gecko.[9] Her original design was more robust and muscular, but it was later slimmed down to represent a "gecko wearing a mask for lion dances."[10]

Design

Pencil-icon.gif Please help improve this article by contributing useful information or discussing ideas on its talk page. A user has the following suggestion:
Showa era design needs to be expanded upon.

Jiger is a horned quadrupedal reptile with a large head and a small frilled crest. She has multiple spikes on her face and a raised fin on her back. Her skin is light brown and covered in circular patterns. In CR Gamera: The Battle Pachinko, her design was slightly different from the original version, with more elongated fangs and a square head.

In the 2015 story "Holy Beast War Chronicle: The White Shadow," Jiger is noted to possess both mammalian and reptilian features. It resembles both a tiger and a dragon, and is covered in white scales.[11]

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger is generally similar to her Showa design, except she has a more slender body and legs, a more prominent head frill, is more reddish in color, has a much more elongated dorsal fin, and her horns are more curved. Her eyes are also red with yellow irises. She also possesses an additional eye on her forehead.

Origins

Jiger is an ancient demonic creature that once inhabited the lost continent of Mu.[4] She was awakened in the present day when a statue known as the Devil's Whistle was removed from Wester Island.

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, eggs of Jiger were discovered in a cave in Indonesia. The Eustace Foundation studied them for over a year, and no visible changes were observed until swarms of Gyaos attacked the facility, and the eggs suddenly hatched. After they finished feeding off the facility's staff, the hatchlings began to devour each other, and the surviving individual grew enormous.[12]

History

Showa era

Gamera vs. Jiger

After the Devil's Whistle was removed from Wester Island, Jiger made her first appearance and got Gamera's immediate attention. The first of several fights ensued, and Jiger won by shooting projectile quills from her face. The quills impaled Gamera's arms and legs, piercing all the way through and preventing Gamera from withdrawing his limbs into his shell and taking flight. To make matters worse, Jiger knocked Gamera onto his back to prevent him from moving. He pulled himself up with his tail using a large rock and then removed the offending quills from his limbs and was finally able to fly after Jiger.

Meanwhile, Jiger was actively seeking the statue, because it was making a horrible ringing sound that was causing her tremendous pain. Jiger let nothing impede that hunt as she split two ships in half and started tearing through Osaka. Scientists were beside themselves as Jiger displayed another weapon: a heat ray that vaporized not only flesh but entire city blocks. The JSDF did make a token effort to kill the monster, but her quills knocked down the F-104 fighters, ending the JSDF's involvement.

Gamera returned for round two as the fight was witnessed by several children. Gamera knocked Jiger around and appeared to have the upper hand until Jiger pulled Gamera to her. Jiger extended a stinger from her tail and inserted the barb into Gamera's shoulder, laying an egg inside his lung. Gamera staggered away, roaring in agony. Finally, he barely made it to the bay and his body turned a chalky white color, almost like ice. Gamera was presumed to have been killed at this point as Jiger headed straight to the World's Fair. Jiger finally obtained the statue, and threw it into the ocean, ending the painful noise.

The scientists were checking out possible causes of the noise, as it affected humans, causing temporary insanity. The children convinced them to do a medical exam on the comatose Gamera, where it was discovered that there was a dark spot on one of his lungs. One of the scientists served as a zoo director and realized that the spot might not be a fast-spreading cancer, but actually a larval Jiger growing in Gamera's lung. An operation was needed to remove the threat, so the children took the initiative by taking a walkie talkie and a mini-sub. Communication was established with the kids and they entered Gamera through his open mouth, and after almost going into his stomach, they arrived at the problem lung. The children were able to exit the sub and walk around in the lung. There, they discovered the baby Jiger.

The baby looked like its mother, except that instead of shooting quills, the baby squirted sticky goo. But the baby had a weakness just like its mother: white noise. The kids discovered this was actually a fatal weakness and managed to kill the baby using static from their radio. They left Gamera's body and reported their findings to the scientists. They rigged up large speakers to keep Jiger at bay, as well as figuring out that power would have to also be run into Gamera, who could not recover on his own. The children made a final trip inside Gamera to hook up a set of power lines directly to his heart.

Jiger was kept still by the speakers playing the white noise. It was not enough to kill Jiger, but bought enough time for the other plan to start. Gamera was subjected to high voltage shock before the electrical grid overloaded. It was enough that Gamera revived on his own.

Gamera flew over to the World's Fair for the final battle. Jiger tried every weapon she had, but Gamera merely retracted into his shell when the quills started flying. Jiger then used her heat ray. It didn't affect Gamera's shell or even skin, but the noise from it did enough harm to where Gamera had to block it out by stuffing telephone poles into his ears. After using a club-shaped building to crush Jiger's tail, destroying her stinger, Gamera body-slammed Jiger from a great height, which lodged her underground and bought Gamera the time needed to go into the ocean to retrieve the Devil's Whistle from the sea floor. Jiger, enraged by the statue's return, attempted to pounce on Gamera, but Gamera only taunted Jiger with the Devil's Whistle, who tried in vain to catch Gamera and retrieve the statue. Gamera finally ended the fight by throwing the statue at Jiger, which penetrated her skull, killing her.

Gamera Super Monster

The evil space criminal Zanon resurrected Jiger during his attempted invasion of Earth, but Gamera defeated her once again.

Reiwa era

GAMERA -Rebirth-

"Above Tokyo"

To be added.

"Under Current"

Several Jiger eggs were seen floating in a large tube as news arrived to Emiko and Tazaki that a swarm of Gyaos was attacking near Shinjuku. As a worker left their computer the screen begins flashing with a warning reading CAUTION.

Later, the tube was smashed apart and blood was streaked all over the now-destroyed room. Two workers slowly approached with guns and looked down into a broken vent in the floor. Suddenly, a spine-tipped tail shot out from the hole and stabbed one man through the head, with the other being stabbed a moment later as he tried to fire shots into the vent. The Jiger hatchlings yanked them downwards and proceeded to tear into and eat them.

As the U.S. military began evacuating civilians, the Jiger hatchlings started digging a hole through the wall of the sewers below.

One large Jiger sat in the cave, consuming the last of her siblings.

Boco, Joe, Junichi, and Brody came across this now fully dug out cavern while searching for the Jigers, and she awoke while they were arguing. As Jiger opened her mouth to eat them, a military squad appeared from behind, firing at the creature as the kids ran. When the group got outside they witnessed Jiger, now even larger from eating the soldiers, burst from the ground and confront the military. Jiger stalked forwards as the soldiers and vehicles commenced fire, only to be squashed by her claws and swept aside by her tail. A piece of debris landed on the car that the children, Tazaki, and Emiko had boarded to escape, crashing it. As they pulled the now hurt Joe out of the vehicle, Jiger stomped towards them. Before she could get to them, however, Gamera fired a flame shot down towards her from the sky. She attempted to jump out of the way but was still blown back as Gamera landed. Gamera charged towards Jiger and lifted her into the air. She began to stab him in the side repeatedly with her tail spike, until Gamera fell, throwing her into the ground. As Jiger regained her footing and turned her attention back to eating soldiers and civilians, Gamera grabbed her by the tail. He yanked her backwards into the air and slammed her into the ground before slashing his claws into her underbelly. Suddenly, Gamera was interrupted as the U.S. military began to bombard him with bullets and missiles, with Jiger stalking to his side and stabbing and slashing him in the chest with her tail, causing him to fall. Brody was able to convince his father to switch focus to Jiger, giving Gamera time to get up and charge his flaming fist as Jiger was shot with missiles and roared in pain. He jammed his flaming fist into Jiger's mouth and lifted her up, severely scorching her insides. Jiger fell limp, and Gamera threw her a great distance with his fist, then charged up and fired a large flame shot, killing her.

Abilities

Magnetum Ray

Jiger can emit a high-frequency light ray from her head known as the Magnetum Ray (マグネチューム光線,   Magunechūmu Kōsen). This ray can burn anything in its path and reduce humans to bleached skeletons instantly.[5] It is ineffective at burning Gamera, though the high-frequency sound waves damage his eardrums.

In CR Gamera: The Battle Pachinko, Jiger fires a more concentrated energy beam from her forehead.[13]

Solid Saliva Missiles

Jiger can fire needles of solidified saliva, known as Solid Saliva Missiles (唾液固形ミサイル,   Daeki Kokei Misairu), from the corners of both sides of her nose.[5] She used these missiles to skewer Gamera's limbs and make him unable to retract his limbs into his shell. Gamera learned to counter this attack in their second encounter using his Steel Frame Attack. Jiger's offspring can fire an imperfect form of this attack, which results in a highly adhesive liquid.

Vampiric Tactic

Jiger has a stinger attached to her ovipositor in her tail,[5] which can implant her parasitic young into the body of a foe. This larval Jiger parasitizes the host by sucking its blood, and as such this maneuver is called the Vampiric Tactic (吸血戦法,   Kyūketsu Senpō). At the time Gamera vs. Jiger was released, this attack was also known as the Transparency Tactic (スケスケ戦法,   Sukesuke Senpō), as it rendered Gamera's head and arm transparent.

Magnetic Suckers

Jiger is equipped with Magnetic Suckers (マグネチック吸盤,   Magunechikku Kyūban) on the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. These suckers possess one million times the suction power of an electric vacuum cleaner and can be used to pull in objects that are far away. She uses them to grab rocks and throw them at Gamera. By grabbing onto Gamera's shell with these suckers, Jiger can perform a Deadly Airborne Throw (必殺空中回転投げ,   Hissatsu Kūchū Kaiten'nage).

Agility

Jiger can run at high speeds during her first encounter with Gamera when she stunned Gamera with her Solid Saliva Missiles knocking Gamera over. During the battle in Osaka, Jiger performed an extremely high jump without using her gill jets. In GAMERA -Rebirth-, she was able to leap away from one of Gamera's fire blasts. In CR Gamera Battle Pachinko, Jiger is agile enough to evade Gamera's fireballs by jumping.[14]

Gills

After consuming seawater, Jiger can expel jets of it from the gills (エラ,   era) located on the sides of her head to propel herself forward at a speed of 300 kilometers per hour. This allows her to glide over the sea and smash ships in half, or to fly through the air for a short distance.

Spiritual powers

In "Holy Beast War Chronicle: The White Shadow," Jiger can possess humans, empowering them to perform superhuman feats.[15] Summoners can summon and control it with a magatama, although doing so drains their lifeforce, and as they are spiritually connected, physical damage to the monster is reflected on the summoners. When Jiger was killed by the Azure Dragon, Kotarō Tsushima, the current summoner, died as well. It is ambiguous whether Jiger's death directly caused his or coincided with a tremendous loss of his life force. Immediately after Kotarō died, Jiger's corpse mysteriously disappeared.[16]

Weather control

In "Holy Beast War Chronicle: The White Shadow," Jiger can control weather at will, allowing it to summon powerful windstorm and rains and attack targets with lightning.[17]

Electromagnetic pulse

Jiger in GAMERA -Rebirth- can generate electromagnetic pulses to empower her stinger to penetrate Gamera's energy shield.[18]

Energy Shield

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger, like other kaiju, can create a thin, invisible energy shield on her body surfaces to neutralize conventional attacks.[18]

Mucus

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger can produce a heat-resistant mucus to lessen the damage from Gamera’s flame-based attacks.[19] It can also enhance her regeneration.[20]

Intelligence

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger, like other kaiju, is capable of sophisticated tactics. She can detect commanders of military forces and attacks them to disrupt and weaken her opponents.[21] Jiger’s hatchlings, immediately after birth, became aware of a powerful foe they must defeat, and started tactically devouring each other to gain strength and increase in size.[22]

Growth and regeneration

In GAMERA -Rebirth-, Jiger, like other kaiju, can grow extremely fast by feeding on humans and other kaiju, including members of the same species. A hatchling Jiger can grow into a gigantic form within a day.[23] Jiger and other kaiju are also capable of regenerating wounded body parts, and they can enhance their recovery speed by eating humans and the flesh of other kaiju.[24]

Weaknesses

As Jiger emits high-frequency waves, she is weakened by low-frequency ones. This weakness is lethal to her offspring, which is killed when a communicator is stuck to its head. Jiger can be kept at bay when low frequencies are played through loudspeakers, and was kept dormant by the Devil's Whistle which emitted such frequencies as wind blew through it for millennia. This weakness was not lethal to the adult Jiger, though Gamera was ultimately able to kill her by simply throwing the Devil's Whistle directly into her skull.

Video games

Comics

Gamera the Giant Monster

Jiger alongside Gamera's past foes in Gamera the Giant Monster

Jiger was among Gamera's many past foes who were combined into a single hybrid kaiju dubbed Powered Gyaos.

Gamera vs. Barugon: Comic Version

Jiger (bottom left) alongside Zigra, Iris, and Barugon in Kadokawa's Gamera vs. Barugon: Comic Version

Seen in a vision an explorer is subjected to inside a secret Atlantean ruin the original Barugon's skeleton was entombed in, Jiger was among the precursors to Gamera, a creation of the Atlanteans meant to combat the Gyaos.

Books

Friends: Gamera the Brave

G Jiger appeared along with other G monsters that were born by taking in Gyaos DNA, akin to Zedus. In their first battles, the G monsters appeared only to defeat Gamera and they also fought each other. In the final battle, they were led by Zedus. Soichiro Amamiya also created Baby Jiger and Space Gyaos using the Gyaos Cell.[25]:282

"Holy Beast War Chronicle: The White Shadow"

Jiger, representing the White Tiger of the Four Symbols, had associated with the samurai family Tsushima for generations, and the "beast god" had chosen each summoner. Jiger can be summoned and controlled by summoners with a magatama. In 1281, Kotarō Tsushima summoned Jiger to defeat Mongolian armies during the Mongol invasions of Japan. However, it lost control and also attacked Japanese armies and the vicinity of Hakata and Dazaifu. In response, a gokenin named Iekiyo Ryūzōji summoned and controlled the Azure Dragon, which strongly resembled Barugon. The Azure Dragon appeared in the sky and killed Jiger with a rainbow beam fired from its dorsal fins.[26] In this story, Jiger was named by an European traveler accompanying the Mongolian armies, who initially christened her "Gigantis", with Mongolian troopers mishearing it as "Jiger".[2] Jiger and the Azure Dragon are neither evil beings, but if summoners do evil deeds with the powers of the monsters, it would spiritually pollute the world and trigger further catastrophes. Such "pollutions" can only be cured by those possessing other members of Four Symbols, such as Nichiren, chosen by the "Black Tortoise".[27]

Gallery

Main article: Jiger/Gallery.

Roar

Jiger's primary roar is a heavily slowed-down Barugon roar used only in the theatrical trailer for Gamera vs. Barugon, while some of her other roars are heavily slowed Barugon screeches from the film itself.

Jiger's roars in the Showa series
Jiger's roars in GAMERA -Rebirth-

Trivia

  • Jiger is the first female monster in the Gamera series.
  • Jiger is the second Showa era Gamera kaiju to appear in another era, after Gyaos.
  • The design of the Mammoth Nezura from Nezura 1964 was based partially on Jiger.[28] The depiction of Jiger in GAMERA -Rebirth- where hatchlings devour each other to grow enormous and feed on humans somewhat resembles that of Mammoth Nezura and Super Gyaos. Jiger's design in GAMERA -Rebirth- also bears some similarities to Mammoth Nezura.
  • Jiger's head makes a brief appearance in Pacific Rim Uprising, during the scene where Hermann Gottlieb examines PPDC records in search of a match for the image Mako Mori transmitted.
  • Both the appearance of Jiger hatchlings and the sequence of the child protagonists encountering Jiger underground in GAMERA -Rebirth- bear some resemblances to Gamera vs. Jiger, where the child protagonists confront a baby Jiger within Gamera's body.

References

This is a list of references for Jiger. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. Giant Space Monster Jiger.png
  2. 2.0 2.1 Inoue 2015, p. 294.
  3. Inoue 2015, p. 292.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Showa Gamera monsters data - Gamera.jp
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Gamera the Guardian of the Universe Encyclopedia. Rippu Shobo. 1995. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-4651016160.
  6. 6.0 6.1 アニトイ大作戦 ☆ anitoy (24 June 2023). "これからはハイブリッドソフビの時代?【お買い物】ムービーモンスターシリーズ ギャオス、ジャイガー、モスラ★ 奥特曼 mainan Ultraman ウルトラマン ウルトラマンブレーザー". YouTube.
  7. 7.0 7.1 Seshita & Jin 2023, appendix
    Rebirth Novelization 1 Jiger and Zigra Profiles.png
  8. 「ガメラ対マルコブカラッパ」という企画があったと思ってる人も多いらしいけどこいつただのバイラスの没案だから、デザイン画にメモされたモデルの動物がマイナーすぎて怪獣名と勘違いして図鑑で紹介されたせいで映像化や商品化されただけだから
  9. KADOKAWAanime (24 August 2023). "『Making of "GAMERA -Rebirth-"』ガメラリバース製作裏側映像③【9月7日世界配信】". YouTube.
  10. 東京コミコン2023 12月9日(土)Day2 『GAMERA -Rebirth-』スペシャル・トークショー At 25:57
  11. Inoue 2015, p. 293.
  12. "Jiger". GAMERA -Rebirth- official site. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
  13. At 04:01 and 04:16
  14. 04:10
  15. Inoue 2015, p. 282.
  16. Inoue 2015, p. 298.
  17. Inoue 2015, pp. 291-295.
  18. 18.0 18.1 Seshita & Jin 2023, p. 182.
  19. Seshita & Jin 2023, p. 181.
  20. GAMERA -Rebirth- Official X Account, September 7, 2023, ||◤第2⃣話ウォッチパーティ中 🍿◢||#ガメラリバース祭 Q:ガメラとジャイガーの戦い方などはどのように考えられているのでしょうか?, X (Twitter)
  21. Seshita & Jin 2023, p. 187.
  22. Seshita & Jin 2023, pp. 157-158.
  23. Seshita & Jin 2023, p. 175.
  24. Seshita & Jin 2023, p. 182-184, 187.
  25. Heisei Gamera Perfection. ASCII MEDIA WORKS. 8 February 2014. ISBN 9784048918817.
  26. Inoue 2015, pp. 295-297.
  27. Inoue 2015, p. 305.
  28. @nezura1964 (21 November 2021). "#熱海怪獣映画祭『ネズラ1964』上映にて登壇いただいた米山啓介さん。マンモスネズラのデザイン検討時「チタノザウルスとジャイガーがネズミになったイメージで...」という監督からの無茶な依頼でしたが、カッコイイ造形にしていただきました!ありがとうございました!". Twitter.

Bibliography

Comments

Showing 48 comments. When commenting, please remain respectful of other users, stay on topic, and avoid role-playing and excessive punctuation. Comments which violate these guidelines may be removed by administrators.

Loading comments...
Daiei
Kadokawa
Era Icon - Netflix.png
Era Icon - Showa.png
Era Icon - Post-Millennium New Version.png
Kaiju
Era Icon - Jiger.png