Still a lot of mysteries surrounding this thing though. I continue to see conflicting reports on what exactly it is and what it was intended to be, as the rumor persists that it is based on a scrapped film. I'm fairly positive one of the Shout Factory Gamera DVD's that featured this short in its entirety also described it as being based on a lost film (been some time since I watched it though).
What is known for sure is that more Gamera films were planned in the early 70’s, with the one that got furthest along being the tentatively-titled Gamera vs. the Two-Headed Monster W, in which Gamera would have fought a winged, two-headed serpent kaiju (apparently designed in part to be a sort of arch nemesis for Gamera as King Ghidorah was to Godzilla, IIRC?). While I've seen others assume this project morphed into Gamera vs. Garasharp before being scrapped, its also possible that Garasharp was merely inspired by the character of W and came much later, as is now believed to be the case.
It does certainly seem odd that they created the character and story of Garasharp, complete with several miniature models and sets, specifically for a three-minute clip on a Laserdisc set - especially with how... "incomplete" the given story seems with the majority being told through concept art alone. And yet, that is almost word-for-word what the short's supervisor said of the project in an interview ("The creator of the film announced that it was the un-produced Gamera movie. But Garasharp is a character which was made specifically for the bonus track of the LD set." ~Noriaki Yuasa). Even so, there may be more to Garasharp’s creation than meets the eye, whether he was actually intended to appear in an earlier film as the long-standing rumors insist or if he really was created exclusively for the short film that merely drew inspiration from some old, scrapped ideas. And if it’s the later – what exactly was the purpose of the short, if there even was one?
The short was directed by Nisan Takahashi, the screenwriter of all of the Showa Gamera films who made a couple attempts to revive Gamera during the Heisei period; most notably, he was trying to get a straight-to-video movie called Gamera vs. Phoenix made in the mid-90’s before the franchise (thankfully) took the big-budget reboot turn instead. Perhaps Gamera vs. Garasharp was intended to be something similar?
Regardless of all the rumors and speculation, one thing seems clear - there are some key details missing from the short film as it was presented, none more pressing to me than what the hell Marukobukarappa is doing there. (BTW, while Garasharp's origins are contested, Marukobukarappa was indeed created in the Showa era during the development of Gamera vs. Viras; concept art can be found on Wikizilla.) Methinks there are still more answers yet to be uncovered.
I'll be the first to admit I haven't done a whole heck of a lot of research on this and only began digging deeper into it over the last week, so I'm sure others may be able to supply more info. But, regardless, I'm interested in hearing what others think of this peculiar little oddity of Gamera's extended history nonetheless. Garasharp's a pretty rad monster IMO, fits right in with the Showa kaiju style.
