Toshio, also known as Kenny by Western audiences, is the tritagonist of the film, Gamera: The Giant Monster, the first film of the Gamera franchise.
He is a young boy and the son of one of the scientists who are investigating Gamera. After Gamera saves his life, Toshio begins working to save Gamera from the military.
What Makes Him a Scrappy?[]
- He constantly causes trouble for the military and the people involved to protect Gamera and is never called out for sabotaging them. While he does have a reason to want to protect Gamera, it falls flat considering Toshio has witnessed Gamera killing dozens of people and still defended him. There’s also the fact that there were members of the military who weren’t trying to kill Gamera, but instead slow him down.
- He is considered a Gary Stu who is constantly complimented by those around him and everyone comes to his defense.
- His voice, especially in the English dub, is very annoying to viewers as it mostly consists of him screaming.
- He really only exists to make Gamera a more morally acceptable character and not much else.
Trivia[]
- Of the "Kid in Kaiju Movie" tropers, Toshio is arguably one of the first known examples, causing Gamera fans to refer to these kinds of characters as "Kennys".
- To reference Toshio's scrappy status, the comedy series, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (which featured the film) did a skit regarding Joel trying to understand why the bots hated him. Crow said he hated that he was ignoring Gamera's chaos and justifying it while Tom hated his voice.