to give or to keep: Gamera DVDs

Until I run out of cool giftable stuff to tell you about or until we run out of days till Christmas, I’ll be sharing some neat-o things that your geeky pals might enjoy, or that you might want to give to yourself, if you’ve been especially good this year.

Shout! Factory, the venerable DVD distributor of all things wonderfully cheesy and geeky, is out with a new line of DVDs celebrating all things Gamera. Early Gamera, anyway.

You remember Gamera -- you saw him once in a while on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He’s the cheap knockoff Godzilla, a giant nukular mutantized prehistoric turtle who started out, in the early 1960s, as a monster who destroys cities but rapidly morphed into a defender of Japan and a friend to children.

On four DVDs -- all available separately -- you get six Gamera movies: Gamera, Gamera vs. Barugon, Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera vs. Jiger, Gamera vs. Gyaos, and Gamera vs. Viras. Basically, it’s the big turtle beatin’ up on other giant monsters.

Monster movie fans will have a ball with these. And these are the first time the Gamera movies have been released in Region 1 (they’re not yet in Region 2), you can be reasonably sure the Japaneses-monster nerd on your list won’t already have them.