Yumi Kameyama became the first known woman to wear a kaiju suit onscreen in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, in which she portrayed the Super Gyaos. According to Shinji Higuchi, he cast Kameyama because “the shape of a woman’s body is different from that of a man’s” and “since virtually all of the people who work in the special effects field are men, I thought that I could make it a little easier for women to enter the field by having one play Gyaos.”[
Takateru Manabe and Jun Suzuki both served as Gamera’s suit actors in Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. They were chosen for their short stature as, according to special effects director Shinji Higuchi, “I wanted to shoot a large amount of low angle footage of Gamera and Gyaos, and the only way to avoid having the ceiling of the set be seen in the footage was to have short actors play the monsters” and “If the monster actors are tall, the miniature sets must be large, but if the monster actors are short, smaller sets can be used. We saved money by using small sets because it costs more to construct and maintain larger sets than smaller ones. In addition, if the monster actors are short, only two people are needed to help them get in and out of their costumes.”
