YIKES!
Well, being stuck on this lump of rock I never saw the American releases of the Gamera flicks, not that it ever really bothered me.
I had some spare cash a while back, and decided to pick up some of these R1 releases, purely out of interest. I was thrown back by the crappiness. While the R2 releases are slightly more expensive, they are original language and subtitled, and the prints are just oozing with quality.
Same scene, from Gamera vs. Viras...
Region 1:
Region 2:
Besides that, Region 2 is just prefect for us Brits