As stated in the Red Requiem review, Chapter of the black wolf was not a ratings success for Tv-Tokyo, which of course in the volatile land of TV, leads many new shows to only have the singular season. Granted its boon in popularity in the 2010's did happen, in the mid to late 2000's their were only two options for fans. The original series and one year after the finale of Chapter of the Black wolf, a two-part tv special that serves as an epilogue to the TV series. Sort of in the way of Lament its less of closure for the characters, but yet another adventure for the heroes as a new crisis faces them. As what was potentially the last Garo related material before Red Requiem, does the white night offer a good last journey, or should we go back to our dark knight of the black wolf.
Some time after the events of Chapter of the black wolf, Kouga is visited (or more specifially, he rescues) a makai priestess in training named Rin Yamagatana. She brings a message from the afterlife from Kouga's old Makai priest friend Amon and explains that Jabi was not fully killed at the end the climax of chapter of the black wolf, and her spirit is stuck in the spirit world with a Makai beast known as Miki. As Kouga travels with Rin to rescue Jabi, a horror has been reawakened and begun to create a horror army as a ritual to keep the world whole is threatened by this legendary horror's revival
While this special was initally released as two episodes, it does work as a whole movie, granted, you can tell where part one ends and the second part begins, but despite that it does feel like one cohesive film. Despite that it does carry some issues of the main show over here, Legules has the same problem as Karma, he's talked up as this big threat and while their is some attempt at giving him some unique characteristics with his camraderie with his horror Kin, he's just living evil that wishes to cover the world in darkness, a fine threat just nothing chapter of the black wolf already did. Meanwhile with the two major returning character, Rei takes a bit of a back seat for this, he does have good chemistry with some of Tsubasa's disciples, but he is in a supporting role here. Meanwhile, we get more on Kouga's own past that shows us why he is who he is today, but also shows how he has opened up since the beginning of the show, just how he reacts when Kaoru's painting is damaged by rin's attempt to show off can tell he cares about her more than how he first view her.
Two of the new characters that play major roles on the other hand, don't give the best impressions, Tsubasa, the midnight sun knight, comes off a bit of dick, never willing to listen to people who fall out of his world view, and doesn't really do anything to endear to us, like how he reacts to Jabi or just willing to kill his sister just by being drenched in horror blood. While their are instance where we can agree with him, he never endears himself to us. Meanwhile his sister RIn is actually solid, she's not that annoying as far as child actors go, and we do see that she is an capable as a priestess, even if their probably should have been help with the first episodes climax, but she does kind of end up being a damsel in distress by the second episode, needing to be helped twice, but as far as child actors goes, rin's not one of the worst ones.
Tsubasa in his natural habitat, escalating conflicts without listening
And aside of my issues with Tsubasa, the the plot of the special is really strong, it sets its goals from the get go and you know what they are trying to achieve. Really the only major isssue with it is a small issue of continuity, so remember how in chapter of the black wolf one of the main plot points was curing Kaoru of her horror blood poisoning, and how it took much of the series to do. Well it turns out to be rather simple as Jabi just heals it, no real tension about it, she just does it and that's it, kind of cheapens the whole journey when it is appearently that easy. but aside from that one continuity snarl, the special is paced well, has solid character moments (Rei interactions with the disciples shows a different side to the knight now that his family's death is not weighing on him.) And the action is still at the top of its game...mostly.
While the series does mostly live up to the high standards of action set through most of the series up to that point, its close to the climax star wars-esque forest fight where the characters are moving at super sonic speed, is the low point of the action to this point, its so obvious its green screen and compositing and it just keeps going on and on and it just pulls you out of it and only about a hour earlier, it got of too a fantastic start with its opening fight scene that included Kouga slicing a horror in half after jumping off a flaming car...let that sink in we go from flaming car slice to boring poorly done star wars endor chase rip off.
Join the family of Legules, you get benefits, a cool mask, you are forever his slave who shall help in bringing about the end of the world.
Despite the above mentioned issues, Demon beast of the white night is a fantastic special. Expanding the world around Garo while still keeping the high quality of action the main series gave out. while it doesn't fully open the world to us, it gives us a sneak peek at what we would expect of the world...in a few years when the franchise is revived because again, the original series didn't do that well initally.
FINAL GRADE: A+
Comments