When you think of Tokusatsu what are some of the first things that come to mind. Godzilla and other Toho monsters, Gamera, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Ultraman, maybe some more obscure stuff like Gransizer. While Tokusatsu in Japan is generally any kind of live action series that makes heavy use of special effects, most people would generally point to some of the examples above as to what comes to mind when one thinks of tokusatsu. One thing that you might notice is that many of these series are primarily aim at kids. While certain series have been tonally a lot darker and have subjects that may not be entirely for kids, but these come with toy lines and other kinds of tie-ins with snacks or other things. Yes, often these series are meant to be meant for all ages, but the primary target demographic for some of these shows are young kids to market towards. Yes, their are people who often write off a show if its toyetic (meaning that it is shilling toys alongside the story) and will write off series on this basis alone, its never really bothered, me, if the show can balance telling a story and shilling toys, that is a sign of a good writer, a person who is capable of that kind of balance. But of course that does leave a niche of sorts, there really wasn't toku like sentai or kamen rider that was aimed toward older audiences, until the mid-2000's.
Enter Keita Amemiya, a director and character designer who has done work on some of toei's toku production, notable Kamen Rider Black and RX, Choujin Sentai Jetman, some Metal Hero series like Winspector, alongside that he has done work in gaming notably Shin Megami Tensei IV, Clock Tower 3, and Onimusha 2 to name a few titles. With not only the money he made from his time as a director and the wealth he was born into, Amemiya created a Toku for a more adult audience, GARO. GARO became a major success and is one of the pillar of Modern Toku. So fir the next couple of reviews we will be looking at a couple of series, starting with the original 2005 series. So does it still hold up or is it like most of things about your time in the mid 2000's, embarrassing, trying too hard and wanting to wipe it out of memory.
SYNOPSIS
Since the dawn of time, human's negative emotions have influenced a place known as the Makai World, home of demoic spirits known as horrors, who become capable of breaking into our world when gateways are overflowing with evil energy known as Inga in order to feed on humans, and not in that they feed on our spirits thing, I mean actually eat them. But not all hope is lost for humanity, as an order known as the makai order, a group of knights and priests are tasked with fighting off the horrors and protecting humanity from the dangers they present. Our story here focuses on the titular Garo, the golden Knight, Kouga Saejima. During a seemingly routine dealing with a horror, he runs into Kaoru Mitsuki, a struggling artist who happens to be at the exact same place as the horror Kouga is hunting since she was hoping to finally make her break into the art world. Unfortunately for her, as Kouga kills his target, she is splashed with the horror's blood which essentially is a death sentence, now she is a horror magnet and even if she somehow survives for 100 days, she will still die a rather painful death. Protocol says that anyone splashed with horror blood should be cut down to ease their suffering, but Kouga chooses to spare Kaoru for two reason's, one she reminds him of his dead mother and two, the beacon aspect can help with hunting down horror's, yep this is our hero.
That is the basic setup to say the least, much of the series is primarily one off episodes with the story only coming in near the end of the show which gives more time to characters. In a way, its is similar to Kamen Rider Wizard's setup, focus on characters with a story coming into fruition near the end of its run. But where Wizard squandered its potential throughout, Garo does its characters a lot better, it also helps that Garo is half the episodes of a Kamen Rider, a much more digestible 25 episodes compared to high 40's low 50 episode count. It also helps that the story we do get here is actually pretty solid with some good twists here and there, there are some easy to see coming points in the story and some outright dumb contrivances. but it does come together in the end.
CHARACTERS
Our hero and his ringed companion, rocking one of the coolest jackets ever created
I had some initial concerns about Kouga with how he handled Kaoru's situation by basically doing nothing outside of stalking her and forcing her to live at his place. Yeah if their is a slight issue with the story it is how some people cannot communicate, Okay yeah it would've been difficult to tell her by the way you have 100 days left to live, but he could've at least said, "Listen, when you got splashed with blood, you have become a beacon for those creatures I just killed, you should probably stay with me for a bit." It mostly is that I hate the third act reveal of a lie because at times it comes off as unnecessary drama, as surprise, Kaoru learns about how little time she has left and proceeds to run off into danger. But outside of that slight hiccup which is more a preference to me, I really like Kouga. The fist episode does a well enough job of establishing him, Stoic, serious, and dedicated to his mission, but also a rather lonely soul, with his only real companions being his smart talking ring Zaruba, and dutiful butler, Gonza. As the story progresses, his relationship with Kaoru and later Rei help to soften him and open him up to be a kinder person, there is also a ton of backstory we get on him, and this extends to much of the main cast, as we see how he came to be a knight and something this franchise like for most of its characters backstory, the dead loved one or family member, no seriously if you are in this franchise, their will be a death in your family or acquaintances.
Speaking of acquaintances, Kaoru may seem like a standard damsel in distress...and she is a good chunk of the time, despite that she does manage to stay upbeat despite all of the attempts to eat her, kill her, abduct her, rape her. Kaoru despite serving as something to protect, also offers us some time back in the normal world away from all the crazy horror stuff for the first half before that is ripped away and it in the second half where we are primarily in the world of mysticism. Her part in the story is also as sort of the chew toy because sheesh this story has it out for, between the starving artist stint in the beginning to being given only 100 days to live to becoming a vessel for the end of the world, she almost always tries to take it in stride and that is something I can get behind with how she takes everything around her.
Our secondary hero Ladies and Gentleman, holding our Heroine hostage and claiming that she might be his target (He gets better but for her, well it is probably the least awful thing to happen to her this week.)
Of course as a Tokusatsu in a post 90's world, their is a secondary knight here in the form of the silver knight, Rei. IN comparison to Kouga, Rei appears to be a lot more of a jovial guy compared to Kouga, but like him opts to keep people away from him due to his own tragic past involving dead love ones, it is almost insane how similar their tragic deaths are, father figures killed by a knight and taking up their names, though in Rei's case he didn't just lose his father figure, he lost his lover and also for some reason believes that Kouga, or more specifically the gold knight, was the one to do it. Yeah add another thing to the list of small similiarites, they both can't communicate to save their lives. Okay in Kouga's case it probably is just how he has never really interacted with many people and wanted to use her as bait, so telling her may have made it hard. But in Rei's case, he never asked anyone what the Garo was doing at that moment and this whole thing would be sorted. It is one of the issues of the story of why Rei never seemed to get answers or really talks to Kouga about it, and we end up with drama that feels a little forced rather than realistic, though to be fair their first fight is actually really good looking. But aside from that and an instance of attempted rape on Kaoru, Rei was amazing, Ray Fujita's performance is so full of charisma and coolness that he often owns the scenes he is in making me my personal favorite of knights in this season.
Much of the side characters are more on the one offs with the exception of Zaruba and Gonza, Zaruba is the wisecracking, smartass who assist Kouga in detecting Horror's energy and Gonza is...the butler, there really is not much to say about it, he serves as another normal for the bizarre world. besides that that is Amon and Jabi, connections to Kouga's past that also serve to kick off the plot of the later half of the show's run. The watchdogs and their butler who serve to give out missions, and then Kaoru's psyciatrist Karune Ryuzaki who is...um spoilers below, so if you want to see this fresh beside what I have talked about (this is something that is avaible legally to U.S citizens, so you can buy the dvd, if you can still play them or blu-rays.) You have been warned.
VILLAINS
Behold the true face of evil, a charming Psychiatrist, fear him!
Yeah he turns out to be the big bad of the series Barago, having been the cause behind much of the woes of the main cast. While I do enjoy Kenichi Kobayashi's performance as the fallen knight, the fact that much of him is sequestered into the last 6th of the series leaves him with little to do, he is the evil counterpart to Kouga's good side, a power hungry monster willing to sacrifice anything for ultimate power. Ultimate power that is the mother of all horrors Messiah, which if you know any story, will bite him in the ass (also get use to human villains playing with power far beyond them and it biting them in the ass.)
Outside of him their is the eastern watchdogs and their butler Kodama who turn out to be working with Barago, their revelation of villainy is actually decently, doing their job while also holding back information, that being said they also really don't have much in terms of characterization which yeah is the big problem, while their designs are cool looking, their mostly just evil incarnate and that also extends to Messiah herself, which in her own way is dissapointing as she is just a really tall half naked lady painted bleach white. Its not bad per but it is the de facto weak point of the cast.
AESTHETICS & MUSIC
I like Gold!
Okay back on major positives, is that this series is a treat for the eyes, if their is one that immediately catches the eye is the amount of out of suit fighting Kouga and Rei do in this series and it is always great, it not only shows that our heroes are major asskickers without it but it also helps to give menace to the foes and it has such good use of the camera, there are variations in what is used per fight scenes that help to give each fights their own flavors rather than some gimmick, it is the stand out feature of the show and rarely is their a bad fight, the only one that really comes to mind is the post-final fight against Kiba which sees Kouga and kiba fighting on top of the portal to the makai world as it flies, its just it is a bit too long for my taste and it just keeps going on and on. Of course their is also the CGI that is more hit and miss and more often than not, it is really obvious when they are using it, but it doesn't look awful for the standards of the time and their were films that came out that year that looked a whole lot worse than this (Alone in the dark, Son of the Mask, Sound of thunder.)
Trust me, there are a lot of terrifying one's in this series
Suit wise, Garo and Zero looked really good. As stated in Kuuga I really like the combo of Gold and Black and it works well here, with the black being very small to give the armor this regal look to it and with many of Garo's fight scenes taking place at night. most of my compliments also apply to zero just swapping out gold and black for silver and blue. As for horrors, they run the gambit of cool design to the kind of things you will end up seeing in your nightmares (Hey Haru) There are a few human looking ones like Messiah but much of them are quite terrifying creatures.
Or they play on your phobias like clowns
Garo's musical score is more atmospheric and leaning towards its horror elements. the inital main theme is an instrumental that sounds majestic in its own way, I also like how it is this compared to the second one is much more vague with a couple of shots and when we get to the next while including some of the original imagery, includes some footage from the show. And that second opening, is amazing its hard rock anthem to Garo that is a good blood pumper, it is such a banger it is one of the few openers I find skipping when I watch an episode, speaking of some of the episodes.
FAVORITE/LEAST FAVORITE EPISODES
Fav: Episode 21, Magic Bullet: Kouga is issued a challenge by a mysterious individual and is given until morning to kill his target as he is targete by gunman horros as he must fight them. Easily my favorite set of action pieces in the show of a sword vs an army of gun toting horrors, watching Kouga fight against them and use his skills to evade many of the shots, heck even Zaruba gets a cool moment by catching a bullet in his mouth. It also is an example of more consequences from the earlier episodes which I won't spoil but it is a legitimate tear jerker for the culprits fate.
Least: Final episode, Heroic Spirit, Without spoiling it, this is mosly on the case of the post-final boss fight, it just goes on for far too long, Also not fond of what Messiah looks like, yeah we have had Horrors who still had humanoid looks to them, but for the other of all horrors, I don't know was expecting a more monsterous design. Aside from that, its a solid finale that is bogged down by a few issues.
Fav: Episode 16, Red Sake. A more relaxing epsiode that brings a bit of levity as Kouga reunites with a bit of his past for a game of chess. Even in an episode with very little action their is still tension with the chess game, it also serves to begin what is GARO's endgame.
Least Fav: Episode 17, Aquarium. Look, if there is one trope I hate it is the lie comes out, mistrust happens and the group spilts up. That's not to say it works but, it just comes off as really bad drama for me, and yeah, I don't like it here either, not only does Kaoru make the dumbass move of leaving one of the very few people who can fights Horrors, she doesn't even go to the other one who could defend, instead wandering the city until her psychiatrist finds her and let's her stay with him, its not a good start to the final 3 of the series.
CONCLUSION
While it doesn't do anything groundbreaking storywise and the villains are not the most interesting. I can say that GARO: Chapter of the Black Wolf is an amazing series. The main cast is likeable and has some good depth, the action is amazing and shows the talent and experience of a man like Keita Amemiya and it is able to build quite a good atmosphere in its run that feels different from what I have watched prior. If you find yourself wanting something a bit different, than the first Garo still holds up to this day.
FINAL GRADE:S- or A+
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