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DS Wants You! To Watch Toku(-inspired) Anime!
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10-02-2020, 04:04 PM
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147
DreamSword
Some guy. I'm alright.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Michigan
Posts: 4,321
Overall thoughts on Garo: the Animation
I honestly never know how to properly start things like this, so I'mma just start babbling and we'll see where this goes, I guess.
The Garo franchise is one that I kinda didn't know what to expect, honestly.
Before the anime premiered a few years back, I had never even heard of Garo despite having interacted in other Toku circles for a good many years. And even when the anime was going on, other things kept getting in the way of me seeing it.
Fast forward to now and yeah, despite being a(in my experience atleast) less known and talked about franchise... if this anime is anything to go by? I can definitely see why alot of more hardcore Toku fans love GARO so much(by the way, is GARO meant to be all caps or not? I see conflicting things).
Rather than simply doing my usual beige prose(seriously, you have no idea how much alot of those Kikaider posts took out of me to type), I'm going to try and give full overview on what I thought in this show worked, what I felt didn't, and also give a list of some of my favorite aspects of the show. Hopefully I can also give some advice to those who wanna get into this show but are unsure.
In the interest of ending things on a positive note, let's start off with the bad, and then the good, and then the final word.
THE BAD
-Episode 7. No really, just the entirety of episode 7. That's not to say it's unwatchable by any stretch, but it's a complete waste of an episode. Nothing important happens in terms of the plot, Leon's' character arc doesn't progress in any meaningful way, and despite it feeling like two separate episodes glued together, both aspects of the episode are done way better in other episodes. The "Previously On" segment of episode 8 tells you all you need. Skip it.
-Plot elements that are never elaborated on. There's alot of little things that are brought up only to never be elaborated on or that simply go nowhere. The most blatant one being German's' promise to find Bernardo a successor for Zex never getting followed up on. But there's other small things like the mysterious video camera in episode 15, Garo and Gaia not having mounts, and just various little details that you'd never piece together without having already seen the live-action show. It's nothing deal breaking, but it is definitely distracting.
(By the way thank you all for filling me in on alot of those gaps!)
-The CG Suits. Look, I'm sure the animation staff had their reasons for making the Makai Armors being almost the only CGI in the show, and while it did grow on me over the course of the anime, I still don't like it, ya dig? The model quality and general art style of those models often make seeing details really difficult, especially given alot of fights take place at night or in dark areas. I do really wish the Armors had been drawn, because I do rather like them from purely a character design standpoint. Maybe hiding details was the point? But if so, if you're basing yourself on a Toku and you're afraid to show off your suits, well... I think that says alot, personally.
-The absolutely forced romance between Emma and Leon. If you want the full details on my big hang up with this, go read my breakdown of episode 23. But in an attempt to keep it short: The relationship was absolutely forced, and I hate when stories pair two characters up solely because of the idea that men and women can't simply just be friends. Don't get me wrong, there is validity in representation via properly written romantic relationships(LGBT representation, to give the most obvious example), but friendships are every bit as important, and I feel that the idea that people of different genders can just be friends needs to be reinforced. To give the writers some credit though, they did atleast seem to realize the romance came out of nowhere and had the two break up at the end. Even if they brought it up again in the movie.
Aaannd that's about all I can think of for the bad. Onto...
THE GOOD
-The music. I was informed that the team who did the soundtrack for this anime also did the music for Yoko Taro's' games(Drakkengard, NieR). And MAN does it show! Just like those games, I absolutely loved the music this show had to offer, and I definitely wanna track the official soundtrack down to buy, if it exists. If you need an example of how the soundtrack not only sounds great but fits absolutely perfectly to anything going on in a given episode, watch(or rather, listen to) episode 9, which is when the soundtrack REALLY popped out at me for the first time.
-The action sequences. One thing this show never once skimped on was just how intense and creative every fight scene was. Especially once the endgame hits, well, to give a comparison every "anime normie" would make, stuff almost gets to Dragon Ball Classic levels to stuff flying all over the place. The biggest compliment I can give being that not once did I ever lose track of anything going on during a given fight. The choreography was swift, meaningful, and easy to follow. And really, crazy stuff like having a battle ontop of spinning girder that's free-falling from miles high in the sky not only embraces how ridiculous Toku can get, but really shows the advantage that animation can have over live action, and I loved every second of it.
-The character writing. Man, this is what I would consider Garo's' biggest strength. Some relationship fumbling aside, I absolutely loved nearly every character that GARO sent my way. From Leon learning to let go of hatred, to German learning to properly love again, to Bernardo learning that you can't punish the whole for the actions of the few, basically every character arc was done extremely well, ontop of the characters themselves being extremely likeable thanks to their personalities, actions, and actors. There were very few moments where I felt any given character acted out of character, and many of their actions and responses towards given situations were totally logical or meshed well with their established personalities. Characters more than anything are what make or break stories for me, and GARO most certainly delivered on what I probably value most in terms of storytelling.
MY FAVORITE THINGS
Favorite Character: Alfonso. This is my purely guessing here, but I imagine most people's' favorite characters from this show are either Leon or German. But for me, the Prince himself ended up being the character I liked most. Not only is his personality extremely likable given that'd pretty much be the main character in any given JRPG, but his arc never actually fumbles unlike everyone else in the main cast. Is he an especially deep character? No, but he doesn't need to be, nor does any other character for that matter. His arc is simple and straight-forward, certainly, but the execution is what counts, and it's executed extremely well. I personally just felt it was a shame that he sorta fell to the wayside by the end, despite early signs pointing to him being the deuteragonist. Aside from that, he's strong, he's kind, he has multiple aspects to his personality, and he's all around just a swell dude.
Favorite Episode: Episode 18(Scar Flame). This was all around a perfect episode. Great visuals, great music, wonderful atmosphere, fantastic character interaction, a great turning point for Leon and German, and probably the best fight scene in the entire show. It felt like a humongous step up in terms of the story, and I loved every second of it. I won't go into any more detail here, but if you wanna know more, well, kinda did a whole post on it earlier.
With all that, let's get to the wrap up.
OVERALL RATING AND FINAL THOUGHTS
I overall give GARO: The Animation a rating of
5/6
. It's a really well done show! It has a few things that hold it down just that little bit from being one of my favorites, but man if I didn't have a great time watching it. A friend of mine used it as his introduction to the franchise, and I gotta say, it most definitely worked for me too! Whether it be the other seasons of the anime, or getting started on the live-action show, I'll definitely be trying to catch up on the franchise now. If the other entries into the franchise offer even half of what this anime did, I think I'm in for a good time.
And that's about all I can think to say! What did you all think of the show as a whole? And as always, if you have any suggestions on what I should check out next, feel free to suggest! I will be taking a break for a bit though; There's some other stuff I wanna focus on for right now.
Still, if you have any further thoughts on the Garo or Kikaider anime in the meantime, feel free to voice them!
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Last edited by DreamSword; 12-10-2020 at
10:24 PM
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