I think Leo sees himself more as a Makai Priest than a Knight, especially since he was rather gifted at creating items like the Priests do and was probably afraid the Senate would force him to be a Knight instead if they were aware of this.

Well, Sigma was suppose to be The Knight of the family. Both him and his brother Reo. Were taught the ways of a Knight by their father. But there father chooses Reo to become the heir. Because although Sigma was strong, he wasn't responsible enough as Reo was. Reo wanted to be a Priest and Sigma wanted to be a Knight. But it didn't turn out that way. :( Yes Sigma is a sore looser. Which is why he didn't get chosen.

Now a Male can be both a Priest and a Knight. There's no rule stating that they can't. But it's extremely rare for a person to be fully trained in both disciplines (like Reo Fudou). Some of the knights-to-be picked up partial priest training and can utilize magic. Like Tsubasa Yamagatana (Dan/The White Knight)

And I also forgot to mention the prequel movie for this series. GARO - Red Requiem. It was the movie which introduced this series, as well as Rekka. :)

I think Red Mask has to be the worst GARO villain yet. Barago was actually pretty interesting and well realised, until he got shafted. The Watchdogs, Echo and Messiah all less so, but since they didn't get explained at all, we could just appreciate them on how badass they were and they were very badass. But not only does Red Mask have a pathetic backstory, he's so ludicrously overpowered he just becomes boring.

Personally, I'd love to be a Priest, rather than a Knight.

Also I watched Red Requiem! It was...okay. I liked it from a storytelling point of view, and the choice to focus on Priests over Knights but the action was really really bad, and GARO had never felt so cheap.

I agree with you, Sigma/Red Mask was a pretty dull villain in my book also. But I loved the twist that they pulled. Because I thought Reo was Red Mask at first too.

Now personally for me I'd rather be both. Like Reo, able to kick butt and cast spells at the same time. Because the Priests are well trained also. But the reason why they created the Knights. Was because it was Horrors who were smarter and/or stronger then they can handle. (recall Red Requiem) So they created The Makai Knights, to be the "special forces" for them.

For me I tend to disregard all of the small stuff and just enjoy the shows. Because it's easy to get caught-up and get disappointed and say screw this show. I felt like that with season 3 and stopped watching for while. But I took my own advise, caught-up on the episodes I missed and finished the season.

Makai Senki 20.

I like how the show seems to have suddenly realised how meandering this series is, and how little of it comes together now we've had some of the big reveals, so they're basically just name dropping plot points of the series in the hope that that counts as tying up the series.

Still, as I've said before, I do really appreciate the scale of this show. I love seeing the entire Horror Hunting community and the effect Red Mask has on them, it gives a greater sense that this is real. We don't have to try and swallow that two people, in a single city, are defending the entire planet.

I must say, despite the primitive CGI, GARO has so many cool visuals that I can't help but appreciate them. The Magic Train has a really awesome design, and the fact the villain, with no hint of humour, rides a train to the fucking moon is just awesome in how utterly ridiculous it is.

So all along, all Kouga had to do, was cut the rubbery arm off? Why didn't he just do that in the first place?
I thought the twist was pretty weak 'oh it isn't Leo after all!...it's his butthurt twin brother...'

Being critical of series, is how I enjoy a series. I don't mean needlessly ripping it apart, but simply saying 'its good' and swallowing the flaws, does not make for good discussion, and these are discussion boards after all.

I always thought the twin brother thing was kind of an ass-pull, personally.

Gonna marathon 21 - 23, take a break, then watch 24 and give my final thoughts, in the final post.

Still not quite made up my mind on the all CGI battles, on the onehand, making everything CGI helps make the cheap CGI blend in more, as there is nothing worse than seeing two practical armours fighting a blurry, jerky, CGI abomination. But of course the only reason the bad CGI blends in better when everything is CGI, is because everything on screen is a jerky, blurry mess and that isn't a good thing at all. Although the weird, ultra clear, cell shaded CGI they used towards the climax was even more jarring.

Although it was super cool to see Zero and Kouga get backed up by the Thunder and Lightning Knights! However it was a shame Wataru had to sit out, when Tsubasa appeared. Tsubasa got a whole movie to be awesome, but Wataru has had barely any screen time at all, and I assume as next season is a whole new story, this will one of his last appearances. Still makes you wonder how much hell is happening in the world right now if all the Makai forces are fighting a single enemy.

How does the armour thing work? Why does Zero, Waturu, Leo and Tsubasa have unique armours, and everyone else has a generic bronze and silver one? I kinda get why Kouga would have one, but this doesn't really make sense...

Then again, it isn't as bullshit as all the power of love stuff. I thought they'd totally abandoned the romance bent, as Kaoru was barely in this series at all but despite totally destroying the emotional resonance of this relationship with the audience, they decide to make it the linchpin of the climax. Although Kouga is a lucky guy, having three babes charging in to save him.

I found it really funny, that of course the two girls fight Shion (I know that isn't her name here) and as it's a fight between three women, there has to be copious amounts of boob and leg fondling. I'm not complaining, but it was just distracting.

The whole 'Kouga is awesome and that is why we must save him' scene felt out of place, in this season. It was the first season really, where Kouga had lots of focus and growth, his character arc over the first season was really amazing. Here however, in the second season, with a more focused villain, new characters like Leo, greater focus on characters like Zero and a higher quantity of action Kouga really hasn't had much of a chance to do anything except swing his sword around, so I didn't feel nearly as much investment in him, as I did at the end of the first season. So I felt a lot of the lead into the climax felt fairly flat, and made Kouga feel unnecessarily like a Gary Stu.

The person I oddly felt the most for here, was Gonza. Gonza is basically Kouga's father, now Taiga is dead, and yet Gonza can do nothing. Kaoru has the power of love, the Knights have their armour, the Priests have their wands. On the one hand Gonza is a lovely guy, and probably, genuinely, didn't want Kaoru in harms way but you could also almost feel his frustration and jealousy as well, as he knows that he can do absolutely nothing to save the most important person in his whole world. Every time Kouga suffers, all he can do is watch.

So what did Red Mask need Ganon for? He seemed to make Edea just fine without Kouga or Ganon. But yes, why are they interfering so much? Zero and Kouga clearly want to have normal lives, and Sigma has built a device to eradicate all Horrors, I don't understand why they are trying to stop him?

So basically they're just doing the same ending from the last series? Spend the whole show establishing a villain, just when he has the upper hand he's consumed by some all powerful female Horror, who claimed to be behind everything the entire time? Blergh.

That was pretty much just a budget thing. There was no feasible way to design and animate hundreds of different sets of unique armor for the final battle. It's still kind of lame, but understandable given the limits of making a CGI-intensive tv series.

Yeah, there are definite echoes in the finale.

That GARO logic infuriates me 'let's take the most expensive route each time, for the least impressive outcome!'. Tokusatsu is plagued with abysmal CGI, but most of the time that CGI is used for things that just couldn't ever realistically be done practically. Here GARO takes the most simple things and turns them into a ludicrously complicated CGI shot that looks a billion times worse than just doing it practically, which would have been easier as well.

Since the next season of GARO is its own unique story, can I watch that as soon as I finish Makai Senki? As I won't have time to watch the two movies until my next day off, and if I can start the third season in the meantime I will.

Yep.

Also, in before Dr Kain tells you not to bother. ;)

Haha he's already told me not to bother, but I want to make up my own mind!

Time for the final episode! Of course Sigma survived, they're ripping off the first seasons ending. Although round two with Sigma was nowhere near as awesome as round two with Kiba but still pretty cool. Although, how could Kouga take Kaoru inside Garo, wouldn't that burn all of her flesh off?

I'm guessing as there is one more movie to go, Kouga isn't dead, but man that ending was confusing. Not even ambiguous, I genuinely have no idea what happened in the last five or so minutes of that episode.

Overall, Makai Senki was enjoyable, but very far from great, and sadly much closer to bad.

You see the thing is, with GARO it's basically a masterpiece for the first twenty episodes (minus a few misses here and there) and then the ending is so bad it sours the whole experience. Or at least it soured my whole experience, because as they wove in Barago as the big bad, it looked like a fairly slow series was really coming together...then we got a revolving door of unexplained villains and it ended.

Makai Senki was in a very similar position, except it was never a masterpiece in the first place. Entertaining, certainly, but great? Certainly not. It's easy to get distracted by the flashing lights, as the action has improved here ten fold, but everything that really needed to be improved...wasn't and some of the best aspects of the first season, were removed entirely for no reason at all.

What we ultimately get is a fantastic popcorn series - I can't stress this enough, this show has some of the best toku action EVER. But everything else...just kinda sucked.

Although initially it seems we're getting a much better written, much more thought provoking GARO, chucking around a lot of interesting ideas and opinions, we're quickly reminded it's GARO as most of it goes nowhere, or leads into such garbled mythology I'm not sure even the characters are following it.

We got a streamlined villain, which is an improvement on the revolving door we got last time, but he was ludicrously overpowered to the point of boredom and despite having a long drawn out mystery surrounding him, the answer to the mystery was almost as uninteresting as the mystery itself.

And yes, once again, pretty much all of this seasons problems come under one huge header 'pace'. Although I don't forgive toku in general, I'm sure it's no easy task to keep up your momentum over fifty episodes, but what is Makai Senki's excuse when this was only twenty four episodes? This was as cripplingly slow and as unnecessarily drawn out as the first season, if not in many ways worse.

And initial saving graces in GARO, like Kouga's wonderful character arc or the genuinely spine chilling horror episodes, are nowhere to be found. They spent so much time and focus on the mystery of Red Mask, or bizarre additions like Baron who amounted to being completely pointless, that existing characters barely got a chance to do anything. Blah.

I hope this entirely new story GARO will be better overall.

I am curious to see what you think of The One who Shines in the Darkness. It lacks a lot of the visual brilliance of the first two shows, but it does try to have a stronger over-arching plot. I think you might appreciate it more because of that.

I'm just about to go out and check the first episode now!

The One Who Shines In The Darkness (fuck writing that every time, let's call it TOWSITD) 01.

It feels weird to have a new pretty boy in the GARO armour, but then it's also kinda okay as the new GARO armour looks barely anything like Kouga's. This new GARO is so sassy, and in stark contrast to Kouga's Eeyore personality, he is pretty damn awesome.

It also looks like they've improved on the visuals a lot as well, the swords no longer look so plasticy, the wirework is much more fluid and the CGI is much more convincing. Although none of the fights in this episode were quite as grand as what we got in the first two seasons, they were still stylish and imaginative enough and well realised enough to be impressive and fun all the same.

Thanks sign, that helped a lot: http://i.imgur.com/3sMFfhq.jpg. And by that I mean it didn't help, at all.

You were expecting that were you? When you saw Sigman unmasked, you thought like everybody else had thought. That son of a b!tch Reo, only when we found out that it wasn't Reo. Could we once again enjoy the recently discovered Makai Priest/Makai Knight Reo. That was what they were going for and that's all that matters to them. How someone personally feels about it, is irrelevant.

I'm critical of things too, I also know that a person can be over critical about things. Which will lead to too many distractions and deprive the individual of actually enjoying the subject/show. There is always going to be something to criticize within everything. Not just live-action Japanese T.V. shows.

If you want to come on a forum and discuss every little detail about a show. - Knock yourself out. But others can also come on the same forum and tell you not to take it all so seriously. It's only a T.V. show after all and the people that actually makes it. Doesn't care what some guy on internet forum have to say about their show.

If I like the show I'm going to watch it. If there's things within it that doesn't add-up. Then I take to forums and address/discuss my grievous about them too. If the same type of issues keep arising within the show. Then I have to ask myself? Do I stop watching this show or is it still enjoyable enough, that I do swallow the flaws about it and keep watching?

Hopefully you now understand what I meant by this. :)

So I'm not allowed to have an opinion and think it's a bad twist? Right...


Being over critical would imply nitpicking, the show wasn't broken granted but there was never a point I was taking a bit of loose thread and making a hole out of it. As I said once before, I don't enjoy switching my brain off and letting a show wash over me, I enjoy a show by watching a show as closely as I can, keeping my mind open and calling out bullshit every time it happens.

People can tell me that, but that doesn't mean I'll listen, I can post however the hell I like. This is how I enjoy shows, if you want to let it wash over you, that is fine, but I refuse to do that. I don't write my criticisms for the makers of the show, I write them because this is a discussion board, a place of opinions and criticisms to be discussed. My posts inspire much more discussion than simply mindlessly saying 'it's good' at every turn.

TOWSITD 02.

I'm impressed that this show is actually trying to world build without unnecessarily bogging itself down with garbled mythology, the mystery of Vol City and The Magic Horrors looks set to be interesting indeed.

The only problem with this is none of it is really original. The made up city ran by a mysterious corporation that presents a utopia, which is in reality rotten to the core. A gang of pretty boy superheroes, complete with a grumpy good old days master, a cocky young one, a girl who takes a shining to the hero but pushes away the advances of the cocky one and a snotty douche with a bow and glasses. Etc etc

As I've said in the past clichés aren't inherently bad, I'll just be intrigued to see if they can turn the tried and tested into something interesting or if they'll just become bland in the process.

Although it doesn't look fantastic, the CGI here is a vast improvement over Makai Senki, the animation is a little jerky still at times but it isn't quite as blurry or of generally low quality so I didn't mind the fight here, it was actually pretty fun. Especially considering they're encountering such strong Horrors already.

What I will say is this seasons main Priest is fucking HOT.

Yeah, Rian is pretty fantastic isn't she :D

especially when she whipped out her magic six shooter, strangely back to basics for a Priest but awesome all the same. Just a shame it was completely inafectual, then again so was the arrow. Thinking about it, this whole scene was a little pointless...

Just try not to think too much about Kouga while watching "season 3". :)

According to interviews it was Amemiya's idea to create a not-to-badass Garo. He even hand-picked Kuriyama Wataru for the role of Ryuga for his nice smile.
Director Yokoyama created the world with the image of 2~3 generations (+ some 100 years) after Kouga's time. The exact timeline is still unsure. They may reveal it at the Golden Wolf Thanksgiving Event in November.

If that's supposed to be 100 years in the future they really should have tried to not make the city and people look completely contemporary.

Yes you are allowed to have an "opinion". I was just reminding you that how you personally felt about the scene. Is irrelevant and only matters to you. My opinion was, I liked the scene. That only matters to me and anyone else who agrees with me.

You posted YOUR review on the entire series. (episode to episode) That is nitpicking rather you realize it or not. The show is designed for you to watch it and enjoy it. (if you do) Not take notes and point out everything that you don't like about the episode.

Episode 1, I wasn't even sure I was watching GARO. Episode 2, Since when could Kouga piece together crime scenes like some kind of supernatural CSI? Episode 3, it was probably the weakest episode so far, feeling noticeably like filler...and on and on.

Yes, you can post "however the hell you like". As I ;) But seeing how you have bare minimum discussions concerning your posts. I thought maybe I would tell you to no one really cares about your opinions. If there's something that catches someone eye. They'll comment on it, like I have.

Other then that the series is over two years old. So we've already had our fill in discussing it. Something you should've taken into account before starting your reviews. Something you should've figured-out, upon seeing bare minimum discussions concerning your comments.

But hey, like I said before, knock yourself out buddy. If that's how you float your boat, then sail on. You keep posting and every now and again if there's something of interest. I'll chime in on it. :)

One of the things that I didn't like about Season 3 is. How could the future Knights be weaker then the Knights of the past?

So you're telling me I shouldn't share my opinion on a discussion board? Thanks for your amazing input.

Reviewing is not nitpicking, what a load of bunkem. Yes, I shared my opinions and thoughts as this is a discussion board. Are you not sure where you are? This post suggests you don't.

This forum has only a handful of regulars, this at one point included me until I got a full time job, as such it's a quiet forum. So although people may not care about my opinion (although I know that isn't true) this is a quiet forum in general, some of the busiest threads are multi purpose ones, where multiple people are all discussing different things at once. I'm surprised for such a little known toku show, there is even people posting in here other than me!

It's a discussion board, discussions don't have a time limit. If you've had your fill discussing the franchise, why are you in the thread? You aren't adding to the discussion, you're just being an obtuse moron telling people what they can and cannot apparently discuss on a discussion board. The fact you can't even get your thick head around that little point makes it all the more hilarious that you think you can talk down to me.

A hundred years in the future?! I just assumed it was an ultra high tech city, maybe ten fifteen years in the future, but not a hundred!

TOWSITD 03.

So what's the deal with these Knights? Minus Tsubasa, everyone had really generic looking weapons in their base form then their weapons would transform into something much more fantastical when summoning their armour. But both totally not gay and totally not Ishida look like they have their armour weapons the whole time.

Either way, I'm not quite sure how to feel about those two yet. Glasses armour is surprisingly bland, even with the asymmetrical helmet, and for whatever reason his armours first appearance got the worst CGI of the episode. And that isn't mentioning his ludicrously elaborate takedown of the Horror. But I know I'm really loving Ryuga. I loved Kouga by the end, but I wasn't enjoying his character this much, so early in the game.

The visual effects in this show are weirdly hit and miss, for the most part the CGI is actually pretty decent (although Glasses McAsshole looked surprisingly pixellated in his armour) and I'm glad Soul Metal now looks like metal (for the most part), but what was with those huge, obviously masks, heads that Magic Horror chick suddenly developed? That looked ridiculous in how fake it looked.

You know it's GARO when random nudity! I actually kinda liked the aftermath of this episode, highlighting how fucked Vol City is, that here Horrors can survive long enough to become obese and get stuck. What the fuck is going on with this city?!

Aguri's bow is close in both forms, but trust me, you'll see how different Takeru's sword looks when he transforms.

Eventually.

You don't actually see the Zen armor until episode 6 or 7.

I don't think I'm gonna like Aguri as a character.

Takeru on the other hand is pretty cool, he's just a bit of a bum, so I didn't except to see his armour for a while.

Feel free to do what you want. :) I'm just reminding you that know one cares about it. Especially when it concerns out-dated material.

Are you not sure the difference between nitpicking and sharing your opinion? I know you don't so I'll explain it to you. Nitpicking, reviewing an entire season of a show. While individually commenting on every single episode and becomes upset, when someone suggests that they (themselves) don't do that. That they (themselves) sit back and just enjoy the show. :D Nitpicking, leads one to want to "share" his opinions and thought. On every single episode within a season, on a "discussion board".

Having an opinion, is watching the complete series, then sharing your thoughts about the show, in one summed-up post, wait for responses, then discuss.

Little known toku show? I'd say Keita and many others would beg to differ. The over-all amount of traffic through here would show otherwise too. ;) But, it is very little posting in here. Which is why we are all surprise that you choose, to write a novel of reviews about a little known toku show.

Your the one being the obtuse moron. :D For I never told you what apparently, you can and cannot discuss. But please go and quote for us, where I apparently gave you those orders. The fact that you can't even comprehend that, is hilarious. Because you've created your own reality. Where none of the things in which you just described, actually happened. :D

If I knew you were going to get your panties in such a bunch. Over something someone else does. I would've just left you to your own delusions. :(

You don't have to, he doesn't really do much. By far the most underused of the main characters.

http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/20...ld-d5xeirg.png

So I guess you still don't know the difference between an opinion, review, nitpicking and what a discussion board is for? That's cool, you're still a noob, you'll learn in time.

Each episode is its own unit, so I believe each episode is worth discussing on its own merits. It's important to talk about a show as a whole unit, but with a show like GARO which can have drastically different feeling of the week episodes, thanks to all the different writers and directors, it's worth talking about episode by episode - and as you can see by my posts, it was never like there was something I struggled to talk about.

It's nothing compared to Kamen Rider or Super Sentai, that is why we have like four or five regular posters in this thread, including me. Go in the what anime you're watching threads, or the what Kamen Rider you watching and that count triples.

That is just how I post, it's how I posted since I joined here earlier this year, no one has ever had a problem with it before you - some people have actually really enjoyed me doing it, which is why I'm going to continue what I'm doing while thinking you're an asshole.

That is also how...every single person on this forum posts as well. A lot of people don't go into as much detail as me, but I used to run a review blog for a hobby and work on a student newspaper doing reviews, so that is just how it comes to me.

Of course it pisses me off, when some noob talks down to me telling me how I can and cannot post while not even having a clue at all, that people 'don't care' about what I post. How about no.

I kinda assumed as much, as he's spent most of the show so far just huffing and puffing in the background.

TOWSITD 04.

It was cool to have more focus on the Security Guardians who had up to this point just been generic and somewhat boring footsoldiers. Still, how pathetic did they look, with how easily Ryuga broke in...and out again? Although I'm glad the Captain isn't as annoying as she once seemed.

I also don't quite get it, I thought the point was that Vol City had allowed Horrors to run wild, so how has Captain not yet managed to bump into a Horror yet? This episode could have been quite enjoyable, seeing the emotional ramifications of seeing a Horror for the first time, but it picked a weird character to make a conduit for this story.

Also, what was with all the first person camera angles in this episode? It was really disorientating and distracting. Then again, a lot of the direction in this episode was baffling, which made it a very weird watch indeed.

These Enhou episodes have a lot of intentionally bizarre cinematography. It's designed to make you feel uneasy and convey kind of a dreamlike sense.

I've taken the liberty of deleting everything within that post. Which I found irrelevant. ;)

Now quote and post for everyone, where I specifically told you how to post. And afterwards I'll be waiting for you to apologize to me for your lies and disrespectful behavior. Now go and find those quotes and post them for us, please.

Because to tell you the truth, you seem sorta looney toons posting the way you do. I know another member in-directly mentioned it to you also. But you didn't catch it. - Why I am not surprised.

Now if I told you how to post on here, then it shouldn't be a problem finding the posts, where I said/told you how to post.

But after you come back from your Imaginary Search. I'll be waiting for that apology. I don't want to reading nothing else from you. Other then proof to confirm your delusions or that apology.

The fact that you have signed-up, only this year and have over 4,000 posts already. Shows us that you have an obsession, the fact you've gotten upset over something that I do. Shows us you have an obsession, the fact that you are coming-up with all sorts of excuses. As to why you post the way that you do, shows us that you have an obsession bordering insanity.

You have more posts then members who have been here for years.

Because this isn't a review blog or student paper, this a public forum. And thanks to you, I now know why certain other forums. Prohibit people from posting back to back to back.

So please go and "review" my posts where I told you how to post and quote and post them for us. I shall be waiting, while knowing that you're an ass-hole who has nothing better to do with there life. Get yourself a girlfriend, get out and meet new people, travel the world. Because posting novels of reviews for only a handful of people to read, quite frankly looks sad and pathetic. :(

I do really dig the style, it just took a while for me to get used to it.

TOWSITD 05.

The sense of flow in these episodes is lost because of the weird direction. For certain scenes the unsettling, dreamlike quality really adds to it, but doing it in every single scene and coupling it with goofy, cartoony sound effects is just annoying.

Man Yoshitomi was a shit boyfriend, huh? He just turned on her immediately. I'm not saying his reaction was wrong, or that I'd do it differently, but you think there'd be some kind of emotional resonance left in him.

Was there any need to have the Speakers Horror survive multiple episodes? He actually served no purpose but they just dragged his screen time out by having him constantly run away. It was just boring.

TOWSITD 06.

Man, I actually really like Takeru, he's really fun. I hope when we finally see his armour, it's more interesting than Aguri's turned out to be. Still, Aguri is growing on me more as a character, I must admit. I like how he's more like a Priest, than a Knight.

The chick who plays Rian, who is GORGEOUS, is such a terrible actress. I find her so distracting to watch on screen, because she's so wooden it's like her dialogue must have been added in post, as nothing about her face matches the words.

Man Bright Hope was a surprisingly great track. Did they release a full version? Ryuga's cover was fun as well, I must say I love him as a protagonist, his actor just appears to be having the time of his life and it comes across in his performance and makes him so enjoyable to watch.

Sadly though, seeing our heroes all fighting together, wasn't nearly as awesome as it seemed like it was going to be. Those bobble head masks are awful looking and the action lacked a certain sense of flow, I dunno, Takeru and Ryuga are both fine - if you ignore how rubbish the armour action has been for the last few episodes - but despite Aguri's style being apparently built on speed and precision, he has neither and despite Rian having awesome magic guns, they lack a sense of impact.

Towsitd 7.

Although there were some missteps, this episode was FANTASTIC. Probably easily the best episode of the entire show yet. And that was largely because this the darkest GARO has been since the Mermaid episode.

I'm not one of those guys who needs grimdark to enjoy a show, but GARO's first season was a masterpiece, and it was at its best when doing horror, so it's been a shame that that was dropped from the show almost all together when Makai Senki came around. I'm hoping that TOWSITD has more horror in its future.

Also man, Takeru's armour is cool as hell!

Was this the episode with the family?