Yeah, while I thought it was far superior to Red Requiem, it served absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Even the girl was entirely pointless.

Seeing as how it hasn't even hit theaters yet, probably not until the end of the year, if that. I mean, look at the other Garo movie. That came out in what, August and has yet to hit video? It also took Super Hero Taisen 8 months to hit video as that came out in April in theaters and video in Dec.

The Kiba special did also set up the idea of Ganon and its corpse being stolen, which went on to be a major plot point in Makai Senki.

Yes, but it isn't like Ganon was mentioned beforehand anyway. If anything, Kiba set up Makai. That still does not make it important, especially since that fortune teller lady was never heard from again.

I wish corn syrup would stop popping in my head when I see this topic.
KARO corn syrup.

By the way, is this a "teamwork and giant robot" Sentai-esque series or a "full armored character devolpment" Rider-esque series?

By those narrow definitions it's definitely closer to the latter. Garo's a pretty dark and mature series about a knight who battles demons that try to invade our world. It's got a lot of good character moments and, while the hero does have armor, most of the fighting is done untransformed with a lot of wire work. The visual designs are amazing and the show has a really rich mythology. Watch it.

Just not at work. :p

Just watched the first episode of GARO again, now I have someone to talk about it with.

The episode constantly bordered between being fucking awesome and trying way too fucking hard. The awesome bits certainly outweighed the forced and naffer bits, but it's a shame there even were those naffer bits.

It certainly would have helped if the show didn't feel so dated, but you forget this is nearly ten years old already. What certainly helps the show is how it feels like a much more hardcore Wizard - a series I fucking love, and uses so many urban fantasy tropes, my favourite genre.

Wizard did get compared to Garo a lot when it started airing.If urban fantasy is your thing, you're going to love the hell out of Garo.

Garo 02.

Man Kaoru is annoying. So fucking beautiful though. I guess at least they've given her an in story reason to be in direct danger every episode. Not that that makes it any better.

Everything else? Eh. The action sequences sure are flashy, but the overuse of bad CGI is a disappointment, as are the goofy cartoon like sound effects that feel out of place. Still, fighting in actual urban environments is refreshing, rather than jump cutting to the cheapest location they could find. And it is nice that Kouga is a badass, that the show doesn't feel the need to drip in explanations.

Plus, the CGI at least allows them to add little details that I really enjoy. I love the way the ground cracks beneath their feet, the way things break as they collide into them, the speed people move and the weight behind their punches. It sounds daft, but these are things that are often oddly omitted from toku fight scenes. I think Garo is one of Toku's best representations of two super powered beings clashing.

The only real issue I have with this, is Kouga is so fucking powerful in his civ form, I have no idea why he really needs to transform at all. I mean I know like once he transforms he takes them down in like a single hit, but I'm pretty sure he could defeat the Horrors so far without transforming. Plus, the tired old question, if he can defeat the Horrors in a single attack when he transforms, why prolong the fight so much by fighting in his civ form?

In terms of plot, it is nice to see toku approach an episode about money without immediately connecting it to greed. I've always hated that irony, toku, franchises built around selling plastic to children, condemning anyone who needs or likes to have money. Hypocrites. Here, the show recognises how useful money is to people, and that necessity of it in day to day life.

Out of story, it's because that suit is so damn heavy that they can't use it for very long. It's either have it for those brief moments of awesome or go all-out CGI like the third season has done, and Garo doesn't really have the budget to do that very convincingly unfortunately.

Plotwise, I tend to just put it down to summoning the armour when he really needs to. He's on a limited time frame as it is (what is it, 2 minutes or so? They've pretty much dropped it from later seasons so I don't remember) so better to wear the Horror down using his own skills than jumping straight into the armour.

There's a very good reason why the armor isn't used much - they do explain that. And there will be some fights that involve much longer armored sequences.