[Locke]

Now Teen Wolf is all caught up with, back to GARO and I'm on episode nine!

Kaoru is cute and all, but I don't see why so much of this episode should be focused on her character, I don't care about her at all. And sure she is important to the story, but in a forced fashion, they should be using this time to have her sharing scenes with Kouga, so we can see why he'd go down the same path as his father for her.

As of right now, their entire relationship is defined by Kouga going 'she's a bit fit' and Kaoru being a sort of less agonising tsundere, that doesn't make for a fun character dynamic or an engaging romance. What is it with these shows and their reluctancy to express romance on screen? Even toku 'couples' aren't even shown to share a hand hold, let alone anything else, and it makes it completely unconvincing.

The fight with his inner Garo was a lot of fun, largely because it minimised the quantity of CGI used and concentrated more on practical stunts, and wirework, and looked absolutely fantastic for it. It was also nice to see Kouga knocked down a peg. I didn't really get the resolution of this battle though, all along he had to...self harm or something? And he overcame a fear he didn't address? And that was important apparently. And the sword was iron because his shadow isn't a Horror and that is important and surprising because of some reasons?

The other battle this week, with Humpty, was less impressive. Humpty himself looked fine, but the battles with him were almost entirely done with poor CGI. Kouga's new upgrade, with the horse and buster sword was pretty neat though.

GARO 10.

The clown and his puppets weren't even creepy, they just look stupid. I guess that is part of why it is fucked up, but he certainly was no Joker, that is for sure. The Goblin King clown thing that he turned into was pretty awesome though, even with the so so CGI.

I can't get over the similarities between this and Wizard. Kouga practically looks, sounds and acts like Haruto, and they basically are exactly the same character. Then there is Zero, transforming and crying, "it's show time!", before charging into battle. Wizard really did rip this show off blind, didn't it? Then just made it slightly more kid friendly.

It's amazing how every character in toku shows has dead parents. They do realise that if you kill off everyone's parents, the effect you are trying to convey loses meaning? I don't see that as a dramatic thing any more, I see it as something you just assume in toku shows.

Kaoru is in another job?! Jesus.

GARO 11.

Man this episode had some really great visuals, I love how the Shadow Realm was depicted. Both statically, and when Kouga was taking part in the games. It looked deliberately artificial, but convincingly alive at the same time. Alive with motion and colour. It's odd though that some of the other real world sets looked so incredibly cheap, but I guess the money usually spent on those were used for the Shadow Realm instead. It's just a shame that the actual Horror himself, looked so immensely goofy. Why was Kouga able to summon his armour in the Shadow Realm? It's been shown before that when a Horror controls a space, they can stop him summoning it.

A human soul is 21 grams? Well that is different.

This was my favourite part of the episode: . Thanks TVN.

GARO 12.

So Kouga's origin story. I'll be honest, I really don't care for Kouga as a protagonist, he is basically everything the haters claim Haruto is and when I saw how clichéd his origin story, I rolled my eyes regularly. However, when it all came together, it was actually a really well done episode and really did a great job of explaining to the audience why Kouga is the way he is now, and gave me new found appreciation for his character. I can't say I exactly like him, because I don't, but it's surprisingly rare for a backstory to fit so perfectly into place to explain the way a character is.

Also, his Dad was seriously fucking cool.

GARO 13...was a clip show? Aw damn, there goes my before work entertainment then. I wonder if I can download and watch something in the twenty minutes I have left this morning. I doubt it.

GARO 14.

Yay an episode focused on Zero! It's just a shame it's all so limp wristed and rushed. Harut-...I mean Kouga's backstory was way better handled, and I think he is the weaker of the two characters.

Other stuff failed to impress as well. Seeing the two Knight's on their horses fighting like a thousand Horrors, was really cool, but ruined by being done almost entirely by very poor CGI. GARO's CGI is about that of the same quality of Faiz', which came out like three years before this show, and that says everything. It was like they went through a portal to a cutscene from a late PS2 game or very early PS3 one.