[Switchblade]

The new Keita Amemiya/Toshiki Inoue joint has started airing. The raw of episode 1 is up and floating around the interwebs. So far no sub group has openly stated that they're working on it, but I assume someone will grab it (TVN is probably a safe bet, Over-Time is apparently now considering it).

So far, the show is... well, let me put it this way: you know how the third series of Garo felt really noticeably different? Gouraigan feels like old school Garo. The action scenes are full of the same kind of crazy visual designs and ideas that were part and parcel with Amemiya's Garo. The suits (and yes, there are real suits) are incredibly detailed and insane... for the most part. There are some kind of monsters already living on Earth - I'm not sure what they are (ich spreche nicht japanisch), but only our main heroine can see them - who have some relatively simple and grungy looking designs. Gou and the other main guys, though... damn.

I kinda pieced together what was going on based on the pre-release summary, but I definitely want to see this subbed. Basically, though, Gou is sailing through space on a big ship piloted by a small, almost completely naked AI woman (who may or may not also be his sword - it's hard to tell). The ship is attacked by a crazy Amemiya monster. Gou beats it, but in the process his ship is damage and crashes, unleashing a group of prisoners he was carrying (one of whom kills and steals the form of Jetman's Toshihide Wakamatsu - I assume he'll be the main villain). Gou is about to commit ritual suicide, but a black smoke creature in a white suit stops him by saying a lot of stuff I didn't understand a lick of.

Meanwhile, there is a Japanese school girl. She can see the monsters. That's about all I can figure out about her.

But yeah, on at least a purely visual level this show is definitely hitting all of my buttons: awesome suits, cool fights, crazy over-the-top visuals, inventive scene transitions, and boobs. Obviously, I can't speak much to the story, but so far nobody's fallen in water and that's always a good sign for an Inoue show. I liked it, though, and I hope to see this with proper subs.