[DreamSword]

I just wanna give a quick congrats to Die for recently finishing his watch of Kamen Rider Blade. It ended up being a fun thread overall, so if you've seen Blade or wanna watch alongside his posts, by all means, I recommend that you do! I know I certainly had a good time there.

As for me, I was originally going to watch Ultraman Nexus next, but the official subs don't drop onto TokuShoutsu until November. Then, I decided I should watch Kamen Rider Super-1, but I'm told the subs are terrible and I should wait until Bereke Scrubs finishes their version, so I am. As such, I believe it's time to start my next Toku anime. That anime being...

Garo: The Animation

And this is actually a show that I've never seen before. I knew of its existence, thanks to a friend of mine who used the show as his intro into the Garo franchise, but I never got around to it. Back when the show aired, there was a bunch of other stuff keeping me busy in terms of media, and as such, Garo kept getting pushed further and further down on my list.

Thus, this time around I'm kinda relying on anyone else who's seen the show to fill me in on trivia and such, since I'm basically just going to be reacting to each episode as I see it. Yet again I'll be watching the dubbed version, this one being done by FUNimation.

That said, like I've stated before and even added to the opening post, if at any point in the future anyone has anything to say about Kikaider, then by all means, say it! I'm always down to talk about one of my favorite anime ever. Heck, Magnugiga is currently making his way through the show right now! Right on, dude!

With all that said, here we go...

Episode I: Hellfire

Oh, sorry, I seem to have clicked on the Netflix Castlevania Anime by mistake, one sec.

...

No, no, this is the right show. But man if they don't open similar. They even have a rather similar atmosphere about them too, but hey, I like the Castlevania Anime, so I'm down.

One thing I'll point out right away too is that I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the Makai Knights being rendered in all CG against a world that seems fully drawn? Like, I think I get why they did it but I dunno, maybe it's just the 90s anime fan in me, but I think it'd've been alot better and looked way cooler had they been drawn instead.

That aside, if the opening being an active Witch-burning hadn't been enough, this show makes it clear pretty fast that it's not afraid to go certain places.



Yeah, I won't lie that I winced more than once during the sequence where a bunch of Witches and Warlocks get brutally murdered.

I'll also give major props that, atleast in terms of this first episode, they knew how to keep the mood going. Even during the one comedic segment halfway through the episode(which I did laugh at), it's simply to lighten things up a small bit in order to get the viewer ready for its action climax, all the while not totally dropping its darker atmosphere. Not Kikaider levels of moody and dark mind you, but dark.

Speaking of action, the climax itself was really cool. You could tell everything that was going on, and the animation itself worked out pretty well. I especially liked the Transformation Sequence for Leon, which reminded me alot of the Morphing Sequence for Solaris Knight from Power Rangers Mystic Force, to be honest.

Also is it me or does Alfonso look like Guy from Tales of the Abyss?




But yeah, overall, good first episode. I dug it.