[DreamSword]

Episode 6: Beauty

If any of you actually get the joke behind this edit then congrats, you have a fondness for obscure horror games just like I do.

As for the episode itself, this one cleared a few things up for me.

The big one being that, I'll be honest, I so far wasn't exactly seeing what made GARO here an "adult" toku, especially given the time of 2005. Alot of the content in it lined up with stuff already going on in Kamen Rider.

But then the premise of this episode came, and things started to make sense. The Horror Plot this time being about one possessing an old hooker, and tying into that(though very much a minor detail in the grand scheme of it all), Kaoru unknowingly taking a job interview for a bar/whore house hybrid.

And while that in itself is already an interesting hook(pun slightly intended), it somewhat unfortunately also has to share time with the arrival of Rei, another Makai Knight known as Zero. And I feel it's sort of apt to compare this to Kamen Rider too, given how Rei very much reminded me of Daiki from Decade in terms of both spotlight stealing and personality.

I'll give the episode some credit in that the primary focus this time around seemed to be about the action and building a mystery around Rei, and in those respects it does do well, I just wish it had leaned a bit more in either direction since combining those aspects with a Horror Plot that I felt had some solid potential made things feel uneven. I think that, had they made Rei only fully reveal himself at the very end after the Horror had been dealt with, that it would've worked a bit better for me, as him being the one throwing the Haja Daggers from the shadows was already enough to establish that he had it out for Koga.

Still, I get the general idea. Rei is very much meant to be the foil to Koga, and that's highlighted in alot of ways. From his outfit, to him dual wielding, to how he gets directly involved in human affairs, it's quite the interesting turnaround from the usual Main/Secondary Rider dynamic that we see alot of, and in that respect I very much dig it. Plus just from his introduction alone I can tell that Rei won't annoy me as much as say, Date or Kosuke, so that helps.

But yeah, this episode isn't bad, I just felt there was a bit of a better way to balance the two plots that it had. Or alternatively, just hard focusing on one or the other would've worked alot better to my tastes. What seemed to be the overall message about inner beauty felt a bit under cooked too. Koga's' prank giving Kaoru a hangover was pretty amusing though.

Next episode is one where I assume we'll get to see the Silver Knight in all of his glory, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.