[Switchblade]

Went ahead and watched the raw because I am not waiting another week for new Garo. Obviously I'll need to come back and watch it again with subs (possibly twice if TVN gets theirs done first), but so far I agree with most of what Blade Raider said.

There is definitely a Western vibe to this show, in terms of visuals, music, and characters (and not just the cute cowgirl Makai Priest in the ending credits). Ryuga has a definite "drifter" vibe to him that reminds me a bit of some of Clint Eastwood's films, especially A Fistful of Dollars. He's a lot more emotive than either Eastwood or Kouga, though, and he's shaping up to be an intriguing protagonist. Hard to get a strong sense of the others so far, but their basic personalities come off pretty clearly in just their first scenes.

Vol City has me intrigued. It's hard to tell how widespread their military police are without subs - I assume it's just a local thing, though. They are pretty badass, though, and I'm eager to see what their deal is. The biggest thing I noticed was the sign outside of town. It's full of engrish, but it mentions both futuristic technology and being built on top of ancient ruins. I'm thinking we're looking at a Poltergeist situation here with that, although the question is whether the city was put over the ruins for nefarious purposes or just out of sheer dumb luck.

In any case, Ryuga totally ruined that groom's honeymoon.

Also, the guy in the car? Totally Tachibana Tobei's son. They should've had him be driving a yellow jeep.