[Fish Sandwich]

Okay, all caught up on those little extras! (Although now that you've teased me with that screencap of behind-the-scenes retrospective stuff, I might have to go watch that at some point too.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Episode 26: Smile

I really really really liked this thing. Very broadly speaking, it's sort of like "what if GARO did a Hyper Battle Video?", but the dang thing just elevates itself so much throughout. When it wants to be wacky and fun, it's incredible at it. When it wants to maintain the usual strong atmosphere with the whole theatrical theming (i.e. literally the entire time), it never misses a step, and when it wants to deliver some inward-driven, emotionally resonant storytelling about what it means to be an artist, it just totally lands the material. Utter delight from start to finish, this thing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamSword

Beast of the Demon Night

This thing, though, holy s***, I think this is like a straight masterpiece? It's sort of hard to say, since I'm writing this shortly after watching it, but, *because* that's when I'm writing this, I can still feel that slightly faster than normal pounding of my heart that's telling me in no uncertain terms that I was supremely enthralled by this special.

It's at once a perfect encapsulation of everything that made me enjoy the series, a slick and successful expansion of that series that does something totally different and new, and, beyond that, just a real darn good movie.

The thing I noticed about it right away, that drew me in more than anything, was how it takes the more relaxed pacing scenes are allowed to have with a feature-length runtime, and meshes that with a narrative that's focused on nostalgic remembrance of the past, giving the basic change in style a level of thematic purpose it so did not need to have. We're mostly leaving the city behind for more rustic locations steeped in tradition, we've got old characters returning, lots more exploration of legacy, and Kouga's reward in the end, rather than deep personal growth, is simply the warmth of being able to recall a precious moment from his childhood.

It's just so dang rock solid, and there's a million smaller things I adore about this script beyond that too. Just as an example, I'm glad I did give it that bit of space from the show, because reintroducing both Kouga and Rei in that sort "day on the job" context where we get some hero action from them right away is a smart move for something that is acting as a sort of comeback for these characters and their world after some time away. All around, the sense of setup and payoff is crazy strong too, with it really feeling like there's nothing wasted in the narrative at all. Everything has its role to play, and loads and loads of things established early on take on a greater purpose of some sort by the end. Like, how cool was it when Kouga has Rin help him fly to her rescue by doing that trick with her brush?

Which brings me to the next, very obvious point, which is that the action sequences are insanely well thought out, to the point where I almost sort of hope other film and television people see this stuff and feel shame, for not going this all out? The creativity in the setpieces and the execution of those ideas never disappoints. I recall seeing Switchblade mention how higher resolutions don't do the CG in GARO any favors when recommending fansubs to DreamSword, and having seen this stuff now, it's like -- when your grasp on the craft is this strong, that doesn't matter at all. The *real* details, the way shots are framed and edited and all that, it's always going to hold up. GARO can look as fake as it wants to and still look incredible. Getting compared to a video game is usually a cheap insult for something live-action, but when I'm saying it about GARO, it's the greatest compliment I can think to pay to it, because it bursts with that same level of unrestrained imagination you don't usually find on TV or in movies.

So, uh, yeah, man, I freakin' loved this one, if you can't tell. Very glad to be leaving GARO off on yet another amazing note for a while.

I'll say it again, but GARO really pulled me in immediately, for pretty similar reasons to what DreamSword described in his final thoughts post. There was this biased part of me that kind of expected a series like this to pick that adult audience and suddenly get all these funny ideas in its head about how it has to be super edgy, or subversive, or winkingly self-aware, or whatever else. Essentially, something that would make me want to call it "pretentious". But GARO ain't that! It sticks to the fundamentals, with very straightforward, traditional storytelling, and instead worries about just doing that to the full extent of its ability.

I don't know too much about Amemiya's influences, but the overwhelming vibe I got from this series is that it's simply him very honestly trying to make the tokusatsu hero show he wanted to see himself. Like, half the reason it's an adult tokusatsu show is probably just because he wanted the monsters to actually be as scary as toku baddies felt to a small child, and the other half was just to do something outside the usual constraints that come with how heavily merchandise-focused these things have to be.

The results speak for themselves. I'm going on a pretty long ramble here because I do that when I'm excited, but nothing I can say here is ever going to be as well constructed as the show I've spent the last month watching is. The smartest thing I've probably said about GARO in this whole thread was right at the start, when I implored everyone to avoid making the mistake I did by sleeping on it for so long.