[GoldenXtreme]

I finished watching the original Garo TV series. This was actually a show I tried to watch years ago, but I got derailed partway through and didn't finish it. I have a feeling the opinions I am about to share are going to be unpopular, but here goes!


The Good

• I did a little research and this show had almost double the budget of most of its contemporaries! Though the CGI use can be heavy at times, it really does deliver on some absolutely spectacular fights with all kinds of crazy wire action and creative choreography. Later on I think the show gets a better balance of CGI vs practical effect work too.
• Great suits! The hero's look like they are wearing proper armor and the Horrors usually look properly grotesque and organic.
• I do feel like their is a certain charm to the show, its so serious about what it is doing that you can't help but root for it.
• I liked the Magic Bullet episode, that one was lit.

The Bad

• In spite of the horror genre and occasional very horny part of the show, I don't really think Garo took advantage of being aimed at adults. It isn't really thematically more sophisticated than contemporary Rider shows, and in fact often comes across as MORE immature than them due to it's "edgy teen" sort of writing, where it flirts with dark concepts but doesn't really have the skill to analyze them.
• On the topic of Rider... this show felt a bit lacking in identity because it was just too dang similar to a Rider show, and not even a particularly good one.
• Let me be blunt. I think the writing in this show is laughable. The character arcs are generic and get resolved with no fanfare, the scary elements are usually so goofy as to be hilarious, the cast is unlikable, the romance has no chemistry, things get brought up out of nowhere, etc. It's so uninspired and amateurish, to the point I was regularly laughing out loud.

The Other

• I think this show has the exact same vibe as an M rated PS2 action game. It probably aged about as well as one too!
• Kaoru has no sense. This woman would follow Jason Voorhees into a knife factory.
• I genuinely think that this show is on the same level of legendary meme tokusatsu as the first half of Kamen Rider Blade. I will die on this hill.

I hope the later entries are a lot better? I really like a lot of the ingredients this show is cooking with, but it didn't make good use of them!