[Switchblade]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Since the next season of GARO is its own unique story, can I watch that as soon as I finish Makai Senki? As I won't have time to watch the two movies until my next day off, and if I can start the third season in the meantime I will.

Yep.

Also, in before Dr Kain tells you not to bother.

[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

Yep.

Also, in before Dr Kain tells you not to bother.

Haha he's already told me not to bother, but I want to make up my own mind!

[Locke]

Time for the final episode! Of course Sigma survived, they're ripping off the first seasons ending. Although round two with Sigma was nowhere near as awesome as round two with Kiba but still pretty cool. Although, how could Kouga take Kaoru inside Garo, wouldn't that burn all of her flesh off?

I'm guessing as there is one more movie to go, Kouga isn't dead, but man that ending was confusing. Not even ambiguous, I genuinely have no idea what happened in the last five or so minutes of that episode.

Overall, Makai Senki was enjoyable, but very far from great, and sadly much closer to bad.

You see the thing is, with GARO it's basically a masterpiece for the first twenty episodes (minus a few misses here and there) and then the ending is so bad it sours the whole experience. Or at least it soured my whole experience, because as they wove in Barago as the big bad, it looked like a fairly slow series was really coming together...then we got a revolving door of unexplained villains and it ended.

Makai Senki was in a very similar position, except it was never a masterpiece in the first place. Entertaining, certainly, but great? Certainly not. It's easy to get distracted by the flashing lights, as the action has improved here ten fold, but everything that really needed to be improved...wasn't and some of the best aspects of the first season, were removed entirely for no reason at all.

What we ultimately get is a fantastic popcorn series - I can't stress this enough, this show has some of the best toku action EVER. But everything else...just kinda sucked.

Although initially it seems we're getting a much better written, much more thought provoking GARO, chucking around a lot of interesting ideas and opinions, we're quickly reminded it's GARO as most of it goes nowhere, or leads into such garbled mythology I'm not sure even the characters are following it.

We got a streamlined villain, which is an improvement on the revolving door we got last time, but he was ludicrously overpowered to the point of boredom and despite having a long drawn out mystery surrounding him, the answer to the mystery was almost as uninteresting as the mystery itself.

And yes, once again, pretty much all of this seasons problems come under one huge header 'pace'. Although I don't forgive toku in general, I'm sure it's no easy task to keep up your momentum over fifty episodes, but what is Makai Senki's excuse when this was only twenty four episodes? This was as cripplingly slow and as unnecessarily drawn out as the first season, if not in many ways worse.

And initial saving graces in GARO, like Kouga's wonderful character arc or the genuinely spine chilling horror episodes, are nowhere to be found. They spent so much time and focus on the mystery of Red Mask, or bizarre additions like Baron who amounted to being completely pointless, that existing characters barely got a chance to do anything. Blah.

I hope this entirely new story GARO will be better overall.

[Switchblade]

I am curious to see what you think of The One who Shines in the Darkness. It lacks a lot of the visual brilliance of the first two shows, but it does try to have a stronger over-arching plot. I think you might appreciate it more because of that.

[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switchblade

I am curious to see what you think of The One who Shines in the Darkness. It lacks a lot of the visual brilliance of the first two shows, but it does try to have a stronger over-arching plot. I think you might appreciate it more because of that.

I'm just about to go out and check the first episode now!

[Locke]

The One Who Shines In The Darkness (fuck writing that every time, let's call it TOWSITD) 01.

It feels weird to have a new pretty boy in the GARO armour, but then it's also kinda okay as the new GARO armour looks barely anything like Kouga's. This new GARO is so sassy, and in stark contrast to Kouga's Eeyore personality, he is pretty damn awesome.

It also looks like they've improved on the visuals a lot as well, the swords no longer look so plasticy, the wirework is much more fluid and the CGI is much more convincing. Although none of the fights in this episode were quite as grand as what we got in the first two seasons, they were still stylish and imaginative enough and well realised enough to be impressive and fun all the same.

Thanks sign, that helped a lot: . And by that I mean it didn't help, at all.

[Kamen Rider Ultra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

I thought the twist was pretty weak 'oh it isn't Leo after all!...it's his butthurt twin brother...'

You were expecting that were you? When you saw Sigman unmasked, you thought like everybody else had thought. That son of a b!tch Reo, only when we found out that it wasn't Reo. Could we once again enjoy the recently discovered Makai Priest/Makai Knight Reo. That was what they were going for and that's all that matters to them. How someone personally feels about it, is irrelevant.

Quote:

Being critical of series, is how I enjoy a series. I don't mean needlessly ripping it apart, but simply saying 'its good' and swallowing the flaws, does not make for good discussion, and these are discussion boards after all.

I'm critical of things too, I also know that a person can be over critical about things. Which will lead to too many distractions and deprive the individual of actually enjoying the subject/show. There is always going to be something to criticize within everything. Not just live-action Japanese T.V. shows.

If you want to come on a forum and discuss every little detail about a show. - Knock yourself out. But others can also come on the same forum and tell you not to take it all so seriously. It's only a T.V. show after all and the people that actually makes it. Doesn't care what some guy on internet forum have to say about their show.

If I like the show I'm going to watch it. If there's things within it that doesn't add-up. Then I take to forums and address/discuss my grievous about them too. If the same type of issues keep arising within the show. Then I have to ask myself? Do I stop watching this show or is it still enjoyable enough, that I do swallow the flaws about it and keep watching?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Ultra

For me I tend to disregard all of the small stuff and just enjoy the shows. Because it's easy to get caught-up and get disappointed and say screw this show. I felt like that with season 3 and stopped watching for while. But I took my own advise, caught-up on the episodes I missed and finished the season.

Hopefully you now understand what I meant by this.

[Locke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Ultra

You were expecting that were you? When you saw Sigman unmasked, you thought like everybody else had thought. That son of a b!tch Reo, only when we found out that it wasn't Reo. Could we once again enjoy the recently discovered Makai Priest/Makai Knight Reo. That was what they were going for and that's all that matters to them. How someone personally feels about it, is irrelevant.

So I'm not allowed to have an opinion and think it's a bad twist? Right...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Ultra

I'm critical of things too, I also know that a person can be over critical about things. Which will lead to too many distractions and deprive the individual of actually enjoying the subject/show. There is always going to be something to criticize within everything. Not just live-action Japanese T.V. shows.

Being over critical would imply nitpicking, the show wasn't broken granted but there was never a point I was taking a bit of loose thread and making a hole out of it. As I said once before, I don't enjoy switching my brain off and letting a show wash over me, I enjoy a show by watching a show as closely as I can, keeping my mind open and calling out bullshit every time it happens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Ultra

If you want to come on a forum and discuss every little detail about a show. - Knock yourself out. But others can also come on the same forum and tell you not to take it all so seriously. It's only a T.V. show after all and the people that actually makes it. Doesn't care what some guy on internet forum have to say about their show.

People can tell me that, but that doesn't mean I'll listen, I can post however the hell I like. This is how I enjoy shows, if you want to let it wash over you, that is fine, but I refuse to do that. I don't write my criticisms for the makers of the show, I write them because this is a discussion board, a place of opinions and criticisms to be discussed. My posts inspire much more discussion than simply mindlessly saying 'it's good' at every turn.

[Locke]

TOWSITD 02.

I'm impressed that this show is actually trying to world build without unnecessarily bogging itself down with garbled mythology, the mystery of Vol City and The Magic Horrors looks set to be interesting indeed.

The only problem with this is none of it is really original. The made up city ran by a mysterious corporation that presents a utopia, which is in reality rotten to the core. A gang of pretty boy superheroes, complete with a grumpy good old days master, a cocky young one, a girl who takes a shining to the hero but pushes away the advances of the cocky one and a snotty douche with a bow and glasses. Etc etc

As I've said in the past clichés aren't inherently bad, I'll just be intrigued to see if they can turn the tried and tested into something interesting or if they'll just become bland in the process.

Although it doesn't look fantastic, the CGI here is a vast improvement over Makai Senki, the animation is a little jerky still at times but it isn't quite as blurry or of generally low quality so I didn't mind the fight here, it was actually pretty fun. Especially considering they're encountering such strong Horrors already.

What I will say is this seasons main Priest is fucking HOT.

[ZeoRangerV]

Yeah, Rian is pretty fantastic isn't she