Garo: A Retrospective

Garo: A bit of a retrospective

As you might know, I watch tokusatsu. But I mainly stick to the big two, Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. And while I love those franchises, there is more to the genre that I want to get into. I hope to one day watch some of the older Metal Heroes series, maybe look into Ultraman, and any other of the many great series that exist. But there was one that I heard talked about again and again. People would say it was a tokusatsu for adults, or that is was dark and really good. So finally I decided to check out this series, and long story short, it is fantastic. It is a great series with incredible fights, creative monsters, and so much more. But I might be getting a bit ahead of myself. This is Garo, and its sequel series, and the movies, and everything else. Let’s go!

Garo is a relatively new toku franchise about warriors known as Makai Knights who fight against these demons who seek out humans with darkness in their hearts, take over their bodies, and use those bodies to eat the souls, and sometimes the bodies, of other humans. What makes the series different from other toku franchises are two things. The first is the fighting. Most of the fights that take place in the series is done outside of suit acting, meaning these are unheshined fights. These fights are fantastic, and become one of the highlights of the series. The second thing that seperates this show from others is that it is not for kids. It is a very adult tokusatsu. I mean, it shows breasts. Sure, not every scene, but done enough to remind the audience that you are not watching Kamen Rider or Super Sentai. This is Garo, deal with it. 

Deal with it.

The series, or at least the first two seasons focuses on Saejima Kouga, a Makai Knight who uses the shining golden armor Garo. The armor is our linking device from the first two seasons to the third, which follows Dougai Ryuga, but I will get to him in a bit. Any armor can only be summoned for 99.9 seconds, and after that time limit is up the armor starts to kill the person from the inside out, and transforms into a monster in itself. Aiding the Makai Knights in their fights are the Makai Priests, men and women who use arcane magics to fight against the Horrors and to aid the Makai Knights. The Priests use to be the ones who fought the Horrors, but they saw that their own fight was not effective, so they created the Armors. The Priests also create Magic Artifacts that are also used to aid in the fight against Horrors. Kouga’s Magical Artifact is a living metal ring named Zaruba, who can sense Horrors and other energies, and is also sassy as anything. Seriously, this little metal dude is my favorite character, and is the only character to come back from the first two seasons into the third.

This is Zaruba. He is my favorite.

The first season, just titled Garo, follows Saejima Kouga, a young Makai Knight who has a vendetta against Horrors, claiming he will kill them all. On the first episode, we are introduced to Kaoru, a young artist who is attacked by a Horror. During the battle she is splashed by the blood of a Horror. When someone is covered by the blood of a Horror, after a hundred days the die a painful death, and during those hundred days they attract other Horrors. In order to prevent this painful death, Makai Knights are supposed to kill those who have been drenched with Horror blood as a merciful kill, but Kouga decides to keep Kaoru alive, in order to use her as bait. The first season is very episodic in nature, having a basic formula of Kouga getting orders from the shadowing group called the Watch Dogs, Kouga investigating the Horror, us watching the Horror work, and then somehow Kaoru gets mixed up and gets saved by Kouga. I am just going to tell you, they eventually fall in love. Eventually we are introduced to another Makai Knight, Rie who dual wields swords and is the owner of the silver Armor, Zero. He is out for revenge, as someone who fought with the same style as Garo, and believes Kouga murdered his father and lover (separate people). 

Rei, Kouga, and Tsubasa(who only appears like four times)

The first season is not very heavy on story. Sure, each character has an arc that needs to be, and gets resolved by the end, but there is little over arcing connectedness to the episodes, except for minor bits of continuity. BY the end this changes, they introduce a more centralized villain, and we learn his plot and story, but he is not the focus of the story. The first arc is completely about the growth of Kouga and those around him. Kouga starts out the series as very angry and closed off. He hates the Horrors for killing his father, and he has sworn to kill them all. But as the series goes on, he learns that hunting and slaying Horrors is not really the job of a Makai Knight. A Makai Knight is a protector, one who fights against the darkness so that others may live in the light. Kouga learns this by protecting Kaoru, and learning to love her. In essence, the first season is about Kouga becoming someone who is worthy of the title of Garo, as Garo is considered the strongest of the Makai Knights. Yes, he saves the day by slashing down the villain, in a ridiculous and impossible mid-air battle that becomes the signature for the franchise, but that is not his true victory. By becoming someone who is truly worthy of the title of Garo, someone that his father could be proud of, he because a shining example for all others. 

Garo: Byakuya no Maju

The first season has a very good climatic battle, and ends with the characters temporarily going their separate ways. This leads into the first special, called Garo: Byakuya no Maju. This special, which I usually just call a movie, takes place a little after the first series, and serves two real purposes. The first is the resurrection of a character who died in the first season, a Makai Priest who was a longtime friend of Kouga’s, named Jabi. Jabi kicks all kinds of ass, and is my personal barometer of how cool a Makai Priest is. She is the top of the top. The second was the reaffirm and fully show how Kouga has changed, how he is no longer an angry young man, and is now able to show a more gentle side. Also, it shows how is now an example of the proper Makai Knight, as one who protects. He does this through a new Makai Knight introduced in the film, Tsubasa, a knight who wields a bladed bo staff/spear and is the owner of the white Armor, Dan. Tsubasa is very straight laced and hard edged, but learns what it means to be a Makai Knight through Kouga. The film takes place in Kantai, which in the Garo world is the training ground of Makai Priests and has many holy grounds and dangerous areas that are mentioned many times in the series. The movie itself isn’t bad, it has some great fights, and a cameo from every single actor in the first season. Kouga’s father makes an appearance, and he was only in two episodes. It is also important as Tsubasa and Jabi both return in the second season.

Garo: Red Requiem had awesome CG too.

The next movie is Garo: Red Requiem, which is the franchise first official theatrical release. In this one, Kouga alone has to go help group of Makai Priests defeat a powerful Horror who uses mirrors to fight. This movie is really good, but what is important to it is the continued exploration of Makai Priests and their abilities, something that started in the previous special, and the introduction of a few characters who appear in later episodes and movies. The main two are Rekka and Shiguto, both Makai Priests. Rekka kicks a ton of ass and would totally be a Makai Knight, if women could be Makai Knights. It is never said why women cannot by Knights, which is something I hope they explore in a later season. Shiguto is a bit of a butt monkey, but he shows how cool he can be in a later film. All Makai Preists are cool, even the lame or douche ones. This movie also introduces us to two tools that Makai Priests use fairly regularly in the next season and beyond. The first is a little gold fish with an elephant type nose that can scope out information and other cool functions. Kouga ends the movie with one as a small companion, given to him by Rekka in case he ever needed to contact her, and the little fish thing becomes a regular part of Kouga’s items. The second concept introduced are these mechanical beings powered by magic called Goryu. These allow for Makai Priests to become more active in combat against Horrors. These play a larger role in the second season. Again, it is a good movie, and you should watch it for some things in the movie that come back in later seasons. 

The second season picks up shortly after the events of Garo: Red Requiem. The second season, called Garo Makai Senki, again follows Kouga, but now he is a true protector. He works more closely to a council of sorts, called the Senate, who hand out assignments for Knights and Priests, and acts as a central organization for the series. Kouga is assigned a Makai Priest to work with. He is named Leo, a Makai Priest who fights with both normal Priest tactics, and also fights with Goryu. The main plot of the season two starts with Kouga being attacked by a random man in a red mask, who puts a curse on Kouga, and as we learn later, every other Makai Knight. The curse will kill the person, slowly robbing of them of their strength over time and finally ending their life, burning the life out of the bearer. So the hunt is on to find the man in the red mask, while also still hunting the Horrors that attack humanity every night. Kaoru is also in this season, but is put more into an emotional support role. Kouga refuses to tell her that he is dying, as he is self-sacrificial like that, so Kaoru acts as emotional support without knowing what exactly is wrong for most of the season. She and Leo also really hit it off, becoming friends and even going on a little journey together on one episode. Rei also returns, getting some solo episodes to flesh out his character. It is also through him that we learn that Kouga was not the only one attacked by the man in the red mask. The series also goes into Kouga’s backstory, having an incredible episode where we see four young men training to become Makai Knights, in some form of summer camps for heroes. Kouga is one of them, as we see them train and become friends and take to heart the lessons of their teacher. They even show each other their scars they have gotten in training, and promise that if any of them fall to the darkness, that it will be one of their friends that kill them. And then, in the last few moments, three of the kids die, the camp getting attacked by a large Horror. We see Kouga facing this Horror when he is fully grown, finally being able to revenge his fallen friends. This is one the best episodes this season, and the series as a whole.

Spoilers start here.

I am going to get into some major spoilers here, so skip this paragraph to avoid spoilers. We learn that the villain of this series is a Makai Priest, who believes that they should return to the time where it was the Priests who fought the Horrors, and that Makai Knights are not effective enough in stopping their foe. We are led to believe that Leo is the evil Makai Priest, he argues for Makai Priests fighting the Horrors themselves and even seems to send Jabi off to her death in one episode. We see the man in the red mask fight with a sword, and in one episode Leo, even though he is a Makai Priest who never really fight with conventional weapons, fights with a sword. And the final nail in the coffin is that when the red mask is ripped off, we see Leo’s face, right after Leo disappears from Kouga’s side. But it turns out this is a whole red herring, and that the man in the red mask is Leo’s twin brother, and that both of them were the sons of a Makai Knight. Both knew a bit of magic, but only one could be a Makai Knight. Leo thought it would be his brother chosen to take up the mantel, as he was physically stronger, but their father saw that Leo had a kinder heart and would be a better protector, and so chooses him. This causes Leo to forgo being a Knight, instead becoming a Makai Priest, and his brother to go mad. In his madness, he plans a machine, a super Goryu of sorts, that could kill any Horror right after it appears. The only problem is that it is powered by humans, and an ancient super powerful Horror. This plan eventually backfires in Leo’s brother’s face, and causes an incredible action scene, which included hundreds of Makai nights fighting, Makai Priests and Knights working together in a super attack, and Kouga throwing his horse with a giant version of his sword. It was pretty good. In the final episode, it is revealed that Leo’s brother was one Knights in training that Kouga became friends with when he was a child. He finds out by seeing the scar. This leads Kouga to dealing the final blow, killing his once friend in a ridiculous mid-air battle.

Spoilers end here.

The second season is my personal favorite of the three main ones, for a number of reasons. First it is just better written and directed. It has more a focus then the first season, and the plot is tighter. But even with the tight plot they allow down episodes that just explore the characters, and even advanced the plot a bit. A great episode is one where a samurai from ancient times is saved by a Horror in a sword, so that the man will feed it more blood. But the samurai only wants to fight those who are strong, and because of reasons, is in modern times where he respects of no man, until he meets Rei, who reminds him of a hero in shiny metal armor who saved him in his childhood. That hero, of course, wielded the Garo Armor. I also like the overall themes of this season. Kouga was still exuding the lesson from the first season, as he was now the paragon of a good Makai Knight, but even that ended up hurting him a bit, as it led him to a very self-sacrificial though out the series. Kouga is always willing to find another way to save everyone, but is also willing to sacrifice himself in order to save everyone. And sometimes that is not the way to save the day, sometimes there is no other way. The second season is amazing, with great action, a great story, introduces some amazing new characters, and overall is a highlight for the franchise.

Garo: Soukoku no Maryu

Right after the end of Makai Senki we are given two movies that take place after the end of the season. The first is Garo: Soukoku no Maryu. Kouga must go on a journey to a strange and dangerous land that is kind of Alice and Wonderland mixed with a little Wizard of Oz. Kouga basically falls into a hole into a strange world where everything is the physical manifestation of an inanimate object, given body and soul. An evil queen searches the land to consume all that is beautiful, destroying all in her wake. She is trying to ultimately gain enough power to go into our world, to consume all the beauty in our world. On the other side is a Scarecrow who is also trying to become a being who can cross over to our world. And in the middle is Kouga, trying to find an ancient artifact. What makes the movie interesting is that, first of all, Kouga is completely alone in this movie. There are a few cameos from basically every Makai Knight in the series for a few moments, and Kaoru briefly at the end, but basically Kouga has to carry this whole movie alone. Secondly, Kouga loses all of his main equipment right at the beginning. He loses his sword, and subsequently his armor. He loses his coat, which apparently is magic, and doesn’t come into play with being magic until the third season where everyone has magic coats for some reason. And finally, he loses Zaruba. That blow to Kouga is amazing, and makes the journey to find these items a great story in itself. Soukoku no Maryu is a great movie, but to be honest, it is not my favorite Garo movie. That comes next.

Garo: Tougen no Fue is the best movie ever.

The current final movie of the Garo series is Garo: Tougen no Fue. This is the only Garo movie that not only doesn’t have Kouga in it, it doesn’t have any Makai Knights at all. This movie is completely about Makai Priests, and is amazing. It is mainly about Rekka and Jabi, them becoming close friends after the vents of the second season and training together. After splitting up for reasons, they both run into different  female Makai Priests, one who is being chased for holding the Tougen no Fue, a sacred and powerful flute, and the one chasing her. Teaming up with their respective new partners, Jabi must now chase Rekka in order to get the Tougen no Fue out of her hands, while Rekka must keep the Tougen no Fue out of Jabi’s hands. It is a really interesting plot that pits two great characters against each other, and gives the audience a reason to question the actions of both of these characters. Who is the one in the wrong here, Rekka or Jabi? Also, as the only male appearing alive and well in this movie, Shiguto is back, and super badass. He rides a giant paintbrush like a surf board in the air. It is amazing. Seriously, I don’t want to spoil too much about this movie because it is my favorite. But it is fun, action packed, allowed the Makai Priests a chance to really shine, and even has some lesbianism thrown in. It has something for everyone. 

Get back the gold...is the tagline of this season.

Now on to something completely different. The third season, Garo: The One Who Shines in the Darkness is a complete departure from the original two series. Taking place long after the events of the last season, we are introduced to Dogai Ryuga, the current wielder of the Garo armor. We are never told explicity what happened to Kouga, nor is it ever implied that Ryuga is somehow related to Kouga. As Armors are sometimes passed down from father to son this would make sense, but I don’t think Kouga is ever mentioned except possible once in the series, never by name, and they never say who Ryuga’s father is, only that his mother is a Makai Priest. Also, something has happened to the Garo armor in the intervening years between the last season and this one. The armor is no longer shining. It has lost most of its gold coloring, now being mostly black with small accents of gold mixed in. To be honest it looks really nice, but they don’t really give a good explanation for why this happened. They mention that the last person to wield the armor had to fight a great and powerful Horror, and in order to defeat it he pushed the Garo armor to its limit, causing it to lose its golden shine after the battle. But A. they never give us the particulars of that battle, B. they never say that Kouga was the one wielding the armor in that battle, and C. they tell us this pretty close to the end of the season, and it has no bearing on the season itself. I spent almost the entire season worrying that Kouga had done something so awful that it even shamed his armor, so much so that it no longer shone bright. Or that Kouga had died so hard in a battle he has lost the shine. But no, we are given the bare minimal of an explanation and it doesn’t even matter to this season as a whole. On the plus side, Zaruba is back, though he is relegated to saying maybe one thing an episode and he and Ryuga start out actually hating each other. They get better, I swear. 

It doesn't look bad, just not as shiny.

Another thing that makes this season of Garo so much different from its predecessors is the location. Before, the location really mattered little to the plot, and the characters would even travel around a bit. This time it is different. The entire series takes place in the boarders of Vol City, a corporation built city-state that runs practically independent from the rest of Japan. It is in Vol City that Horrors are starting to pop up at an alarming rate, even mentioning how this city is almost a strong hold for the Horrors. And that is not the only type of monster that Ryuga has to deal with. This season introduces us to a new type of Horror, a Magic Horror. The real difference between the two is that Horrors hunt those who have weakness in their heart, even a little, and taking over their bodies. Magic Horrors are created by someone, and can be created from even those who have strong hearts and a sense of justice and good. Also they are much stronger than usual Horrors. The city seems to be built on these Magic Horrors, and it is up to our heroes to take them down. This season also creates for us a small team of heroes, instead of just Kouga and his friends. They are made up of Priest Burai, a Makai Priest who knew Ryuga personally from his past and who Ryuga hates, Rian, a female Makai Priest who uses a magic gun, and two Makai Knights. One is a blue armored Makai Knight Kusugami Aguri, who wields the Armor Gai and is the only Knight who doesn’t use a sword, he uses a bow and arrows. He is calm and collective, and the most intelligent of the group. His opposite in this group is Jakuzure Takeru, who wields the red Armor Zen. Takeru is brash and impulsive and very emotive, and uses a broader sword then most other Knights in the series. This team, like any good team, is broken and awful at first, but through hardships and challenges they come together and all grow and change as humans, except Priest Burai who is just badass. He is the Zaruba of the series, even though there is a Zaruba. 

Content wise, this series is better than the first one but not as good as the second series. I think the problems for me stem mostly from the fact the this series so set so far in the future from the last season that it feels like the last series don’t matter. It might be because I watched the series back to back to back, but I grew attached to the world and characters from the first two series. But all those characters died or moved on with their lives without even saying goodbye, or at least not having as grand a finale as I wished them to have. I feel like the skip ahead was arbitrary, and we only knew it was the future by some of the newer techniques and tools of the Makai Priests. If they had given a definite end to Kouga and his friends, I would have felt less apprehensive about this series. Also, I felt the series would sometime try to experiment with its story telling style, and it had mixed successes. There were two episodes that are really important to the whole of the series, but over half of it is done in this first person perspective and it just keep taking me out of the series. But the story, on the whole, was really fantastic. I think this season presents one of the greatest twists in the franchise, and even foreshadows it perfectly. The twist is so perfectly done that I can’t even speak to most of the season as it would spoil it.  It is also a very good season to get into without watching the other two, as almost nothing but some basic concepts carry over into it. Overall, Garo: The One Who Shines in the Darkness is not bad, not perfect, but not bad. 

The A-team!

Garo, as a franchise, is spectacular. It is at times dark and sad, and at times light and funny, and all through it ass incredible action, great characters, and some pretty great stories. Also, it is not for kids. There are bare chests in a bunch of episodes, more so as the series goes on. But I totally recommend it and all its movies for anyone who wants some great toku action and is a little sick of Kamen Rider and Super Sentai. Until next time, have fun watching.