Garo Honoo no Kokuin ep 5

Garo Honoo no Kokuin

The new episode of Garo really focuses on a topic that I haven’t talked about much in these weekly logs, and that was the Prince. The story seems to be having two separate story-lines that at some point will meet up and then both groups will go after the final boss. The Prince’s story is the Shakespearean tale of a disposed prince who will go out, raise an army, and come back home taking the throne and saving the day. He is teaming up with the Purple Knight, who we now know is the Knight of Defense Gaia. For now at least the Prince will be training under the Knight to gain the skills and powers to defeat the Horrors. I really like this, because it creates a good mirror for Leon, especially since Leon and the Prince are cousins. I am reminded of the mirror storyline from Gekiranger, which turned out really great, though that had the added benefit of the mirroring being much deeper, it involving the main character and the main villain. I hope this dual storytelling works out, as it will be something new for the Garo franchise to do and it can make for a really great story.

The Prince and his Knight

The other big thing I wanted to talk about from this episode was the idea that armors are passed down through bloodlines. This is interesting, to say the least. Before, armors weren’t necessarily passed down via blood. While the Garo armor itself is passed down this way for the most part, it was never confirmed Ryoga, who is the main character of Garo: The One Who Shines in the Darkness, is in any way related to the previous Garo, Kouga, though to be fair it isn’t said he isn’t related. The third season takes place so far in the future that Ryoga’s ancestry might be forgotten. And even if the Garo armor is passes down, we have seen other armors that are not. The Zero armor is passed down to adopted son Rei in the original series. So that makes the whole idea of blood lines in this kind of questionable. I think it is more like it is common to pass down one armor to another through a family, but it isn’t 100% necessary. And I think that means that the Prince will take up the Gaia armor before the series is over. 

This dude is seriously cool.

The anime is still going strong and has yet to, in my opinion, make a misstep. I think my only big complaint so far is that the shows focus on the overall story might eventually impede the more standalone episodes, but that has yet to be shown. So until next week, have fun watching.