Hendy's Blog

GARO is so cool

I watched GARO this weekend. It's a dark and mature tokusatsu aimed for adults and young adults (18+).

What I love about this series are the actions and characters. The actions are totally over the top. It's almost like Ryuhei Kitamura is behind it. The fight choreography is so good that I repeat the fight often just to see what cool moves they're doing. I also like how Kouga (the main character) do a somersault just to jump over walls and other obstacles. Unlike Kamen Rider, most of the actions in GARO are done in human form, not henshin form. So we can see lot of nice martial arts moves, which people in costume will probably have difficulty doing. The actions are also provided in generous amount. I don't know how they do it, they must have a great stunt team.

In the horror department, episode 5 managed to freak me out with the ghostly woman. It was 2 or 3 AM, I was alone, and suddenly the ghost woman just appears, in close up, for a few seconds. Then the Ju-on style head sliding from below, holding head from behind.. Damn..

The characters are interesting. Kouga is a super cool guy with a unique voice. I think he speaks a bit like a kid, unlike some cool other hero's heavy voice (Tendou Souji, anyone?). Kaoru is cute, funny, and innocent looking. Rei is a cool, strange guy with sweet tooth. His motive is still not known as of episode 8.

Up to episode 8, there is not much storyline yet other than the weekly monsters. But who cares? The actions more than make up for it and the major storyline is definitely there, developing slowly.

To draw comparison with Kamen Rider, although Kamen Rider has interesting and mysterious story, I find that there are a lot of plot holes and the action could have been better. Kabuto is not too bad in action (Kabuto has a cool fighting style), but the plot hole is annoying. I hope this one doesn't have that problem. So far it's still consistent.

The ending song is also nice and lastly, Kouga really looks like Shinomori Aoshi with the white coat.

Labels: japan, tv

posted by Hendy Tanata @ 00:00