GARO - Personal impressions

A warning to disprevented normal Westerners readers, before they dare to watch this series or any Asian other, should take some things into account:

- It is a different culture stuff. This means, for example, there is a certain restraint in the actors when expressing, even if their characters do not require it or, even, which we would say "overperformance".

- It is a sort of work we are not usued to, or we only accept it for children and teenage public because it is supposed that we have already overcome stages of fantasy, magic, special powers. If so, I have not overcome it. Plus, I think that we know as "reality” is an authentic fiction because it does not have a real foundation: what is seen is only based in what we see, touch, feel, they all are appearances. Science always tell us that senses and feelings continuament deceive us but, indeed, we do not believe it (the summit of inconsequence); even logic is subjective because it depends on what we know and what we can admit. Fantasy, magic, alternative worlds, beings that inhabit them, etc. magnificent metaphors and/or symbols of what for me reality is, can be taken out and, therefore, I find them more believable. This tv series belongs to a type of literature that has lost validity among us, but that for the Asians, and especially Japanese people, preserve a great estimation: it is about heroes. In this one, heroes are not perfect.

- The profusion of special effects and computerized animation are put below this mental orientation. And for them, fantasy and adult age are not incompatible.


Warnings done, I will tell you that review has never been my strong point, since I usually leave myself to take away by the story, which is what interests me more. Because of that, I only dare to speak about "personal impressions".

I do not usually like the stories that imply fight. Actually, I watched this because I found it amusing. I do remember asking myself, episode after episode "towards where all this ends up"?. You see, I missed a bit of movement in the main plot, but this could not put aside me from the TV, and I found it surprising. Step by step, some useful or to be useful information appeared. I did not get bored, did not find it heavy, nor childish, and either there was any "too" strident enough to bother me.

Yes, there are some shocking things, which it do not suppose me any problem because they have been made deriberately. For example:

- When they want to show a big spill of blood, we see an impressive red splash, which disappears blurred in the air... and we see any blood again nowhere. It goes so far that they leave intact even the cloth through the wound has been made. This should not be to us too strange -except if we like gore, and I do not- when we see that the characters, which are supposed highly trained and capable of making important physical feats, getting better of heir wounds almost immediately (depending on the opponent that makes them) and to continue struggling.

- The main character wears a kind of lovely white coat, long, open, wide, almost of design, that is always clean, it does not matter that its wearer was in full combat and he rolls on the ground or he is thrown against a tree -I ask myself how many of them they had to make. There are few exceptions, which disappear when the camera moves from him. They preserve it clean even while the boy has his face and hands dirty. On this coat allow me to tell that it endows to the protagonist a magestic elegance when it is in motion, in contrast to the tight two pieces dress of black leather that he wears underneath.

Which I call the "great descent" from chapter 25 is a different stuff. Here, this white coat does not move with the wind for a while: it resembles a fault. There are more. This is specially remarkable because in the disk of the Making Of it is said that they have cared a lot about details, but that one who spoke was the director of action scenes, and maybe he only referred to his field of activity.

Despite I am not an expert at all, even it is clear for me how the computerized animation improves as the series goes on. The "great descent" that I spoke about before is not the same that horror hunting in the first chapter.

Some few words about Hiroki Konishi’s performance, what got the starring role, Kouga Saejima. In general, I agree with some reviews that I have read: it looks a bit too much for him, not very good showing a cold and surly guy, but a lot better since third chapter ahead. And improving. We can see his expressive progress, as well as his evolution as a character. We will see him to learn to put his look in his role service. Often his eyes, only them, gives us an evidence that tells something about feelings of such a closed person as Kouga is. Further on, with the acceleration of the main plot, when events assault him and when some barreiers start to fall down, he shows us some excellent emotional moments -especially taking the Japanese standards into account.

The Making Of disk tells another very interesting thing that left me shocked. So Konishi and Ray Fujita, who plays Rei Suzumura, received Keita Amemiya's gratitude for having accepted to shoot their action scenes by themselves, without stunts; he considered it a miracle. If you get the chance to watch it, you will notice that this is sometimes very risky for physical integrity. Is also said there that Mika Hijii, who played Kaoru Mitsuki, made hers from chapter 24 by herself. God bless them all!

In spite of that a lot of scenes were filmed in bright day -interior of buildings, parking lots, urban streets, roads etc- hunting horrors and most of action was made especially by night, so the series has a Gothic air.

Really, I did not expect that they showed Kouga’s house like an almost Victorian mansion, but of austere and shady insides, nor that they used cutlery in an Occidental style. Even, his sword is straight and has a double cut, and if we forget the handle and the mechanism of closing, it might be European.

About this, it has also drawn my attention strongly that in no moment any proper noun of city, of village, of country, had been mentioned; the only names of places -building, residential complex- were in English. If people’s names and their racial shots are Japanese, –and some images show the city as Tokyo– it looks almost as a coincidence. It is as if they wanted to tell us "it can happens in any place". Yes: proliferation of horrors as a reflection of the human miseries and sins has a true universalistic will, and the lot of times that humans and humanity as a species, in contrast to the horrors, are mentioned, too.

The fight against the horrors -beings of demoniac nature- along so many episodes gives it a look of "monster of the week" but has not been too heavy for me.

The fight choreographies have left me fascinated. Thanks to Garo I know why "choreography" is named so: they have the precision of a ballet and, if you can abstract from the real images in, and you focus in aesthetics, there is even some beauty.

The splendid armors wore by Kouga and Rei are awesome. They have got a great realism, despite being very different: Kouga’s one is golden and bright -ironies of fate that the more closed of characters shines in this way but, hey, he’s the hero!-; Rei’s one is named "silvery", but it looks a darker metal, in spite of shining. And since we speak about clothing, I have already mentioned Kouga’s, magnificent in black and white; but Rei’s, everything in black, with a long coat and a sophisticated circular trimming|on the back, is great as well. Kaoru’s is the most normal, because she is a normal girl, which both boys are not.

The talkative jewels of both Makai Knights are also spectacular: Koga’s ring and Rei’s pendant with chain. They are very elaborated, and when they animated them for making them to speak, it shows as if they have got facial muscles, and it gives them a shocking realism. The script has endowed them with intelligence and even with personality.

Although the plot is not complicated -too much simple, in my opinion- they complement it with colaterals stories of people that, involuntarily, have attracted horrors that have possessed them, and we see why they were taken easyly.

The one that I find poorly used was the villain of the series. We only see him to move about the end, and he disappears in quite unexpected way, leaving me a bad aftertaste: too little villain for such a plotting dust. There is a question that I would do: really was this guy needed, if it is destroyed by another upper hierarchycally villain? Yes, I supose, since, as we were revealed in episode 22, he has been a key piece in many events. Well, the main plot has not been started off until finishes chapter 17, and it could have started before.

As a matter of fact there is a succession of three villains in the two last episodes. Probably this does not have another goal than forcing the protagonist to facing and fight them. But even this is not made tiresome, in my opinion: each one struggles in a different environtment. I would describe the fight of the main character against the three successive villains like this:

1. Will of respecting the own path.
2. Triumph of love.
3. Self improvement.

I expect to be able to comment on it later on, since I am noticing some few ineresting things.

On the other hand I consider that they have abused of the archetype of the damsel in distress rescued by the boy. Certainly, big part of the series turns about this, and it has no sense that bothers me. But I think that the amount of fainting and fallen down so easily that poor Kaoru suffers, is going too far. Moreover, if I put myself in her shoes, she would find very annoying that after each memoristic lapse, the same unsociable guy remained near me, even too close -perhaps I am going too far: Kouga has always been very honorable.

And, at last, I miss a right kiss. But -oh!- I am afraid that Japanese people are quite puritans.

The end is unexpected. Actually it is the only thing that remains without closing in the series. To see the real end it will be necessary to send the watcher to the last scene of the special The beast of the White Night.