<KIBA> Gaiden Released

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<KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by XIII »

From the time of the original Garo series we had a character called Barago (KIBA), his back story was kind of missing from the series, but not exactly a downside at the time as it was an awesome series. Fast forward a few years and we now have a KIBA Gaidan special thats now been released to fill in some of the back story relating to how he became KIBA, the Black Knight.

From the outset, the style of the film is very different to the norm, and its one that you will either love or hate, personally I loved the style, it just brought a difference to the norm. I guess to some the mix of animation and dark figure live action is abit disjointing and lazy, but its a different way of telling a story without actually having to show much to get the point across, and at times it does go complete animation, but it looks great, so I cant complain about that.

Oh, I should mention Kaoru is in this, cant really miss her since she is a big part of this special, unlike the Red Requiem movie.

We also get a new character in this special, Erda , her actress is Leah Dizon, an american come Japanese star in some circles (thanks to SacredCultivator for the info), while I was timing this, it did surprise me that a Japanese person would have such good English, it was only after looking her up that it made sense, and I think she did well in the special, bit of a background character for the most part during the special, didnt get up to much apart from serving Barago and demonstrating some Card skills (it makes sense when you see it)

Also for this we got a new Makai Knight, its one that looks like Zero but isnt Zero, so I can only assume that its the armour of the person before Zero took the armour, or is from the same Watchdog branch. His appearance is pretty cool, he has some neat tricks up his sleeve during his fight with Barago, in many ways it makes you wish Zero could fight in the same way as it would have made the fights more interesting.

The fight scenes for the most part were also done in the animation with live action and the fast paced mixing of the two makes for an interesting combination that I think works well, it keeps you interested in the early stages of the fight and aids nicely with some aspects of the fights. When the fights kick it up a level we go to the full on normal Garo fight scenes that we are used to, we even get the Goutan battles between what we can only assume is Taiga and Barago, oh and we get the obligatory "My sword is bigger than your sword" part of the Goutan duel. Baragos Goutan is sweet looking, looks more like a badass war horse than Taigas Goutan.

Over all I did enjoy this very much, its nice and short and to the point, it fills in the back story nicely without going overboard, they kept it nice and tight and interesting, it brings together great aspects of story telling and the portrayal of said story, some other shows could learn a thing or two from Amemiya Keita and his vision of for making shows and specials, after all he directed Kamen Rider ZO.

As an added bonus, the Blu-Ray set came with a set of Horror Cards, these do actually appear in the show, so its nice to get these, even if I wasnt expecting them in the packaging. I took the liberty of taking a few photos of them, I dont have a scanner so couldnt scan them in.


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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by takenoko »

Now this is the Garo that I know and love. I mean the story is paper thin, but at least it wasn't really terrible like in Red Requiem. And a simple story will always top a complicated story that doesn't work. Even the action scenes are like a million times better than in Red Requiem.

It's good to see characters that we know and things that we recognize. Seeing Barago and Kaoru is like seeing old friends again who you haven't seen in a long time. Come to think about it, didn't they release Smile for all the bit actors who didn't get a big part in the Beast of the White Night movie? And we get a lot of callbacks to the original TV series, which is nice.

And like I said before, the plot really only exists to show Garo-style battles, but as long as the story isn't insulting to your intellect (Star Wars prequels) and what you're seeing is interesting, that's fine. Telling the story of Barago's fall works for me, since we're never meant to think he's a good guy to begin with. Just try to avoid having flash backs to the Star Wars prequel. You also can't help but compare his growth with Kouga's. They both have this arc where they start as helpless kids, and they gain power over time. The mirroring effect is quite good here to compare their similarities and underline their differences. I even got a laugh when Barago admitted that it's common to have parents who are Makai Knight and Priestess. Interesting that while Kouga was close to his dad, Barago was closest to his mom. Do you know who else was close to his mom? Anakin Skywalker!

I am a little confused by Erda though. A new character in a back story? And I looked this up, she's not the three watch dogs, that was Garum. So they introduce her, give her an origin story (padding), and we never learn her ultimate fate. It was alright to watch, but kind of weird? Also, she spoke in English the whole time. Not sure what the point of that was. Maybe she spoke English when she was alive? And I'm going to pick this apart, because fuck the padding. So she can see the future, but apparently A) She's completely wrong about her boyfriend's bright future B) She can't predict his death to save him C) She knows the mission is pointless, but doesn't speak up, resulting in Shinji's death. What kind of prophet does that? An incompetent stupid one apparently! Also, Makai Knights are douches now? If you're going to set that up, you need to explain their motivations! Why did they they want Gannon's carcass? Were these just rogue Makai Knights? Like the Sith? Are there more of these guys around, because you guys haven't introduced us to any of them. As far as we know, the only bad Makai Knight is Kiba, so having more evil Makai Knights kind of makes him less special. The padding is stupid and doesn't make sense. The only thing I can think of is that this is leading into the new Garo TV series.

That said, the use of English makes for some interesting things to note. For one thing, "Makai Knight" and "Makai Guide", official terms? Wait, why is it pronounced as Meshia instead of Messiah? You see, Messiah and Karma use the Japanese pronunciation. So it's a little hard to tell if they're names inspired by the words "messiah" and "karma" or if they're literally just "Messiah" and "Karma". Eh.

They do a lot of neat stuff in here visually. The stylistic brush animations are back (did we see even one of those in Red Requiem?) and they're still as cool and Garolike as ever. The monsters that Kiba kill are pretty cool and interesting. We get Makai Knight versus Makai Knight fighting. Squee! Like Az said, seeing the predecessor to Zero was pretty cool. Oh wait, looks like he's not related to Zero at all. Guess the silver suit fooled me. We even get Taiga Garo and Messiah Kaoru (2011 version). Pretty cool! And Kaoru kicked ass. The stuff when Barago fights in his mind or whatever at the end is truly worth the wait. Riding horses and fighting on an apocalyptic freeway, then on a dragon, so good. Who cares if it doesn't make sense, it's a visual feast for the eyes.

Were they unable to get Taiga, so they just glossed over that as quickly as possible? Because that seems like that'd be an important thing to touch on in a Kiba backstory story. And again, I feel compelled to ask, what happened to Erda? But that aside, it was a pretty fun movie and well worth watching. A fine addition to the Garo mythos.

Trivia:
Oh, I just now realized that the bara in Barago is probably a reference to "roses". What a fruity name! Erda is like ancient German for "Earth". Gaiden means "side story", but the "gai" in this is the kanji for "armor". 鎧伝 BTW, this is the same kanji as Yoroiden Samurai Troopers. I had no idea that there was a joke to Samurai Trooper's name till now. Bado comes from 波怒 which means "angry waves"
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by XIII »

takenoko wrote:Oh, I just now realized that the bara in Barago is probably a reference to "roses". What a fruity name!
So that would explain Baraga bursting out of a rose then, did seem a bit weird given its not something you associate with a bad guy
takenoko wrote:We get Makai Knight versus Makai Knight fighting. Squee! Like Az said, seeing the predecessor to Zero was pretty cool. Oh wait, looks like he's not related to Zero at all.
I didnt directly say he was, I just assumed he was, so how is he related to everything else then?

takenoko wrote:The stuff when Barago fights in his mind or whatever at the end is truly worth the wait. Riding horses and fighting on an apocalyptic freeway, then on a dragon, so good. Who cares if it doesn't make sense, it's a visual feast for the eyes.
Defiantly one of the highlights of this, even if you hate this special, you will still love that fight scene, its just mint.

I have to agree that the back story of Erda was a tad thin and gives you a couple of "eh" moments when she explains she knew it was pointless but still went on it, sounds like she kinda sucked at fortune telling or just didnt care for the lives of anyone anymore, and then when she goes on about the evil feeling good as it fills her up kinda makes you think she has really lost the plot or was just evil from the outset and she didnt ultimately care about Shinji.

Maybe she will be back in the new show, if they do bring her back, I hope they try to clear up why she did what she did.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by takenoko »

Yeah, that one line about knowing in advance really unravels that sub story. I guess the writer's realized at the last moment that "oh yeah, she can see the future" and couldn't think of anything else. I dunno, just comes off as kind of dumb.

Bado was the knight of the western district. The watchdog guy in episode 23 tells Kouga and Zero that the knight for the western district was assassinated, that was Bado and that was his district.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by XIII »

ah, so thats where he is from, didnt remember that from the original show, guess i wasnt paying enough attention at that point in time.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by takenoko »

http://blog.mikoto-inoue.com/
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%95% ... E%E7%90%B4

If this is the same lady who plays Barago's mom, then her only other toku role that I see was Kiva episode 1 (secretary). How funny

Looks like Bado's voice was by 井上知彦 Inoue Tomohiko? Don't know who that is
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by PHurricane »

At the risk of sounding repetitive... now that felt like Garo. Sure, the story wasn’t complicated or anything you couldn’t have already guessed on your own, but it rang true to the original series. The Horror designs and the fight choreography were pretty top-notch.

Since they came out so close together, I can’t help but compare it to Eternal as well. This was a much more logical explanation of a villain’s background. (Although I also saw the influence of the Star Wars prequels.)

Great to see Kaoru again after her having been absent in Red Requiem. I remember in the background footage of the original series how she expressed a desire to be more involved in the action scenes. Looks like she got her wish. It's also funny that Barago’s mother was briefly in Kiva. She reminded me a lot of Maya, both in her styling and dress.

One line I chuckled at: “Many Makai Knight families were like this.” Well, yeah. Pretty much all the families we’ve met had a Makai Knight father and a Makai Priest mother.

Loved the brief incorporation of the Garo theme during the fight between Garo and Kiba. That entire battle was pretty memorable.

I didn’t have too much of a problem with the inconsistencies in Erda’s backstory. The various Watchdogs we met in the series did not come across as the most rational of beings, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she had told them that the object her group would be searching for was gone and they were still ordered to go after it. And if you were still being forced to go on a pointless quest, it would be a terrible blow to morale if you told your companions upfront that you were wasting your time.

We don’t see what happens to Erda, so I agree that there’s a good chance she’ll pop up in the new series. Even if we don’t see that character specifically, I have a feeling they spent so much time introducing her character so that we were familiar with the abilities of a “Makai Guide”, since that’s something that wasn’t introduced until now.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by DrinkItDown »

I just have to echo what everyone else is saying. That felt way more like Garo than Red Requiem. The new Makai Knight was pretty neat, and as usual, the fight scenes were top notch. Even Kaoru had sweet fight choreography. Even Leah Dizon was good, and I don't like her at all. She has a horrible singing voice, and she was super obnoxious when she was still a Race Queen over here in 'murika. She also did a few really stupid Best Motoring Hot Version segments. But anyway, awesome movie. Looking forward to the new series.

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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by gantar »

DrinkItDown wrote:No more Garo ever......forever.
Dunno if you know or just lacking info

but Garo will be back soon at October 6th, 2011 for it's 2nd series

*here's the official main pic :

Spoiler
Image


*here's the official site : http://www.garo-tv2.jp or http://garo-project.jp/about/makai/

note that the cast was joined between 1st series - Red Requiem - Beast of the Midnight Sun

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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by Lunagel »

Yes we know, we're being sarcastic.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by DrinkItDown »

facepalm.exe

notinonthejoke.jpg
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by takenoko »

I don't know if I'd call it sarcasm. It's more of a saying something blatantly false to see people make a "nuh-uh, here's why" response. If you bother to look at the forums, you'd probably see that there's a thread where people have already announced the second TV series and such.

It's just deeply fascinating to see how people deal with contradictory or blatantly false information and it's revealing of the assumptions that make about others.

It's pretty funny that there was such a big response to that statement this time, even though the "no more garo" phrase was used with the Red Requiem release too.

Anyway, it's a joke, folks. Don't take it so seriously and look around the forums before you post (always good advice).
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by Phoenix512 »

I didn't really like how the movie was done overall. I would prefer to keep it as one or two styles but not three. I initially thought Erda was the three Watchdog sisters combined form as well but I guess not. It's very weird that Erda could have prevented Shinji's death but decided not to along with that she spoke English during her backstory.

I think take said it best when it was first announced that it wasn't necessary to make this especially when Kiba was fighting Garo on top of a dragon for no apparent reason at all. I swear that sequence was inspired by the last third of the Utena movie (I let you guys to figure out what I'm talking about).
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by D_B »

First, let me say this... I greatly appreciate the fantastic job ya'll did translating and subbing the Kiba movie!

Next, I will totally agree with Azazel...
Azazel wrote:the style of the film is very different to the norm, and its one that you will either love or hate
...and then promptly disagree. I hated it.

Maybe it's just me, I didn't think Red Requiem was a bad film. After seeing Kiba, I appreciate Red Requiem much, much more than I did before. I mean, I really did *NOT* like a single thing about this one... not the plot, not the art, nothing.

I totally agree with Phoenix512 across the board. I felt like this movie tried to do alot of things in a wide variety of ways, and it really hurt the film. If it had focused a little more on being really good at one or two things instead of trying to do so many "unique and different" things poorly, it would have been a better experience for me.

Again, I love the efforts and the top notch job from TV-Nihon, please guys and gals, don't feel like my disappointment was directed at anyone here! I just hope the new series is more like the old (really FANTASTIC) series and nothing at all like this... mess... of a movie. *shrug*





Spoiler
( After seeing this movie, an AMV from over a decade ago got stuck in my mind...
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... ogical.avi )

*PLEASE* do not click the link in the spoiler if you are offended by language. It is not safe for work. It is not safe for children. It is what got stuck in my head partway through the Kiba movie and would not stop running through my head.
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Re: <KIBA> Gaiden Released

Post by m4rc0 »

I kinda liked how they used the drawings, the live action shadows and normal scenes. Since they were telling Kaoru a story, it was ok to make it look like a story, epsecially because she is a painter.

The action was great and I didn't feel like they made everything slower like in Red Requiem. Bado was pretty cool. It's a pity that no Knight in the series had techniques like that.

Erda was kinda pointless. It seems like this takes place in the end of the Garo series. But she didn't show up on the series? Why did they create a new character AND gave her a past I'll never understand. I'd rather see the watchdog's past. That would've made more sense, since we don't really know why they betray the knights.

Kiba's backstory was kinda weak. It's the same problem that the main series had. They want to do a mature toku, but the plot is something that you can see in any KR or shounen series.

But Kaoru kicking ass was AWESOME.
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