Why not Garo?

This is the story of a gold wolf furry and his adventure with all his friends
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Why not Garo?

Post by takenoko »

As amazing as it is, apparently there are still some people who watch tokusatsu, but haven't seen any of the Garo series. That seems a bit mind boggling to me, since Garo is some of the finest examples of the craft. Plus, as a part of Hyper Midnight Action aimed at adults, it's one of the few tokusatsu series that makes no attempt to pander to kids.

Of course, I'm not unsympathetic with the climate of modern life. We're being bombarded by a million things we need to see and that list just grows exponentially everyday.

But still, it does puzzle me to see the consistently low number of Garo downloads in comparison to Sentai or Kamen Rider. Going back to my previous statement, I guess it's only natural to grow up on Power Rangers, then maybe expand to Sentai. And from those numbers, a few will break off and try Kamen Rider. It's a Venn Diagram of increasingly small circles.

Maybe some people watched the original series, and found it boring. I know I did. But looking back, there's something about the series as a whole that transcends the individual episodes. I think the sum is greater than its parts here.

It probably helps that I feel the Garo Special: Beast of the White Night is one of the greatest examples of a toku movie that there is. The action is amazing. And at its heart, there's a real relatable human drama that everyone can connect with.

I mean, take any Garo series that exists. They always do something interesting and never seen before with their action. I've just got to respect their handiwork.

But on the flip side, there's just something likable about the characters. Stoic Kouga. Cheeky Rei. Silly Kaoru. There are a ton of characters in the Garo series that I just like, and would love to see more stories about. If we can claim Garo is a successful series, then maybe that's its biggest secret.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by archer9234 »

Yeah. I don't watch it because I just have too much to watch/do. I'm lucky I even bothered to watch Ryukendo and the Tomica Hero series. It took me a LONG time to even start watching Kamen Rider. You guys where doing Hibiki when I started.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by takenoko »

Fair enough. I guess we're going to get a lot of "too much to watch/do".

But hey, that's why I wrote an essay-long guilt trip XD
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Dragonfan »

Man, when I saw "Why aren't you watching Garo?" and the picture on the front page, I thought you had already uploaded Soukoku no maryu and started jumping of happiness lol.

I must be some rara avis because I am not part of that diagram as I don't watch sentai nor Kamen Rider, but I really like tokusatsu as a whole, so I see Garo and Akibaranger, and I've seen Sh15uya and some long length films like Zeigram.

So, if the fact that there are people who watch tokusatsu but no Garo surprises you, imagine how it surprises myself. Sometimes, if I am lucky enough to meet someone who likes tokusatsu, I eventually discover that we have nothing to talk about because we see totally differrent shows lol.

So yeah, I really see your point there.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by gatoronfire4lord »

I decided to give this latest Garo a chance. I'd never seen Garo before, and I love it.

However, it is just outside what I'd call my "comfort zone". This statement may sound a bit sensitive, but for me, Garo is almost a..."horror toku". It's a LITTLE bloody, and the way the Horrors act borders on nightmare fuel (it's not, but it COULD be for the more sensitive).

You mentioned how it doesn't try to be for kids, it's for adults. That's true, and it's awesome for that. But it also might make it an uncomfortable watch for some. I can see a number of people downloading the first episode, watching Garo shove a sword through a bride (with red blood appearing on her white dress) and then her jaw unhinging in 5-6 places...stopping it, deleting the episode, and saying NEVER AGAIN.

There's dark, and then there's DARK. Garo...is somewhere in between.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Tuss4 »

I don't understand why People don't watch it. The costumes alone look awesome. And it's not for kids! How dope is that? And the fight choreography (even when they don't use cables or cgi) is awesome. Not to mention Mark Musashi was in season 1!
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Dragonfan »

gatoronfire4lord, you should watch the previous seasons. Some episodes are literally horror genre.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Go-On Macaroni »

I'm checking it out... slowly. >>
I think the reason it took me so long is just that I mostly just kept hearing "Oh man, that CGI fighting was so great!" or "This show is za besto, it has boobs!1!" which served to act more as turn-offs to me than anything helpful.

It's on my list though, I didn't put all of season 1 on my external for nothing.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Klanoyt »

This is my first Garo series as well. But then you mentioned that the previous ones were boring. Well, it made me even more curious. I'm still gonna check them out anyway. :p
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Icingdeth »

I just gotta say that I downloaded the first season just to see what it was and was happily surprised. I found the fact that the first season was so different from anything that I had seen at that time to be amazing. I am happy to say that I have been hooked since I watched the first episode. In fact it was one of the first Toku that I watched more than once simply because of the characters and the fight choreography is just amazing.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by OOOKaiser »

gatoronfire4lord wrote: However, it is just outside what I'd call my "comfort zone". This statement may sound a bit sensitive, but for me, Garo is almost a..."horror toku". It's a LITTLE bloody, and the way the Horrors act borders on nightmare fuel (it's not, but it COULD be for the more sensitive).

There's dark, and then there's DARK. Garo...is somewhere in between.
You sir, need to stop watching Yami wo Terasu Mono and start watching the first season. Watch it in the dark with speakers on and you'll be scared out of your mind.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Catastrophe »

The only mistake I have ever made in regard to getting involved in GARO was buying the Makai Kado figures and them not releasing a DAN one yet.

GARO is the greatest thing you will ever watch in your entire life. I showed it to my roomate once. He was a huge otaku, but only for anime. And even then, only shitty high school girly anime (Lucky Star). He hated live action stuff. Except GARO. He fucking loves GARO. It works on non Otakus as well. Have watched it in general and people like it.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by Sanare »

I watched the first series when you guys re-released it on DVD and I really enjoyed it! I liked the movies a lot too. But I tried watching the second series and didn't like it quite as much and lost interest after the halfway point I think. I can't really say why. Maybe it's because I felt like it was just a retread of the first series even though it really wasn't at all.

When the most recent one came out I was excited because it was a new cast, setting etc. But that too, I lost interest in. But I can't actually place why.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by MarcosPMA »

I have no idea why not. I have a friend who just watches Sentai, while I started with Sentai and then got into Kamen Rider via the Shinkenger/Decade team up. I tried to get him to watch Kamen Rider, but he wasn't really interested. It took me awhile to watch Garo, I watched a few episodes of the original series but never really caught on to it. It might be the lack of action scenes that was the problem (less than in Sentai and/or Rider anyway), or something else. I didn't start watching again until the current series came on and I've kept current with all the episodes, but it hasn't really wowed me outside a few episodes (although that might just be a criticism of the current series and not Garo as a whole.)

Maybe it's just the fact that it's completely new that makes it less likely for people to watch it. Since American audiences can trace Sentai and Rider back from Power Rangers and Masked Rider, it's a little easier to get into that, whereas Garo would be a completely new thing to watch. It might also have to do with the fact that the Super Sentai and Kamen Rider shows are often pushed together (Super Hero Time), whereas Garo has a different time slot, making it separate from the other 2. I wonder if they ran all 3 shows back to back you'd get more downloads for Garo.
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Re: Why not Garo?

Post by swb90 »

I started with Kamen Rider....then Sentai....then Garo....
since then I've always enjoyed every single episode of Garo....it's just far better than KR and Sentai though each series has their own strengths and contents that I can related to.
Still really enjoy the 1st season of Garo. The other seasons seem to be a little lacking in the oomph compared to the 1st season....but still highly enjoyable~
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