Another Rei episode, and it's pretty damn good.

I like how cool Rei gets to be in this episode. Like how he humbly says it's not worth mentioning his name. And how frank he is in saying the Garo is stronger than he is.

Juuzou was awesome too. (What is it with Juuzous?) It's nice to see an honorable Horror. At first you don't know what he's thinking. I mean, he had plenty of reason to kill the annoying guys with the camera or the yakuza, but he doesn't. And he's running out of time, he sacrifices himself instead of a stranger for his ambition. How many villains are that respectable? Plus he picked up Rei's sword and used it against him. Too bad he couldn't have been a reoccuring antagonist for Rei or something.

And it looks like we're finally going to see an episode where Rei and Kouga are both in the same episode. And while it's strange that they're not looking for a cure for their matching tattoos, at least we might get to see them fight it out again.

Kanji lesson:
Kacchuu 甲胄 【かっちゅう】 (n) armor and helmet (armour)
Juuzou mentions this. It's literally the kanji for "shell/armor" and "helmet", but it's a bit antiquated. Hence Rei not understanding what Juuzou means.

Yoroi 鎧 【よろい】 (n) armor, armour
This is what most Japanese use to say armor nowadays. If you're a big nerd, it might be worth memorizing the kanji, since it's the kanji for Gai's name. Radical for metal on the left side, radical for surprise on the right (which is itself a combination of "mountain" on the top and "bean" on the bottom)

In the credits, Ukyou's full name is Hitokiri Ukyou 人斬り右京 which just means Ukyou the Man Slayer. (If you watched Rurouni Kenshin, remember his title was Hitokiri Battousai)

And the Horror's name is Kagemitsu カゲミツ. Shadow secret? Who is voiced by Nishi Rintarou. Why is this important? He's Shadam from DaiRangers, Doukoku from Shinkenger, and a pretty successful voice actor. (Seriously, that's who Doukoku's voice was?! Unbelievable) Chimatsuri demon sword?

The Episodes are getting better and better. It seems like the plot is starting to pick up and therefore the stories of the episodes are getting better. Although any episode with Rei is chou awesome as it is.

What is it with these blood-lusted Samurai who fall to "gedou" named Juuzou? (And being under the control of Doukoku)
Is it that common of a name in Japanese history or something?

Again, the CGI is much improved over the last series/movies.
You would think that Juuzou would be upset he didn't get to face off with the strongest Makai Knight and come back as a ghost or something.
I wonder what unfinished business Kouga and Rei have to settle eh?

I love love LOVE the atmosphere they set up with this episode. The beginning Kurosawa-style credits, the black and white, the fukkin AWESOME swordplay, absolutely amazing. I was thinking Igari would give into the Horror so he could use the sword, but instead he takes the honorable way out, and I love his character more for that. I don't quite understand how killing himself turns him into a Horror but honestly, I'm not questioning the epicness of that ending battle.

Possibly my favorite episode of both series.

My theory on that was that because he killed himself, it removed his soul from his body and it allowed the Horror to take over his body. Or something like that. You know or Vice-Versa.

Man I thought we'd moved past this ZERO/GARO rivalry to the point where they are friends. Either way, excellent episode. I hope we geta feature episode for TSUBASA equally as compelling. Still the way they are building this I get the feeling Rei/ZERO is not likely to survive the end of this series

James

The very nature of Horrors normally (evil and just looking for a feed) makes this one all the more interesting. Double points for being billed with Rei for the episode.

Such a great episode. Both actors were awesome in this one. Although, the whole Zero/Garo rivalry thing seems really forced, I thought we got over that. I hope the writers don't pursue it any further than Rei's remark.

Especially after they had that sparring session in episode 6 in Kougas sanctuary. I remember in the first season Gonza saying that if a Knight lets anyone else into that particular room it means they are good friends or whatever. Hopefully there isn't any more Rei wangst.

Who says good friends can't be rivals? Striving to become better than someone doesn't always mean you want to cut them down in cold blood. :/ It's called friendly rivals... like Klavier in Ace Attorney.

Silva clearly said that his soul was intact and he wasn't possessed like all of the other human hosts.

I personally believe that Juuzo's lust for a strong opponent and his old-fashioned samurai honor overpowered his Inga and the Horror to the point where a complete reversal happened... the human possessed the horror. That's actually pretty badass. It doesn't help that the Horror seemed to be the type to possess an axe-crazy individual, which Juuzou is clearly not.

I kind of meant the opposite really. When he killed himself, his soul and body seperated. The body stayed where it was but his soul tried to fly away and the Horror manifested a body in his image becauseof the strong will of his or something.

Awesome coreography, awesome music, awesome everything. As usual, Garo has the best MOTW and I guess this is the coolest MOTW ever in tokusatsu.

The way he intimidated the yakuza was very hardcore. I just think that the transformed fight could've been a little longer. I wouldn't mind skipping Kaoru fanservice time for that.

So, I guess we'll have Garo and Zero fighting again. For old times sake. But I really think they should team up 1st and then try to kill each other.

It's funny that most of you think Rei is going to try to kill Kouga. Rei doesn't want to kill Kouga at all especially he has done nothing wrong to him at all. Rei just wants to beat Kouga in a fair fight.

Man that was the best episode I have seen so far from GARO. Igari Juuzou was a man of honor looking for a strong opponent and bound by samurai code. The whole atmosphere and tone was like from a Akira Kurosawa film just by the intro. Best moments is when the yakuza thugs got spooked by Juuzou when he walked down the alley was so cold blooded amazing. Taking the possession of the Horror was a first time done by a human was pretty hardcore. And the superb swordsmanship with his duel with Rei was beyond epic. I capture a screenshot of

when Juuzou gave him his sword of by honored him a fair duel.





R.I.P. Igari Juuzou

Now this episode was awesome. Excellent swordsman choreography, great Horror, and just another cool focus episode on Rei. I thought that the actor who played Juuzou did a good job of playing the character and showed the necessary emotions to the conflicts of Inga, killing humans, and against Rei. I don't understand how he didn't die when he killed himself but oh well, the battle that happened afterwards made me not care. So Rei wants another clean rematch with Kouga. I would love to see that. But they really need to figure out how to get rid of that "tattoo" first. On a side note, I only watched the SD version of this episode and thought the quality looked pretty good during the final fight. I might need to get the HD version now just to see everything else in better quality.

The Japanese blog I read said that Juuzou absorbed the Horror into his blood stream, which is how he survived. Maybe the Horror did it on purpose since he needed Juuzou to survive?

Thanks for the compliment for the SD encode. I try to do a good job reworking the brightness/contrast since I notice the raws that we use can look a bit washed out.