Garo -Gold Storm- Shou Movie released

[takenoko]

Wiki: http://wiki.tvnihon.com/wiki/Garo_-Gold ... Shou_Movie

It was okay.

I mean, it's not good or bad. It felt like a prologue to the TV series that worked to introduce all the characters, and that's sort of all it was.

I liked the fighting on the giant sword. And the receiving of the giant sword. I'm not totally sure if I would have been satisfied watching this action in the theater though. It didn't really stick out to me that much, and a lot of it was CGI.

At least we know why Ryume was late to the fight in the TV series, she was busy pumping the land with her energy. I feel like I saw the name of her bodyguards in katakana in the credits, but they're in kanji in other places, so I wasn't able to know for sure what their names were before (They're never directly addressed, as they're just the suit actors for Garo and whoever Garo happens to be fighting that week. There's your Garo trivia if you didn't know that before.)

Oh, I liked Agou's costume, both unmasked and masked. The masked version looks like a Japanese armored warrior. I don't think they ever call him a Gouryuu, which is what living Madou machines seem to be called in the Kouga/Raiga universe. But maybe the gou in Agou and Gouryuu are the same, and they're linked that way?

I don't understand the scenes with the girl laying the flowers. The last scene was very nice. But that lady is super old at the end. What happened in the 50-60 years in between that turned Agou from smiling to a girl to deciding humanity must die so that there are no Horrors? Plus, we never see him interact with her. At least have her show up and be like, "I'm the girl that gave you flowers. Do you remember me? Remember your humanity, Agou!" But nope. They just introduce an element that can build some character, and they don't use it.

[XIII]

I felt it was an OK one as as well, I didn't get vexed by it like a different Garo movie. It just felt like a nice prologue to set things up and introduce the characters. D Ringos Kebab stand was interesting as it was all in English, and I think that is the first time I have seen kebabs as a food choice on a toku show. I might be wrong on that thou.

I didn't realize till I was looking for signs that Agou became an armored person, but I did like his change style, like he was being wrapped in sacred cloth, quite an interesting design.

The flower girl scenes did seem a bit random, along with Ryuuga and Rian walking past the same spot at both the start and end of the movie. It just didn't really seem to have a place in the story, or it was an idea that they didn't quite flesh out on, I hope its not something they are going to flesh out in the remaining few eps of the show, cause that would suck greatly

[takenoko]

I guess in a sense, any Garo movie that's just average and not superb is a failure in itself. If I were to rank one-off Garo movie/OV's, I'd go from best to worse:

Beast of the White Night, ~Soukoku no Maryuu~, Tougen no Fue, Kiba Gaiden, -Gold Storm- Shou Movie, Red Requiem

We'll see where Bikuu ends up on that. Remember, pronounce it like "be cool" to remember how to spell it.

[XIII]

Aye, it just felt more like it could have been split down into 2 or 3 episodes of the series, but then we might not have enjoyed the series as much as we are doing, so its a catch 22 really

I feel like if they focused a bit more on the action, it might have worked better, the drama side of it just didnt really play well

For me, the movies go: Beast of the White Night, Tougen no Fue, Kiba Gaiden, -Gold Storm- Shou Movie, Red Requiem, ~Soukoku no Maryuu~
Mostly cause I couldnt stand Soukoku, it grated on me quite badly. If we were to add Zero Black Blood in, I would probably say its on par with Gold Storm Movie, it was alright, but not fantastic

[takenoko]

The old woman scene is probably in there as a cameo, since she's played by Tsunogae Kazue who played the Kanzaki Sanako on Ryuki.

Murado is played by Shimizu Kazuya who's been in quite a few things, probably most noteworthy is his stunt work on Ultraman Dyna and Gaia.

[IrocD]

Wow this is crazy... I finished S3 the day before yesterday (I watched S4 before S3, intending to go from 3 to 5) and then yesterday realized there was a movie that acts as episode 0 for S5. I was very disappointed because the movie had yet to be subbed, and I didn't want to go into S5 without it, so I was going to have to watch something else until I had the movie. Then today, I come on TVN as usual, and here it is!! The Toku Gods are looking out for me!! Thanks, TV-Nihon!

[wisdomcat]

Are we going to do a poll on this movie? Anyways I thought the movie was a good prologue to the tv show. I liked the beginning fight as it showed the team work between Ryuga and Rian. They're such a nice duo. I didn't like the idea of having a movie to set up the show to be honest. It felt weird to me that they did it like this.

[takenoko]

Poll added

[xiiliea]

The overall plot is rather bland because it's again about someone who is trying to do stupid things like wiping out humanity to save the world. But it was still okay overall so gave it 4/5.

[silver arrow]

Rather bland? Maybe I was foolish to wait for this to come out before starting the series. I got a Garo marathon ahead of me now though, so I'm not complaining.

[takenoko]

Hey, it's all up from here, my friend.

[Victormaru]

Bro, RED REQUIEM and Soukoku no Maryu are still my two favorite movies! I don't know why ya'll are hatin', lol. RED REQUIEM was badass and it's always been my favorite, solely 'cause of the action and choreography. As for GOLD STORM, I don't know...it was alright. Not a bad movie at all. I actually think it's better than Tougen no Fue even though I dig Jabi and Rekka as a duo.

The dancing naked men in the opening action scene, what the hell. Must've been the same director that did the last few episodes of Shou, lol. I'm not a fan. I didn't like it in the Shougeki Gouraigan series either. Keep the dancing naked men out, please. Also, I haven't seen Resident Evil-like Horrors (the ones that can spread open their mouths) since Yami wo Terasu Mono.

I definitely loved Agou's character. I've always wondered if they'd introduce another Madou Tool in the series other than Mayuri from MAKAI NO HANA. It's good to know that Madou Tools can actually be powerful badasses and not just boring individuals designated with a single, minor task.

That's too bad Ryuga didn't inherit Agou's giant sword as a new power-up. It would've been a nice memento from the movie. Raiga used his gigantic sword a few times in the MAKAI NO HANA series.

I'm glad Zaruba's makeover was explained here (the knight visor). I've always thought it was just completely random in the Shou series.

The movie's budget seemed to be the same as the Shou series itself. This movie was more like a short, one-hour episode special and had a straight-forward story. Nothing really stuck out.

The introduction to the characters was nice, of course, even though they've still never explained D Ringo and Yukihime. It's like, "Oh, this guy happens to possess a bunch of Madou Tools. Thanks". And Yukihime just sells kebabs. Alright. For some reason, I thought these two characters were more important or had some sort of history as Makai Priests. Guess they weren't after all?

I've gotta say, all the action scenes were pretty solid so I wasn't disappointed with that at all (minus the bad CGI). Ryume's fight with Agou was pretty entertaining as well.

I'm surprised they managed to get in a good amount of scenes from the Shou series onto the credits. They must've started filming the series right after. I'm glad the Shou series exists 'cause it makes this whole experience feel more complete. If you know what I mean.

[Alessar]

It was pretty dull. I thought it would be more epic from the early trailers. The trailers certainly spoiled the villain's plan was to kill all humans to prevent horrors being drawn up to the real world and taking on hosts. It felt like it could have been 2 more episodes of the series. Even though they shot outside in daytime and in some modern city (BTW where was it filmed?) it wasn't that great in terms of cinematography. During the car chase sequence the green screen compositing was painfully obvious.

Also, didn't Aguri leave Vol City with them? This entire time I expected him to be in the movie and die tragically and that's why he wasn't in the 2nd series. But nooo.

What did come out of this was they met Ryume who gave the armor it's ugly neck collar and Zaruba his helmet; and D-Ringo who actually I thought we'd find something out about so that was a letdown.

I think overall the movie just didn't have enough plot. Most of the problems were caused by the Garo armor being "in the wash" which seemed contrived considering it was 30 seconds in the sacred ancestral tower for Kouga. And then ... armor incremental upgrade! Which was un-needed. He got the black gunk off it in the last series - it was actually nice for a horror to FREAK OUT that the Garo armor was back and fully gold but they could have done more with it. (That whole first sequence at the horror bar was better than most of the movie.) Of course, it turned out the collar in the armor was the attachment point for the cape "thing" that the Garo Yami armor spontaneously grew in the series so it had a small actual connection but not much. And Ryume is actually back in Line city and they've been teleporting to see her this whole time? What? Damn it would have been better to say "I gave him a helmet cuz I thought it looked call. Also, he can call me."

Ryumei's fights were interesting visually but really, there was simply no need for this movie.

[Mandalori]

No, Aguri stayed in VolCity to watch the ruins. Rian was supposed to stay while Aguri would go at the Senate, but she changed her mind and Aguri stayed for training.

I would have loved to have Aguri and Takeru coming back (with Rui becoming once again Takeru's girlfriend) but they went separates ways so I guess they would have been very lucky to cross paths again.

I didn't get the filling the earth with Ki in the series (I thought it was something to be done about Radan), but now, I get it was a reference to the movie.

So Agou had this plan because the Horror had a part of him inside that influenced him that way. Even without that, his reasoning would have make sense, since the exact word of why he was created was to destroy Horrors, not to protect peoples.

I liked the cameo of Raiga and Mayuri, I was looking for them since I read on the wiki that they were D Ringo's customers. Kind of hard to see it was them since they were in the background, but it was in the scene were they were talking about Agou perturbing the Ki with the Horror's arm.

[Dragonfan]

I found it entertaining. Not great, but enjoyable, and the interaction between characters was funnier than it was in the TV show.

Is that Jaki concept new or was it mentioned before? I think I've never heard it before, and they use it as they use Inga, so I thought that maybe they're trying to say that in this universe there's jaki insted of inga, but they do mention inga too, so I am kind of lost with this one.

Thanks for the subs.

EDIT: I checked Makai no Hana episode 7 and they mention jaki too, but you translated it "evil ki" instead leaving the term "jaki" as you did with this movie, so question solved.