Garo Hagane no Tsugumono Series discussion and poll

[takenoko]

Master Poll Link
Images

[Kurow]

Oh man... I have to be honest and hard on this one is a 2/5 and the now the bottom show of the Garo list below VERSUS.

What is saddest me the most is that a friend that I have recommended Garo for years decided to finally give it a try and watch this one because it was free and available at youtube. He dropped it at episode 3 (due lack of time and being busy) but I don't think he is going to finish it.

As a "veteran" Garo watcher I will just going to say that this was such a low budget project and something that could easily be a 2 hours movie instead of 13 low budget episodes.

Now lets go as always with the good and the bad.

The good

1) The costumes: They were fantastic and even my friend that is new to Garo was impressed by them. Mutsugi specially looked fantastic in her costume and the armors this time were very detailed and looked like real armors and real weapons (I'm tired of the toy looking stuff from Super Sentai and Kamen Rider).

2) The cast: Good actors but simple plot and plain story. Mutsugi (Kurotani Tomoka) did a fantastic job and the plot twist of her being the villain was good and not predictable. Souma's actor did the best he could but he doesn't look young enough for the roll and Souma's characters was intended for an older teenager (probably someone around 16-17 years old). Ruyga as established veteran golden knight was good too see. Our boy matured and is now a legendary knight.

3) The story continues: The story continues and opened the chance for another series or a movie. Ryuga now wants or need to clean the Garo armor one more time. The ironic thing about this series is that is centered around the "legacy" and Ryuga said that is important to pass it to the descendants... yeah but... Where is Rian?...

4) The music: Really liked the ending theme. JAM Project always delivers and this was no exception.

5) The special effects: They looked good but it was the same attack and scenes again and again however very well done.

The bad

1) The low budget: My god... this series was so cheap and the steel knights were not able to summon theirs armors against a full transformed honor.

2) The story pace: Felt like 90% filler and so bad that it could have be a movie.

3) The final battle: Due the lack of time and low budget the gate of destruction was all looks and did nothing. It was killed in a single attack.

Conclusion: Better than nothing...

Score: 2/5.

This one is only for veteran Garo fans.

I really wanted new Garo stuff but at the end of the day this was below expectation and lets be honest as the third season of the second best Garo character its not good enough however its better than no content.

[Lunagel]

Eh, I gotta give it a 3. What worked really worked and pretty much all the issues were clearly tied to a lack of budget, can't fault them too much for working with what they got. Acting and story were solid, and that goes a long way for me.

[Saejima Kouga]

The low budget impacts and lack of Rian ruined this one for me. I did like the 3 horrors we got, but seems those episodes took all the money. I gave it a 3, which is being nice. I didn’t like any of the new characters except Koyori.

I feel like if Amemiya had been involved, this would have been better. I hope the next iteration is as good as Ougon Kishi.

[DaVinci030]

I feel like if Amemiya had been involved, this would have been better. I hope the next iteration is as good as Ougon Kishi. [/color]

Amemiya Keita was involved in this series as one of the design workers with other three. Not only he did the brush stroke (of Garo, Garo Yami, Hagane, Zango) but also designed the steel knights, Zango, the gate of destruction.

It can be found on his X/Twitter account: https://twitter.com/keitaamemiya01/media

[Saejima Kouga]

It’s cool he had some design calls, but everything else is what I’m talking about. This just barely felt linked to his work. For an abbreviated series, it should have been over the top.

[takenoko]

Not to repeat what I said in the last episode discussion, but I really liked the bones that were there. I liked the stories that were there, the monster designs were cool, and people had some cool moves

The downside is that it was full of padding, uneven pacing, and stuff just didn't come together. Like the three swordsmen were kind of superfluous. We had Ron be antagonist once, and Obi was there just glad to be there. It felt like we were going to get a Koyori arc that delved into her relationship with Mutsugi, but that didn't happen (which might have been cooler since she'd be more affected by the betrayal at the end) The limited budget meant Garo did the same move every time I defeated a monster, which was silly, even if they created story reasons for why he was using it

It's a solid B+/A- Garo story that was dragged down by its limitations. I'm still glad it's there and it's a nice return from VR which really felt like a nothingburger in hindsight

[Mxylv]

I'm going to give it a solid 3. There were several issues with pacing, and some story decisions that may have been budget-related but make virtually no sense in-world. It was nice to see Ryuuga and Zaruba again, but between its being over 5 years since we've seen Ryuuga and no one familiar for him to bounce off of, there's no need for this to even be Ryuuga outside showing how much he's grown--which, to its credit, HwTM achieves--and his Shou Yami form from Goldstorm appearing a couple times. This felt like Tohokushinsha wasn't confident with a full return and wanted to test the waters to see if anyone cared; I'm still not sure whether YwTM's 10th anniversary was the inspiration for the show or just seen as an opportunity to get a new entry on the air. I'm still of two minds on how they used their budget: from a moment-to-moment standpoint, the show looks way better than Toei's offerings, but when looking at the whole picture, it's clear they had to sacrifice a lot to get a 12-episode show that looks that consistently good-looking. Maybe having it be an 8-episode miniseries would've helped, but 12 is already on the shorter side of Garo entries, so I suspect they didn't want to go any shorter.

The music is a small point, but I feel like it represents some of my issues. The series OST was sandwiched between two brief references to the YwTM/Goldstorm Theme of Garo track, yet this didn't appear anywhere else. Maybe they couldn't afford the track itself, but surely a couple more references wouldn't have hurt? As is, the show felt unconfident that it was worthy of the theme, its use instead relegated to a "remember how this show used to be?"-style nostalgic defeatism that Ultraman had suffered from through much of the 2010s. Is this overthinking it? It certainly is, but I don't want to acknowledge that, so I'll move on.

Uh, I guess I've got to discuss... the captions. I've mentioned this a couple times earlier, but I do think it's *a* step in the right direction for them, as it shows an interest in bringing their content westward even after the Kraken/Hidive release left as quickly as it'd appeared. They're clearly looking at what both Toei and Tsuburaya are doing, between Toei's international channel offering the first two episodes of every series and Tsuburaya offering their latest shows near-simultaneously, region-unlocked, and subtitled in multiple languages. Heck, maybe they went for cheap AI captions because they weren't sure what difference it'd make for their views. However, if they keep the AI caption strategy in the long run, no one except the absolute diehards are going to watch its official release--my sole counterpoint to my own position is that these captions may have chased people away from future efforts. AI will get better over time, but if the human oversight does minimal work correcting it, it can only be taken so seriously. The captions feel like a representation of the show itself--I appreciated its presence for what it was, but should this be followed by a 10th anniversary Raiga series, I'm hoping this is more a test run than the shape of things to come.

I remember TV-Nihon saying logistics would make becoming a professional subbing team unfeasible, but I wonder how Garo Project would feel accepting volunteers...? Not very realistic since each episode disappears after a couple weeks, but a guy can dream.

Anyway, the perks for me were seeing Ryuuga (and, more importantly, everyone's favorite talking skull ring) again, a thematic through line on what it means to be a hagane (a show being about something makes a huge difference), and a dedication to aesthetic, lore, and worldbuilding throughout the show. The entry was clearly made by people who cared about it, and a lack of budget certainly didn't mean a lack of effort, but it feels more like a spinoff than a mainline show.

[Hypeshot]

Im praying for more garo in fhe future.

[Phyllobius]

First I'd like to thank the landlord and his little helpers for the whole shebang.

The lack of budget and the subsequent small number of horrors changed the pace and development of the story. And wifey and I found that great. The story is kind of rehashed but Garo plots were never rocket science.
And mutsugi actress was great.
Domoarigatô Bambooshootsama!

[takenoko]

Nice to see that someone else appreciates the series that are "just alright". I think there was a lot to appreciate about this series, despite the flaws