Alternative titles: GARO – The Animation, GARO – Honou No Kokuin
Tokusatsu Adaptation by MAPPA
Streaming on Funimation

Premise

In a dark age of witchcraft and demons running amok, the sickly King of Valiante trusts his vizier Mendoza to rid the land of misery and disease by hunting down witches and warlocks. When a witch gives birth while burning on the stake, a mysterious armour-clad fiend saves the baby and gallops off into the dark. Seventeen years later, Germán Luis reveals the truth behind the inquisition to a particularly interested prostitute, while his son León is chased by the king’s guard.

Aqua’s verdict: Grim Dorky

We’ve seen our fair share of Mature Anime for Mature People™ over the last few seasons, but few have revelled in it as gratuitously as Garo. Of course, fans of the tokusatsu series knew fully well what to expect — comically over-the-top violence, rampant nudity and the thematic complexity of a colouring book, but when the whole thing is exquisitely animated by studio MAPPA it begs to be taken more seriously than the questionable CGI and cheesy acting of the original live-action series. There’s so much wrong with Garo I don’t even know where to begin, from the obviously evil vizier to the monster of the week being yet another voluptuous succubus with shadowy CGI oozing out of her loins, but it manages to stay on the right side of schlocky throughout, thanks to some competent execution. Taking a page out of Game of Thrones‘ book, most of The Carved Seal of Flames’ backstory is told through Germán’s, uhm… interactions with a prostitute, yet it can do so without uttering the word ‘whore’ every five seconds. Even the rape — because of course there is rape, what did you expect? — is handled relatively well: brief, off-screen and implying nothing but absolute, undeserved horror for the people suffering at the hands of the inquisition’s reign. When a show as cheesy, as puerile and as adhering to the ass-backwards notion that female sexuality is evil as Garo handles mature content better than most anime, you can tell just how low the standards for the medium have fallen. Then again, you’ve probably seen Cross Ange, so you know.

Yet in spite of its gallons of dark and mature content, Garo‘s main attraction is just how surprisingly fun it is. Far less stuffy than some of its contemporaries, the show brings levity and action in equal measure, placing it somewhere between Rage of Bahamut and Fate/Stay Night on the sliding scale from swashbuckling to ostentatious. By lack of men in rubber suits, CGI makes up the lion’s part of the action, but it’s been competently integrated with the animated footage, giving the Makai Knights a certain sense of otherworldliness. As per Garo tradition, the fight scenes are brief but extremely satisfying, defying multiple laws of physics in such a short timespan even Dante of Devil May Cry fame would cry bullshit. With its penchant for long coats, impossibly cheesy dialogue, regressive gender politics and monster design ripped straight off an Iron Maiden album cover, light-speed action isn’t the only thing Garo has in common with the Devil May Cry franchise, and similarly, it can by no human logic — unless maybe that of a metalhead who’s lived in a basement for thirty years and never spoken to a woman before in his entire life — be called anywhere near ‘good’. Like the tokusatsu show it is based on, Garo – The Carved Seal of Flames is incredibly bad. But it’s so, so good at being bad none of that even matters anymore.

Marlin’s verdict: Like a Dumb Action Movie

Not sure I dig hooker exposition, but there were a lot of other things to like about Garo as long as you check out your brain. The fight scenes were particularly flashy, and like with well made CG mecha, the CG used on the tokusatsu characters works well to bring them a powerful and eerie look. The monster Garo fought was also pretty interesting, like a mixture of Silent Hill and Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist. Still not sure if I can keep up with this episode every week. It’s got a lot of problems that can’t be forgiven with it simply being entertaining. The plot is gross every time a female character comes up, from the rape, to the aforementioned prostitute, to the prostitute turning into an evil monster. It’s not something I can justify watching any more than i already have.