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500px-Kirk_surrounded_by_Tribbles.jpg

A young girl finds a tribble and takes it home. Mayuri and Crow turn up to remind you that they still exist. Raiga gets the girl to drink some "medicine" and they show some clichéd visual indicators for when someone is tripping balls. Raiga takes her to give the tribble back to it's mother, which you don't actually get to see. See you next week folks!​
 
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Garo was oddly whimsical this week and had surprisingly little, you know, Garo in it.

Did anyone else think that "medicine" might be the reason Raiga always seems oddly relaxed no matter what's going on?
 
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Garo was oddly whimsical this week and had surprisingly little, you know, Garo in it.

Did anyone else think that "medicine" might be the reason Raiga always seems oddly relaxed no matter what's going on?

I thought it was the stuff Leo and Kaoru took in episode 10 of Makai Senki when they're looking for the Spirit Beast. This episode was pretty much calling back to that.

Anyway, kinda excited for the next episode, we're probably getting the JAM Project theme, we're at the halfway point. Hopefully there's actually some more of the actual plot of the show to go with it. I have to keep reminding myself this was how the first Garo operated. I feel like this does "Horror of the week" quite well, but with the whole Eiris seed and the nine horrors plot announced beforehand, I was expecting something else. Like the first half would be Raiga and Mayuri tracking the nine horrors, with one or two standalone episodes, then an attempt to actually seal Eiris away properly to go horribly wrong (possibly sabotaged by someone or something), then for the REAL fun to begin.

Still enjoying this show, though.
 
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Easily the worst episode of the season. In fact, outside of the manga episode, the last few have been kind of weak. Let's hope next week we get some great armor action as we haven't had much of that lately.
 
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This really was a "budget" episode wasn't it? Hopefully it means we're going to get an awesome one next that shows us where all the money from this one was syphoned off to. While I agree it was riding on pure whimsy, it didn't have the heart of the Gonza episode. A random woman filled with so much childlike innocence and naivety that you start to wonder if she's been hit on the head does not compete with the gentle father figure we've already known for 2 full series. I don't mind when Garo tries to do these "slice of life in a magical world" episodes, but it can't overcome having the magical creatures of the week being "portrayed" by a piece of fluff dangling from some string and a 'POV' crane shot.

Am I the only person starting to get really ticked off that Crow basically has no reason to be in this show? We know there's a Makai Priest and a couple of other people who were listed in the press release as main cast members but haven't showed up yet. Why did they feel the need to bring Crow in so early if they didn't need him for the first half of the series? The Crows in ToQger make more of a contribution (and have more personality).
 
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I guess Crow's in the series so early because of his status as the second Knight/the Zero to Raiga's Garo? He's been acting as a backup for Raiga since the beginning, and I imagine that he'll get some backstory and development in the second half or at least I hope he does. Or maybe they just wanted to introduce another Makai Knight in the first half just to prove that they're really going back to suits after Yami o Terasu Mono :sweat:?

About the only real highlights I could think of were the Kouga and Kaoru silhouettes that Raiga saw. Otherwise, I thought this was kind of a boring episode and one of Makai No Hana's weakest efforts :disappoin.

Kaoru and Leo's adventure in Makai Senki was handled much better, and it helps that we actually got to see some really mystical stuff whereas this episode only had a tribble and an offscreen dragon :redface2:.

I didn't really find the girl that interesting or endearing so that was also a knock against it. I'd rather have gotten more scenes with her Hayao Miyazaki resembling grandfather :p.

I guess it also doesn't help that this episode is coming right after the Mayuri scene in the last ending which I was hoping would get followed up on.

At least the next episode looks like it's going to be great, and we'll finally get to hear the proper JAM Project opening for Makai no Hana :buttrock:.
 
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Am I the only person starting to get really ticked off that Crow basically has no reason to be in this show? We know there's a Makai Priest and a couple of other people who were listed in the press release as main cast members but haven't showed up yet. Why did they feel the need to bring Crow in so early if they didn't need him for the first half of the series? The Crows in ToQger make more of a contribution (and have more personality).

I find the little we've seen of Crow intriguing, so I really want to see more of him and learn more about him, and I keep getting cockblocked in that regard week after week.
 
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You know something's wrong with Keita Amemiya when he wrote this episode, after having written ep9 ie "super creepy serial rapist" episode. Also, you know you're not paying enough attention when you have to read a wiki entry to realize that Karina works as a translator.

This, combined with Soukoku no Maryu and several elements in the first two shows, really reveals to the viewers Amemiya's mind, ideals, beliefs and worldview. And how amusingly different his perception of Garo from a lot of Garo fans, who took it as a "midnight hyper action series with grit and cool armor". To Amemiya, Garo is very much a heroic fantasy world and he writes the story as that. It might not be an all-beautiful, all-benevolent fantasy world, but it is a world of heroes, monsters and magic.

He really has this predilection of having characters(usually but not always female) that have close connections(but not necessarily a happy one) to a strong parental figure. And the characters often undergo spiritual journeys to become closer to and understanding that parental figure, thus becoming better and happier people than before. All in all, I think Amemiya is a guy I would like to hang out with because he's a guy who really values kindness, gentleness and emotional bonds.

I like this episode quite a bit. I like the amount of heart that was in it, and was quite amused by its apparent lack of budget. Then again, I guess not every "wondering around in the immaterial world" episode is going to be as beautiful as Makai Senki ep 9 since that must have eaten a lot of money. That, or Amemiya is being weird again and wants to shoot this episode "old style" where what all you have is basically a ball of fluff on a string. Older shows gets away more with lens effects since the resolution wasn't that good, but today's super clear pictures basically kills off all the magic.

I actually kinda get the reason behind not showing the Spirit Beast. Sure, we clearly saw it in Makai Senki, but I like the idea that the Spirit Beasts have different physical forms depending on the eyes of the beholder. Karina saw it having wings, but the form her grandfather saw and depicted in an image was different. And what was really important is the feelings and effort going into creating that image, for the one whose dear to you. It also kinda sorta makes sense that its infant stage is a small ballish creature covered in its own wool.

On another note, I was slightly perturbed by the amount of long still shot of Karina in her "undergarments", particularly when she's asleep. She's not showing that much skin and she's of age, but I get the feeling of "male gazing" more than I necessarily liked. Also, no young lady, you do not take anything from strangers, particularly when he straight out told you it'll make you 'see stuff'. Kaoru gets away with its because Leo was a trusted acquaintance, Raiga is just a stranger at that point(granted he saved your life, but still).

I won't say it's a great Garo episode. It's an Amemiya Garo episode, for sure, and maybe a no-budget one.
 
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This episode was weird and boring. There was a "Grudge" type girl who appeared for a few seconds, and then rest of the episode seems to be in a trippy vision with hallucinations. Not to mention the supposed Dragon that Raiga and the girl see before this vision ends. We never saw a dragon but the far camera angle and dragon sounds is supposed to sell the illusion. I guess. A weak overall episode.
 
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This girl being just a character of the week made this pretty pointless, IMO. The episode would have been better spent if Raiga was taking a trippin' stroll with anyone else, or even by himself. We could've had some hints to Mayuri or Crow's backstory, for example. We could've had Raiga going deliver that spirit beast baby alone, reminiscing about his mother and her experience with this kind of thing.
Instead, we get a random person's life story and Raiga seeing his parents (which actually bothers me, since the silhouettes didn't seem to belong to Kouga and Kaoru's actors). Alright mr. Amemiya, if this is important to be shown, then I'll take it.

Also very pumped for next week (which is already this week since it took me so long to watch this), when the new opening might debut.
 
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