Garo: Shine and Flower

[Shynilyte]

I'm at episode 18 for both series now. Pretty bizarre that Shine had two clip shows so close to each other. The first one was really only good for the backstory stuff, which has nothing to do with being a clip show. And it also reminded me how the show spent way too much time on stuff with regular Horrors which don't have much to do with the main plot's Madou Horrors. Also, apparently Soul Metal is made of Horrors now?


The restaurant owner being the villain sure was something. Better than Makai Senki's twist, at least. And the second clip show at least explained stuff that happened during the episodes. Episode 18's big fight was kind of underwhelming. I was surprised the good guys didn't get owned even faster.

Flower is also not that great. The individual episodes are at least watchable since nothing about them makes me upset, but the main storyline doesn't feel like it has any direction, even though Eyris was established as a thing from the start. The show feels kind of aimless in general, besides the times it decides to remind the viewers how great the old cast were.

 

[Toku Prime]

Also, apparently Soul Metal is made of Horrors now?

I'm guessing you're talking about episode 13 of 'Flower', where the "shadow warriors" purify their blades by putting the Horrors within them into a Makai Tool?

You can't kill a Horror. When a Knight defeats one it becomes sealed within his weapon (no idea what happens if a Priest defeats it with magic). Every so often they have to purify their weapon, which removes the Horrors from within it. If the weapon isn't purified and a large number of Horrors builds up within it, their combined negative karma means the weapon could start attracting other Horrors and/or be recognised (and attacked) by anti-Horror devices.

Normal Knights purify their weapons by visiting a special device of the Watchdogs that they can insert their weapons into and the Horrors are sent back to Makai. But once a Horror is returned to Makai it begins to recover it's energy. When a Horror has fully recovered it can re-emerge in the human world again. It seems there is a fairly consistant re-charge rate, so weak Horrors can pop back up pretty quickly whereas the most powerful Horrors can take centuries to fully re-charge. I guess that the shadow warriors' idea was to try and permanently seal the Horrors in the Makai Tool, preventing them from re-charging and re-emerging.

 

[Dragonfan]

I think he's talking about how they use madou horror seeds to create soul metal, which is explained en Ywtm. Though it is said in another shows previously. Actually there's a book that explains the story about how the humans figures out that they had to use horror skin in order to defeat horrors.

 

[Shynilyte]

Yeah, I'm talking about these two instances in Shine:

http://a.pomf.se/ygeios.jpg
http://a.pomf.se/deroqw.jpg

A little strange that we only find out about this now.

The shadow warriors and their animal thing doesn't (seem to) have anything to do with making Soul Metal.

 

[Dragonfan]

It is not thoroughly explained previously , but some times they've talked about the irony that they fight horrors using things made of horrors. For example, in episode 3 of Makai Senki, when Leo is using this little robot made with horrors, he answers Kouga saying that his armor is made of horrors too.

And in the novel Yousei no wana we have a whole explanation of this.

SPOILER from the book:

Humans warriors fought horrors only with conventional weapons and fire (which was the most succesful weapon they had used against the horrors so far). Then they found a horror charred with magma. They noticed that the horrors were afraid of this horror body, so they used it to make symbols to wear on their armors.

In a battle, an unknown warrior was losing against a horror and didn't have any arrows left, so he shot the symbol with a bow and was the first person to kill a horror (and the first Makai Knight). That's when they discovered that the only useful weapon against horror is horror skin.

 

[Shynilyte]

At episode 21 for each now.

Shine episode 19 was... actually pretty good. It was nice seeing Ryuga keep trying regardless of how impossible it seemed, which is the kind of thing I expect from a super hero protagonist. Although it bugs me that when he recovered the sword, he calls himself "Dougai Ryuga" rather than just going "my name is Garo" like Kouga did. That the sword can only be removed by Garo himself does explain why nobody managed to move it after Taiga died.

The show gets back to annoying by episode 20, though. It's pretty dumb that Hakana got younger by releasing Madou Horror plants, but reverts to normal so easily. Episode 21 ended Enhou's plotline about as well as I could hope, but it feels like it took too many episodes, even though there wasn't really that much screentime dedicated to her.

Flower episode 19 was awesome. The music Horror is a great way of doing a silly/quirky MOTW without being annoying, and Raiga making the orchestra play Tusk of Thunder was brilliant. Episode 20 was also a low point for Flower. Pretty lame that Crow didn't get to do much even in an episode more focused on him. By episode 21 it seems the show is finally getting the Eyris plot going, after nearly running out of monolith Horrors. Flower is enjoyable, but the main plot has been handled poorly.

Also, I am going to assume that Tousei is related to Rekka, considering he's descended from Makai Priests and looks exactly like her father.



I know the real-world explanation, but still.

 

[Black Fang]

One thing I didn't like in Flower was how they got through most of the slab Horrors in the first couple of episodes, instead of spreading them out more.

 

[Shynilyte]

A lot of the time I honestly couldn't tell whether a given Horror was from the slab or not until Mayuri says so.

So I finished both of them. Shine's final arc was... acceptable, although bunch of things felt a little weak, like Ryuga having to kill his mother. The whole thing about the armor turning black was always not the smartest-written idea, but it's alright as a visual metaphor of how Ryuga has to prove he really deserves to become Garo. Zedom's metal cubes were pretty neat, although they didn't quite make up for a lack of robots. Tousei's last scene was a neat on the tradition of having a fight right after the big climactic one. Not really getting the epilogue episode. Or rather, why it needed to be an epilogue and couldn't have been done as flashbacks in the main series.



Flower's last episodes were... eh. They really should've given Eiji more screentime before revealing him as the main villain. And Eiris wasn't really handled well. Was there any foreshadowing about her having spacetime powers and being responsible for Kouga and Kaoru's disappearances? Most of the cast were never exactly great. The show outright tells the viewer that Crow was only important in the final arc because he could fly. I'm not really feeling the last scene with Raiga and Mayuri. Kind of lame that they outright show you that she can remember things now. But I guess after Raiga overcoming the berserk state, there was no concern about things getting too ridiculous anymore. And despite everything, the characters did manage to become something besides reminders of why the original cast was better.