Garo

Not being a fan of sentai shows, I was unsure whether this would live up to its reputation as a tokusatsu show for adults (being developed by some of the Kamen Rider team), but the tag-line is true and it is, indeed, a Hyper Midnight Action Drama! The premise is a straightforward mangaesque excuse for action: Saejima Kouga (Konishi Hiroki) is a Makai Knight, who is sworn to protect humanity from supernatural creatures called Horrors, who possess and devour humans.

During a battle, an aspiring artist named Kaoru (Hijii Mika) is spattered by the blood of a horror, and by the law of the Makai Knights she must be killed immediately... but Kouga can't bring himself to kill her, and instead lets her live on the pretext that she will act as bait for Horrors and make his hunting easier.

From this simple beginning the plot develops nicely (if rather predictably) though the introduction of new Horrors, new powers, bigger battles, and most importantly a second and very different Makai Knight, Zero (Fujita Ray), who seems to bear a grudge towards Kouga...

The characters are well-played and nicely handled, and the fighting featuring the phenomenal Mark Musashi) is wickedly fun - a ballistic blend of martial arts, suitmation and CG which somehow always manages to look cool! The dialogue is snappy and amusing, and the story is seen through to a satisfying conclusion.

There is a little in the way of blood, horror and mild nudity, but overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable show which can be enjoyed by anyone with a taste for action.

I've not checked out the two-part special which followed yet, but I'm looking forward to it! Incidentally, fans of this show should also check out the excellent "Sh15uya" and the amazingly daft (but utterly wonderful) "Cutie Honey the Live", both of which feature Mark Musashi, cool fights and crazy costumes.

And with that I mean that this show is terrible like the formers and, like the latter, it has nothing remarkably for "adults" or even "teenagers", unless you think the concept of being for "adults" amounts to nothing more than a couple of nipple shots that you can easily find in other medias like animes. It's the same stuff of all the other tokusatsus about a superhero protecting dreams etc. Just with worse choreographed fights, worse chara (which is absolutely incredible considering the pedegree of the director), ridicolous pretentiousness upped to over 9000 thanks to the clear-as-day uberlow bugdet (couldn't Amemiya go, for a more robust budget, to the same people that produced Tekkoku Mikazuki five years before this?) and CGI effects that are as laughable as it can get. And these are the SUPPOSED tokusatsus for adults, tokusatsus that make the previous work of Amemiya himself in Choujin Sentai Jetman alone look like a slasher franchise! The only useful thing this dreck has going for it is that the suspicions the mediocre Mechanical Violator Hakaider movie and the terrible Lion G-Maru Reboot aroused in me about the Amemiya/Inoue duo (meaning that the reason for it working so well are mainly on the Inoue part and less on the Amemiya one, being the latter so pathetically weak when left to his own devices) find a confirmation. Avoid at all costs unless you want to experience a self-parody that isn't remotely funny to begin with.

Edit: apparently the script of this crap was written by the same hack (Yujii Kobayashi) who wrote the terrible, totally unprofessional and amateurish to the level of being insulting for amateurs episodes 17-20 of the unwatchable Smile Pretty Cure series and the main writer of the Sailor Moon Crystal remake fiasco, which explains a lot. Still, the faults of Amemiya in the effects and chara department are inexcusable nonetheless.