It’s been a very enjoyable ride, but all good things come to an end. Heir to Steel Armor came to a close today after 12 great episodes. It’s been great to watch Garo in real-time on a week to week basis, and I have a lot of thoughts I wanna get out of my head. Now, since none of my friends like Garo, that means it’s time to bust out the ole keyboard and get to rambling on here.

The Story

The premise isn’t particularly outstanding, but it’s solid nonetheless. Ryuga is contacted and informed that a city has recently had horror problems and that they need his help to deal with The Gate of Destruction. He quickly ends up pissing off local hothead Makai Knight Soma, and the rest of the series deals with Ryuga trying to help Soma and company keep the people safe.

Something the final villain does that I liked was that it briefly addresses the reality of not everyone who is saved/protected by the Makai Knights is a good person. The priest that the monster possesses was thrown into despair after learning a man she saved killed people after she saved him. They don’t dwell on this specifically too long, but I like when this sort of stuff is brought to the front. The One Who Shines in the Darkness had a moment like this as well; the mastermind of the enter plot was a normal civilian, meaning that Ryuga and co were honor-bound to not kill him even though he was essentially a mass-murderer who also braindwashed a Makai Knight.

The Characters

Ryuga is a joy to watch. Garo protagonists stand-out in toku because the vast majority of them are already competent and experienced. Ryuga is no exception here. He’s on his third series here, and gets to work like a champ. Something Ryuga gets to do here that he didn’t in his previous 2 outings is be the “big brother” or “reasonable authority figure”. Aside from the resident senior knight, all the Makai Knights Ryuga meets here all have some noticable growing to do. He gets to be the one doling out wisdom and looking out for people this time around, where he was the one being supported in The One Who Shines in the Darkness, and his peers in Gold Storm were mostly his equals. He does a good job.

Souma is the one who goes through a character arc here. Disgruntled with his father’s disappearance years ago, he’s got a chip on his shoulder and is quick to pull his sword on anything that pisses him off. Souma gets a lot of focus. We spend a lot of episodes with Ryuga and friends trying to talk him down off his high horse, curb his ego, and help him get over his inner darkness. I walked away from the show pleased with Souma. His problem was understandable, they run into reasonable bumps helping him move past it, and he becomes an enjoyable character. One thing I do have to complain about, though, is a line early on that said “Souma has no pride/is ashamed of being a Steel”. Now, given Souma’s standoff-ish behavior in the first 4-ish episodes, this is something we can believe even if we hadn’t seen anything that specifically showed him being digusted with Steels specifically. Now, near the end of the series, where he gives a line about being a Steel, that line feels a bit off because we never have Souma specifically address his status as a Steel. Souma was walking around and being an asshole to people because he was mad about the situation with his father, and he was a dick to his fellow knights because of straight-up arrogance rather than just them (also) being Steels. It honestly would’ve come across better to me if we never got the line about Souma not liking that he’s a Steel. Watching the show, Souma had more growing to do in terms of steppig up and properly handling his responsibility as a Knight rather than just accepting he’s not “special”. Regardless, I’d be happy to see Souma come back in a future movie or series.

Koyori was just fine. I did not dislike her, but I won’t miss her.

Obi, Ron, and Igus were pretty cool, and I liked their teamwork.

Mutsugi was cool, but the twist near the end with her kinda came out of nowhere. Granted, it didn’t feel as bad as probably actually was, but it still came with little foreshadowing. Her feelings were justified, but even just letting us know of those feelings a little earlier could’ve made her whole thing better executed.

The Action

It’s Garo. It’s got the best action set-pieces in toku, and nothing has changed here at all. Like always, all the cool stunts are done out of suit and the big finishers have them put on the armor. If I had to pick a favorite fight, it’d be the one from episode 3 where the Steels spar with each other. If I had to sell someone on garo off fights from this season alone, I’d go with that one.

Wrapping Up

Like I thought, this series doesn’t really address anything from FoG - Jinga, but it didn’t really need to. It was Garo’s return, and it didn’t need the baggage. We got a solid show that can also serve as a quick jumping on point for new people. The subs on the official youtube are still unfortunately machine-translated, but it’s better than nothing.

Great show that didn’t overstay its welcome. I’m so glad I got to watch Garo every Friday, man. You just don’t know. And you should change that. Go watch Garo!