Kiba Gaiden.

Toku movies? Well since I've reviewed so many of the Kamen Rider ones already, I may as well...

This isn't actually the first GARO film, but it's a prequel to the series, so it's the one I advise watching first. It's also kinda strange. If there was one villain in the revolving door of them in the last couple of episodes who didn't need focusing on, it was Barago. I mean sure, the film also provides more context for Kiba and Messiah as well, but we continue to be completely in the dark about the Watchdogs, who I would have much preferred a film about. But oh well.

Before we start, I'm pretty sure some of you reading are wondering what GARO is, right? GARO is a toku franchise, this film takes place before the first season of 25 episodes which follows 'Makai Knight' Kouga on his journey of limp wristed romance and monster slaying. Think sorta...Power Rangers meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer (although to the well versed, it really is unlike either). It's a pretty decent series overall, but the ending is kinda shitty from a storytelling point of view. It was also majorily ripped off by the vastly better known 'Kamen Rider Wizard'.

Starting from the beginning, the movie highlights just how close Kouga and Barago are. Both starting as the sons of Makai Knights (although Barago's father was largely irrelevant in the Horror hunting world, unlike Taiga who was like a monster slaying celebrity), both losing a parent and becoming Knights themselves because of it, only they end up moving in vastly different directions. As far as backstories go, I actually really liked it. The whole point stressed in this, was that Barago was ordinary. He came from a very normal family in the Horror hunting world, neither of his parents were all that important to anyone but him, his growth into one of GARO's bigbads wasn't some preordained destiny. He was just a normal kid, from a normal family, who in the end chose the path of darkness. His backstory is so intentionally uninteresting it almost feels original.
  
Other great things are completely new characters like Bado, a Western Knight before Zero, who uses a familiar but original Silver Armour and can wield lightning itself, amongst other powers like teleportation, cloning and a sort of saiyan kind of immortality that is poorly realised and explained. He makes Zero seem very shitty in comparison. I've always liked concepts like this, he is his own fully fleshed character, with his own story, but he existed at a time this story does not focus on. It reminds and convinces us that the war against Horrors really is an endless one, and Kouga and Zero are just two Knights amongst countless others that will come and go. Although now I really want a spin off series with Taiga and Bado as our protagonists.

There are completely new concepts introduced as well, like the Makai Guides, who go with Knights on missions and use tarot like cards to read the future. They've largely died out by the point the series has started, which explains (fairly weakly) why they never come up during the show.

It isn't without problems, though. Barago was hyped up enough as the big bad in the show to ultimately do basically nothing on screen. He largely ended up feeling completely worthless and the movie only hypes Barago up even further as we find out that he has not only consumed 1000 Horrors, but he's also killed countless numbers of other Makai Knight's as well. All of this stuff ends up falling flat because we already know how pathetically his story actually ends and only frustrates us more that he ended up doing so little on screen. It's like this movie knows exactly how much the show wasted him, but only provides him with greater potential which only frustrates more how much he was wasted, a vicious circle.

Plus the way it is told however is...eh stylish, certainly, and I suppose better than using footage from the series as he goes over bits we already know, but I expected a live action film, not a cheap piece of animation with live action bits slotted in occasionally. GARO may have had some dodgy CGI, but it never felt this cheap. This is more motion comic, than movie, and even as people become something more than silhouettes, there are more greenscreens than sets.

Thankfully, the live action...action, is totally worth waiting for. The budget they clearly saved on the cheap animated stretches, was clearly spent here, and there is also four more years of special effects technology advancement at their disposal here as well, so the action is stellar, featuring Knights with much more super powers and much more general flash, than the ones we got in the series itself. It's just a shame that every fight is so painfully brief.

So do I recommend it? Ultimately Kiba Gaiden is totally pointless. It's actually a great movie, full of wonderful action sequences and lots of new additions to GARO's world that are all fascinating. But honestly, with how little impact any of the new stuff introduced actually has on the series and knowing the whole time how pathetically Barago goes down, it gets kinda hard to care about any of this stuff. And coupling that, with how much of this movie plays out like a cheap motion comic, the whole thing is just...whelming.

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate 'Kiba Gaiden'?