I need a hero, Garo delivers.
What They Say:
Episode #8: “KNIGHT”
Sword and Luke chase after the knight of darkness, who was once the powerful Silver Makai Knight. Fei Long and Meifang support them and protect Sophie from Knight’s grasp as Sword and Knight battle it out and the city falls to shambles.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This week confirms a suspicion I had last week but wasn’t sure about; the identity of the Silver Knight. Yes, it’s Luke’s father but there seems to be more to it than that. He doesn’t seem to recognize his son as his son, at least not at first and not in the way I expected.
The entire intercity network of Makai Knights and support staff go on high alert as the situation escalates. Sword brings Sophie to safety while Luke squares off against the Silver Knight. Luke is severely outclassed and outranked, not to mention his rage is working against him. He can’t even land a strike against the Silver Knight, although the battle is spectacular.
Sophie remains in a state of shock, then guilt as she wonders if her mere presence caused the death of her guardian. The staff of the Chinese place all end up being Makai staff as well, not just the owner. A woman there named Meifang escorts Sophie to a panic room below the restaurant and has to fight off a swarm of horrors to protect our lovable protagonist. I have to wonder where Gina was when all of this goes down, out of town perhaps?
Sword barely arrives back in time to snatch Luke from the jaws of death. (I think, although he does not look much better off than the dead at the end of this episode.) The Silver Knight plays the typical head games with Sword that you expect from a villain. Promises of power, compliments of prowess, telling him that protecting the weak is pointless cause he can’t possibly save them. You know, typical soul-shaking stuff. Then we see what really happened to Sword’s brother and suddenly you realize our hard-headed male protagonist is going to remain a hero because without that he’s nothing.
This episode apparently brought all the animators to the table, at least MAPPA sent out a tweet bragging about it. Some of it was very much worth bragging about. All of the problems from the first few episodes with shaky-cam are gone. The start of Sword’s fight against the Silver Knight is the one low point of the episode. The CG framing isn’t particularly good and the figures feel like their ice-skating about the rooftops like a poorly executed video game. The rest though, that all looks good to great. Highlights include the horrors melting away in the sewer and when Sword discards his signature weapon for his fists, which, let’s face it, are Sword’s signature weapon.
This episode ends not so much on a bang, but a breath of exhaustion. Large portions of the city have been destroyed, the heroes are emotionally and physically beat, and the enemy gets away.
In Summary:
Garo: Vanishing Line has finally reached the place that most people were hoping the show would be at from the get-go. This episode is a one-two punch of emotions and actions as everything hits a breaking point. The hunters become the hunted as the Silver Knight tries to capture Sophie and bring her to his leader. To what end we still have no idea, but he isn’t above destroying half a city to do it. The animation is at nearly top form and I wonder where MAPPA is getting it’s budget to wield this staff. It’s very clear the show is going to start to branch out and change things up going forward, the events of this episode give it no choice.
Episode Grade: A –
Streamed by: Crunchyroll & Funimation
