GARO THE ANIMATION

Episode 14

After an episode spent almost entirely with León, it's time to check in with our deuteragonist, Prince Alfonso. Since the climactic battle with Mendoza, he's had to perform double duty as both Valiante's main administrator and protector, and the strain is starting to get to him. He's exhausted, and it doesn't help that he prefers one to the other. His courtly life, which mostly consists of training for his future as a full-blown monarch, lacks the immediacy of his work as a Makai Knight, so he often shirks it to go out and kill Horrors. This week, his escapades land him at a haunted castle occupied by a boisterous bandit family and Germán, who was totally there to investigate and not just to pick some flowers for his new lady love, Ximena. The castle was the site of a historical courtly romance about a man named Count Juste and his wife, Isabella. Juste was a legendary knight who was constantly off at war, leaving the beautiful Isabella behind. He was rivals with a man named Roland, who was also after Isabella's heart. Alfonso admired this story as a model for masculine behavior, and the changes its history undergoes throughout the episode (first Isabella as a witch, and finally the revelation that Juste and Roland were Horrors while she was a benevolent Makai Alchemist) damages the prince's self-image. Thematically, GARO is about our heroes' maturation towards healthy, socially-responsible models of masculinity, so this sent an important message to Alfonso: get back to the throne, your idealized knighthood is a farce.

This is one of the few works I can think of where a royal stepping down to connect with the common people isn't treated as an absolute good. It makes sense – Alfonso is already in communication with them, and he's using it as an excuse to get out of the castle more than anything. After Mendoza's reign of terror, what they really need is a stable ruler to guide them through reconstruction, not a half-present maverick. My theory for the endgame is that Alfonso will become king while León will retake the Golden Armor as the kingdom's protector, splitting the duties between two people in a healthy way. Meanwhile, it's nice to remember that Alfonso, despite his prodigious good temper, is just as much of a young man as León, and thus susceptible to impatience and the temptations of martial glory. They're both learning how to best serve people with their own personal talents and stations, and León isn't as far behind Alfonso as it may have seemed.

The episodic story this time was messy but not bad. There were two reversals when there could have just been one, and it meant that we only learned the full truth of the situation between Juste, Isabella, and Roland during the episode's last five minutes. If they had tightened it up, they could have used the extra time to turn Juste and Roland into more concrete foils for Alfonso and Germán. Juste was more of a foil for Alfonso's ideals than his character, while Roland mirrors Germán's dark potential as a man whose love for indulgence led to corruption. Germán's arc will probably end with him “tamed” by Ximena and accepting some culpability for León's despair due to his loose-but-harsh parenting style. After all, despite his experience, Germán is just as lost as his son, and his years of debauchery – while a pleasurable escape – didn't help anybody.

The glimpse of León that we get finds him happily integrated into Lara's family. He runs into Ema on her own (mysterious) quest, and she updates him on Alfonso's successes. Maybe the eventual upheaval of León's quiet life (which has to be coming soon) will involve Ema? They're a good pair to put together, since she knows when to give him exactly the right type of support, affection, and chastising he needs.

Grade: B+

GARO THE ANIMATION is currently streaming on Funimation.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.