GARO THE ANIMATION

Episode 19

It finally happened - León popped his cherry, and GARO popped out its best episode yet. This week treated us to the simultaneous climax of finally learning Ema's deal and León's long-awaited deflowering – at her hand! Both events have been foreshadowed since GARO's first episodes, but it's a testament to the show's deft characterization that they seem plausible.

Eighteen episodes after her introduction, Ema Gúzman finally gets to carry her own story, and it was worth the wait. The Horror she's been hunting turns out to have been husband, Luciano. In life, he and Ema were both Makai Alchemists who worked as a team to eliminate Horrors, but Luciano was a man of strong empathy, and their violent life wore on him. He wanted to find a way to save people who had been turned into Horrors without killing them, but this quest led to his own possession and transformation. Ema has been hunting him since then. She doesn't like Makai Knights because it was their insistence on violence as the only recourse against Horrors that drove Luciano to madness. They also attempted to incarcerate her when Luciano turned, assuming that she wasn't far from becoming a Horror herself. Since then, she's wandered Valiante alone in chase of the monster who wears her lover's body.

There was always some sexual tension between Ema and León, but I never thought the show would actually act on it. They're such a weird couple, especially for anime. It's as if Edward Elric had hooked up with Izumi Curtis or something. (Although to be fair, León is at least 18. Ema is also currently single, with her ex-hubby zombified) Strong older women are already a rarity in anime, and it's even odder to see one who's still in charge of her sexuality. Ema's unusually broad – if not deep – for a female character in anime. At various points maternal or sexual, composed or vulnerable, she's not slotted into one of the rote mother/girlfriend/whore/crone roles women usually get in fiction. It's refreshing. Let's keep this up.

GARO isn't all that great on the lady front, but not in a way that particularly offends me. It's a show about a very masculine idea of heroism/adolescence that happens to have a bad habit of fridging ladies, but it's still better than 90% of these sorts of stories in its treatment of women. Like Maria the Virgin Witch, there's little to no male gaze, which is remarkable for an industry that makes bank off exaggerated versions of the female form. At the same time, it's very much about sexuality as a constituent of character. It's subtle, but enough to give this female viewer enough good will to hang through the show's duller or more questionable moments.

It's important that Ema never tries to retrieve her husband from the brink, but only put him to rest. This is because Ema is (and has been) at terms with the finality of death/becoming a Horror, while Luciano wasn't. His tragedy was caused by his belief that there might be a way to turn back the clock and save everyone, even past such a dark precipice. If the “Leon will try to bring Lara back to life” scenario holds true, this will be an interesting parallel between him and Luciano. He would be the second man in Ema's life who risks his soul to combat a fundamental principle of nature – and doing it for another woman! I don't think that Ema and León are a romantic couple yet. She's still more of a maternal figure to him, even after the sex, but their relationship is slowly becoming more equal. They may end up real romantic options for each other or they may not, but right now, it's nice to see a sexy-but-not-sexualized older lady getting some from our young action adventure protagonist. Hooray, mutual trauma sex! Let's see how they feel about it the morning after.

I feel like I say “this is the best Horror design yet!” every other time one shows up, but this one was standout, largely because of how well integrated it was into Luciano's human form. Design-wise, he's 50/50 split between Spike and Vicious from Cowboy Bebop. (Their combined aesthetic can only be called “Gothfro.”) As a Horror, he looks like Howl's corrupted self from Howl's Moving Castle, but with a visor to let him fly at supersonic speeds. GARO has never looked bad, but there have been sharp hills and valleys when it comes to an episode's visuals. It bottoms out around the plague doctor episode (which was also a low point for story) but we've been on a severe upswing from then, possibly culminating in this episode. The direction has never been better, with lots of shots emphasizing Ema and Luciano as small figures in a larger environment. It was screencap-worthy composition after screencap-worthy composition here, and went a long way toward conveying the process of two people growing apart.

There's also some outstanding action choreography on display here. Ema's acrobatics have been sorely missed, and now they've taken to the skies - she commands a horde of kites that she uses as platforms and vehicles to pursue her supersonic beau. It might not trump last week's duel on a technical level, but it's a more memorable and effective setup. This episode almost functions as a short film on its own. I hope that GARO's recent spike in quality marks an ascent, not a peak. Fortunately for us, the show has another thirty or so episodes to top itself. It's earned top marks this time.

Grade: A+

GARO THE ANIMATION is currently streaming on Funimation.

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