天下制覇

Now I want Team GARO to have a monster buddy. It could so work.

Impressions:

As with many Vanishing Line episodes, I really like the concept behind this episode. This eschews the protagonists entirely and focuses completely on a monster of the week. Even more specially, it does so through the monster going after the main baddies just 'cause, you know, monsters being monsters. And yet, at the same time, it fleshes out that there's more going on than just eating people. Monster of the week is out for power, new eventual-miniboss is the worshipful slave, businessman monster's there to keep the trains running on time. It's another good example of this show's execution of a self-contained episode that still adds to the greater world.

What I like less is that El Doarado is apparently just some random city. Did nobody think to check a map? Okay, so maybe the nightclubs are full of monsters, but I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to assume that literally the entire city is monsters. It's also weirdly sci fi for a setting that has been more or less in sync with the present world. The recurring baddies were also fairly dull, more in their conversations with each other than the nice dismemberment banter had later, and monster du jour went down a little easy after all that buildup. Better him jobbing than a protagonist, I suppose.

Next Episode:

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