GARO THE ANIMATION

Episode 11

GARO THE ANIMATION continues to have much better writing than I expected. This episode performs the impressive feat of successfully humanizing a character and killing them off in the same episode. We learn that Bernardo became a Dark Knight after he broke the Makai code and killed humans in order to protect Anna and Germán, through an excellently realized scene. In a continuation of the flashback from episode eight, Bernardo is corned by a group of human knights, who pick away at him with slow blows as he's forced to hold his ground. However, when sparing their lives would have led to Anna and Germán's capture, he goes to the dark side, and chooses to slay them all. Bernardo loses his faith in humanity due to the soldiers' lack of empathy and their sole motivations of obtaining status through the witchhunts. Then he's manipulated by Mendoza into officially joining his side, and the rest is history. Apparently Bernardo did also love Anna, and never knew that Mendoza had had her executed. Poor guy.

The argument Mendoza uses to turn Bernardo does make some sense. If the Makai Knights are supposed to both slay Horrors and protect humans, what does it mean if humans are the source of all Horrors? Is there cause to act preventatively by keeping humans from forming Horrors in the first place, or are the current reactionary methods really worth it? Then again, he's going against both precepts by killing humans to summon Horrors, so he still doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. As the episode points out, the issue here is that you can't get rid of the bad in humanity - greed, ruthlessness, lust - without restricting the good - charity, mercy, love - and undermining humanity's sum value. Humanity must be free to be fallible so that they can also be transcendent.

Anna's role (somewhat stereotypically for the deceased mother character) is as the guiding light whose unerring faith in humanity's capabilities inspired the men around her. I suspect there's more to know about her – GARO has an excellent track record for fleshing out characters who seem rote at first – but I'm eager to see how this series lands in its treatment of female characters. There are some tantalizing hints already being dropped. I didn't realize it until after last episode's write-up, but Mendoza's cursed marks look just like the ones that appeared on León's body during episodes two and three. I'm preemptively heartbroken for Germán if the most obvious explanation for this, that León is somehow Mendoza's son rather than his, turns out to be true.

This episode worked largely because of the direction, with the mood of Bernardo's flashback conveyed mostly through cinematography. It's shot from low, tight angles that emphasize how he was pushed into a corner and lost sight of the real struggle. This establishes him as a myopic person rather than a truly bad one, someone doomed by his susceptibility to momentary righteous emotions in place of big picture logic. These are flaws he shares with León, indicating that Bernardo's fate serves as foreshadowing for our protagonist's darkest potential. Bernardo lost his faith for an instant, but that's all Mendoza needed. That's all he'll need for León.

GARO seems like an optimistic show that knows it has to adequately convey humanity's basest behavior in order to say anything meaningful about its ultimate goodness. Like the “mature content” vs. actual mature content tone break I elaborated on in an earlier recap, this is a show about cruelty that isn't cruel itself, and it's a difficult line to skirt. It's also a show about faith, and I appreciate that it extends that faith to the audience's ability to interpret what it's saying obliquely. Next week: León and Alfonso's confrontation with Mendoza!

Grade: A-

GARO THE ANIMATION is currently streaming on Funimation.

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