Ga-Rei-Zero

"Merely average"?! Heretic! Heresy, I say!

I'll put the full review up in the Friday Room when it shows up. In the meantime I will point out that this show has an enchanted Holy Avenging +5 Kawasaki MOTORCYCLE that leaves ghostbusting skidmarks and is probably fueled by 127 octane rocket fuel blessed by the Pope himself. And maybe I'm a hermit, but I can think of one show that had motorcycle-fu to this magnitude, and it was that thing with the Matrixy stuff.

This is a show so effective with its characterization that it manages to make even a jaded cynical bastard such as myself legitimately care for the characters despite knowing them for less than an episode -- all the more impressive when you realize that they have a life expectancy of Grasshopper of the Great Lakes Avengers (died 5.2 seconds after joining the team).

It has expertly choreographed action as well as a script that keeps the audience in the loop without seven hours of infodump or "strange" "words" with "Captial Letters" that everyone but the audience already knows about.

It has no cute animal things wearing One Rings at all!

It has HEADCRABS!

And someone who's either the main character or one of the best designed villains I've seen in awhile.

If you really, really hate action shows, you probably won't like this one. Otherwise, this one is amazingly well done. And if you think the agents in the first episode are boring, get a load of the B-Team in episode 2. You will never look at a briefcase the same way ever again.

This show is pretty good, but I'll probably watch it along with everyone else instead of watching on my own.

Also, this show demonstrates how a modern society would react to the supernatural, presuming the governments mostly don't talk about it. We would analyze what is going on, figure out how to detect and harm our foes, and then start with the mass produced rune bullets and inscribed motorcycle tires and turning entire resevoirs into holy water. One thing is for sure, we humans are very good at thinking up ways of killing things with greater efficiency.

I certainly would have liked to learn more about the two main characters from this first team before the slicing started as they seemed to have the most character potential and backstory, but it would seem that this series is playing by XCOM rules for its combat teams.

MORE!

And just when you though being the main character guaranteed you'd survive the first episode. It was definitely twisty, though I'll agree that I'm sad there wasn't more of a chance to develop some of the characters that looked interesting. I'm not a huge fan of action but this one still held my attention throughout and I wouldn't be complaining if we watched more. As for the bike, that was just epic.

As for character development, never forget the power of the flashback.

Flashbacks of dead people is a pretty sadistic way to go considering that we know that they're going to die horribly but now we get to like them more.

I like. I've done it myself a couple of times in my works.