Ga-Rei: Zero

Title:Ga-Rei: Zero
Garei Zero
喰霊 -零-
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - AIC Spirits
CHIHARA Minori
KITAMURA Eri
MAENO Tomoaki
MIZUHARA Kaoru
Original Concept - SEGAWA Hajime
Tsuchimiya Kagura is a girl with the power to summon a "Ga-Rei" called Byakuei. Her virtual "big sister", Isayama Yomi, can summon another, Rangurren. As members of the Supernatural Disaster Countermeasure Division they work together to find evil spirits and devour them with the Ga-Rei. Though the girls are the best of friends now, their relationship won't always be so happy...

Animation Production by AIC Spirits & asread.
Series aired October thru December '08.
12 TV Episodes.

This anime series has been described as being a prequel to the Japanese Manga series [source:Wikipedia.]

Read the translated manga online at MangaFox.

"喰" ("ga") isn't a word on its own but the first kanji of the verb "↗kuu", a vulgar version of "to eat/devour". "霊" ("↗rei") means "soul" or "ghost" (but has a homophone that means "zero"); "零" ("↗zero") can mean "zero" or "nothing" but also "starting point" or even "loser".

Isayama Yomi has been voted Best Villain of 2008 by AnimeReactor Community Awards.
Episode Details 
99, 100
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 9 8 8 7 8 8 Ggultra2764 [series:1940#1552]
It was quite surprising how the developments in Ga-Rei Zero were laid out in regards of its focus with the series. Essentially, the first episode is nothing more than a swerve to the viewer as it appears focused on a cast of archetypal characters fighting against a supernatural threat. But when Yomi pops up at the end of the episode, she does more than enough to twist the direction of the plot with her actions. Even better, the show's direction goes back in time by the third episode to look at how the plot got as messed up as it did with Yomi and Kagura. Rather than come across as a shallow baddie, what we learn of Yomi in these episodes makes her off to be more of a tragic heroine as she tries finding some sense of normalcy through her bond with Kagura while facing the pressures of upholding her family's traditions of being exorcists despite facing some prejudice due to a tragic past. The series does enough at fleshing out the characters of Yomi and Kagura where you can buy the tight-knit surrogate sisterhood that the two girls feel towards one another, as well as the tense family relationships that they have. Some characters among their families even get their focus to show the tensions that the two girls have in interacting with their families.

Ultimately, Yomi's family drama is what leads to the breakdown of her character into the merciless baddie she became earlier in the series and what causes an unknown evil to manipulate her into becoming a death-crazed phantom. This also drives some later developments with Kagura as she finds herself having to come to terms with killing those who were once human before being corrupted, especially as Yomi's breakdown does enough at putting a wedge in their once tight bond. The emotions going through some characters hesitant at taking out Yomi at first (Kagura and Izuna in particular) did well at adding some drama to the mix showing how much the girl meant to them.

The show does suffer a bit in the fact it is a prequel to an (at the time) ongoing manga series where some concepts to Ga-Rei are not fully elaborated on and there are lingering plot developments left hanging regarding who the mysterious boy was that manipulated Yomi into her murder spree.

In terms of visuals, Ga-Rei Zero features a slick presentation with vast and highly-detailed settings, some fluid and smooth battle scenes and great-looking character designs; particularly the spiritual beasts and various apparitions that human exorcists are slaying while in urban settings.

Overall, Ga-Rei Zero delivers some shocking twists at its start to throw off viewer perceptions on what they assume to be a typical supernatural action title where instead, it becomes a character-driven action-drama focused around the tragic backstory of Yomi before she became a murder-crazed villain. I give this series a strong Rent recommendation.

Last updated Thursday, September 01 2011. Created Thursday, September 01 2011.
Rent 9 8 9 8 8 8 Dreamer [series:1940#2279]
The series really started off with a bang and drew me in. It's a well rounded series worth watching.

Art, Animation & Character Designs
Artwork was well done with a mix of CG here and there. Animation is pretty smooth and fluid. Character designs were unique and illustrated well. Great cast of characters... even if they did live a short life..... sorry for the spoiler. Kagura was uber cute... but annoying at times.

Music
The OP was a nice rock-pop piece with female vocals. It's one of the better ones I've heard in anime. I actually sat through few openings to listen through it. The soundtrack was mostly action sequence pieces. The ED was a nice alternative-rock piece that was sorta interesting.

Series and Episode Story
The story was interesting how it was layed out. The first episode really caught my attention and after the second episode, I was totally blown away! What the heck happened to the supposed cast of characters!? That's when it "really" caught my attention. The action was pretty much non stop with lots of guns, fast action and nice fight scenes. As for the plot, there wasn't really much to it but the overall presentation of it was more than enough to overcome the lack thereof.

Couple of gripes, our protagonist, "kagura" was at times an annoying character. It annoyed me how "weak" she appeared during crucial moments... which could have dictated the fate of one or more supporting characters. Second, most my fav characters get sliced and diced. Oh well.

But in the end, the plot wraps up nicely and the episodes goes to explain how the beginning happens and fills in the gaps. That's what I really liked about this eries.

Overall, it's a really good series worth watching. The ending is bittersweet... so be prepared to part with fav characters.

Last updated Saturday, December 05 2009. Created Saturday, December 05 2009.
Rent 9 9 9 9 9 8 Silence [series:1940#2939]
I liked it. I did not really really love it to death, but I liked it. So its a high rent.

"Would you kill someone you love, because of love?"

That was the tagline for the series. And the whole series revolves around this line, exploring it to a decent depth. Yomi was everything that Kagura had loved, and now is everything she has to stand up against. <- equals conflict.

I really liked the storytelling. We get a glimpse of what happened later, and then we get a look into the past of the characters. After we get back to the first scene, the dots are connected, more information is given, and the whole thing just makes sense. (That is not as common as it should be, nowadays)

The characters are very real, with their fears and moments of weakness. While the fights are certainly decent and realistic (no, armed fights end in seconds usually, not 1000 years) they are not the most awesome I've seen (and I am not asking for that here; the drama is good enough). The human deaths are realistic (people die when they are killed... and the main cast can die too, but not all at once).

So everything is pretty good. Good story, good storytelling, good action, good humor. My beef with this is that there is no real outstanding aspect to grip me and draw me into the path of no return. Maybe its just me, but I was unable to empathize with the main characters to a very deep extent. Yes, I did feel their pain, but no I did not feel it deeply, and the last episode that was supposed to leave an indelible mark just sort of bumped off me. This could have been a show that goes into my favourites, but fell short of the mark. Well, doesn't mean that this show does not deserve credit; its still a good show. Just not EXCELLENT.

Ps. Garei Zero is the prequel to the manga Garei, and left off where the manga began. So if the anime is going to continue (and I hope it does), it would be Ga-Rei, not Ga-Rei : Zero anymore.

Last updated Saturday, February 21 2009. Created Saturday, February 21 2009.
Buy Stretch [series:1940#628]
(Buy- or Rent+)

(All episodes watched):

This is a show which didn't immediately "grab" me, but was soon looking up and wound up the best action/drama series of the season, in my opinion. My first impression was one of high-tech spiritualism (if that makes any sense). Sort of a matter of finding ways to make conventional weapons effective against supernatural opponents. For instance, apply some sort of mantra to the tires of a motorcycle so that you can grind their faces into the pavement just like you'd (never dare to) do to real-live enemies. At first, the tactics used by this organization to deal with evil spirits seemed too bizarre in some ways and too predictable in others. The evil spirits weren't all that terrifying, even if they did kill a number of people. As is often the case, a handful of super-cool experts are more effective than the bulk of the personnel put together. This did not exactly seem to be my sort of show, but it wasn't altogether terrible either. but where would Tokyo get it's drinking water from now?

Nevertheless I couldn't help feeling curious about where this story would go and looked forward to the next episode. Somehow it was hard to get excited about the opening battle, which continued here; the principal characters are just so totally "cool" that they are clearly in no danger and there's no reason to get excited. Indeed, the bigwigs arguing about policy matters back in the safety of headquarters seemed more interesting. An archvillain, Yomi, is introduced but she seemed uninteresting to me. Or maybe the problem is that her good girl opponent Kagura behaves in such a stereotypical mode that their fight is utterly predictable. If Yomi is just plain pure evil then she's just plain boring, too; she needs motivation and a personality. In short, episode two was disappointing.

I spoke too soon; character development for Kagura and Yomi were just around the corner. Episodes three and four established a credible and interesting basis for the series and my interest increased considerably as a result. We learn about the girl's friendship in the past; whereas early on it seemed that I was being force-fed action in order to artificially excite me--which was more pathetic than effective--now the central characters have developed rapidly and are interesting and likeable. And somehow they will wind up bitter enemies someday; I can't help wondering how that will happen. Good jokes, too! The arsenal of bizarre weapons available to the exorcists was great fun. Compared to my first thoughts about the series, I'm surprised at the impression of skillful storytelling which I'm getting now.

When I first saw Kagura and Yomi about to fight it out, it seemed corny, but I realize now that it was a clever tactic. We learn that they were in fact the best of friends at one time, which means the series will portray their descent into distrust and anger towards each other--I really want to see how their battle turns out now. It's ironic that at one point Yomi assures Kagura that she'll never do anything that would make her sad. Episode five was largely goofy and silly with some serious undertones. It involves Kagura's plot to help Yomi make up with her estranged boyfriend. The jokes were surprisingly good (especially the Lupin III parody), better even than I often get from some pure comedies. Ga-Rei Zero is definitely one of my Fall '08 favorites now.

The fights in episode six were fast and wild. What seems to have happened to the girl's rival, Mei, and Kagura's secret being discovered by some schoolmates left me thoroughly intrigued, and wishing that the episode could continue for an extra minute or two (that doesn't happen very often). Episodes seven and eight are when we see the first signs of Yomi going bad. The climactic fight between Yomi and Mei in episode eight struck me as very well done and exciting indeed. On the other hand, I'm not so sure that I like what happened after the credits--the plot seems to suddenly lunge forward when it had been moving at just the right speed. Yomi is such an interesting, likeable character that I definitely want her to attain her full potential.

Good news! I was imagining things. At the end of episode eight I was afraid that the "Yomi turns" twist was being done in a simplistic, overly hasty manner, but I see now that that was not the case because it is far from complete. In episode ten the timeline catches up to the scene we saw way back in episode two--I had assumed that wouldn't happen until the climactic final episode. Yomi going bad does seem to have happened a little fast, I think, since I see few signs of her resisting it. But the reason is clearly explained and I remain entranced. I love this show, and it is one in which I very seldom glance at my wristwatch while viewing. It firmly holds my attention, too, which is evident by the fact that I clearly remember what happened in the last episode. In fact, I would say this is definitely my favorite drama series of the Fall '08 season (which has been busting at the seams with good shows).

Episode eleven left me in awe at the wild excitement and high intensity of the action. Significant characters get killed or seriously injured left and right, leaving me wondering if this might be the final episode, since there won't be many people still on their feet for another one. There's no time to wonder what will happen next, all you can do is hang on tight as you're taken for a thrilling ride. There seems to be a brilliant buildup underway for a final showdown between Kagura and Yomi, as if this were a classic Western. It's not often that I see an episode of this quality; this show rocks was my conclusion.

The way the show ended oozes quality, leaving me thrilled and wondering why more series can't be as good as this one. It was sort of predictable, but it was done right, so that's OK. I hate shows which try to be serious yet take an either everybody or nobody gets killed approach, because that seldom happens in real life. Here Yomi did a pretty good job of decimating the team, but there's still a small cadre of survivors. Kagura being forced into a fight-to-the-death with her old friend was tragic and moving. The result is that I don't feel patronized at all. One person who did survive was surprising. The Death Stone guy (did we ever get his name?) is still at large, so I hope there might be a second season of Ga-rei Zero someday. As I've mentioned before, I've identified three attributes a show may have: Coolness, Plausibility, and Humor. Ga-rei Zero seems to have a good dose of all three. The coolness goes without saying, what with the excitement and action. Once you've suspended disbelief about things like demons and spirits (and who's to prove that these aren't possible?), the plot makes perfect sense. And there's a definite dose of quality humor as well. In all, my favorite drama series of an unusually good season.

Catch Kagura and Yomi's montages at the Kendo Girl Scrapbook page!

My favorite line: "What's left is only the anti-evil chainsaw" --Yomi


Last updated Saturday, December 11 2010. Created Saturday, October 11 2008.

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