You’re right about it being Kagura, but I disagree that it’s not spelled out. I liked GRZ a lot, but I would have liked it a lot more had it treated me like a smarter person. As for being lazy, well, that talk-through-everything method of storytelling encourages laziness.

@owen
Frankly, I think it’s an apologist cop-out to say that something is better appreciated as part of a whole work. Especially considering there is no Ga-Rei anime, Zero needs to stand on its own. Besides, I don’t think a lack of feeling “complete” in vision or story was one of its faults.

I do think, however, that what this does exceedingly well is hurtle us down towards a known destination while giving us a hell of a ride in the process. I knew nothing good would come out of it all–but I hoped in the process that it would, somehow, and that’s worth the price of admission alone.

Agreed x1000. I’ve seen very few stories do it like that at all, and fewer do it so well. It’s kind of cruel to the viewer, but I like it that way.

@TheBigN
I’ve heard that before from others as well. I would say that helps invalidate Owen’s point about the whole body of work, but I don’t really think it’s a relevant point to begin with. At any rate, kinda sad, but at least the Ga-Rei oeuvre gives us a few very good episodes of prequel anime.

I also thought the whole ’stick a stone in you that makes you proper evil’ thing was kind of a cop-out after all the build up to Yomi’s bad turn.

I’ve read in quite a few reviews that the characters in Ga-Rei Zero lack depth. No, there’s plenty of depth, you’re all just too lazy to look for it. We all know that the stone doesn’t make you evil, it merely draws out your existing evil. The question is why Yomi harbored evil in the first place. Was it losing her boyfriend? Losing her father? Losing her reputation? Those all had very little, if anything, to do with it. It was all Kagura. Why Kagura? I could write a whole post about it, but my point is this: it’s not quite spelled out the way you and several other reviewers would have us believe.

Over-verbalising and generic characterisation is about right in terms of its faults, I also thought the whole ’stick a stone in you that makes you proper evil’ thing was kind of a cop-out after all the build up to Yomi’s bad turn.

The thing with this is that Ga-Rei Zero happens to be like the similarly-named Fate/Zero, after all–it’s meant to be a prequel to a greater body of work with a larger cast of characters and different scope of action. I’m not going to split hairs here and demand that Ga-Rei Zero be awarded the same amount of attention as Fate/Zero (because nothing could ever rival Gen Urobuchi’s writing), but it never really felt lacking to me for those reasons stated, since I watched it with the knowledge that while it could be viewed as a standalone work, there had to be a bigger picture in mind if one wanted to do it justice.

And it did just that, if you ask me. I like the bits and pieces of narrative it fiddled around with, although the weapons got a bit too goofy and the men far too impotent for my liking, even if that’s a standard features that comes with this blasted sub-genre of girls with guns (swords!?).

I do think, however, that what this does exceedingly well is hurtle us down towards a known destination while giving us a hell of a ride in the process. I knew nothing good would come out of it all–but I hoped in the process that it would, somehow, and that’s worth the price of admission alone.