When Netflix added shonen anime sensations like Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and One Piece to its library, it fell behind some of its competitors. But no one can argue that the streamer wasn't a precursor to anime's most underrated genre: mixed martial arts. After exciting shows like Baki Hanma and Kengan Ashura (and in anticipation of their long-awaited crossover special on the horizon), I was hoping Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf would be another notch in Netflix's belt. Unfortunately, you're more likely to discreetly check your phone while Garouden is on than to raise your fist next to his captivated peanut gallery.
Directed by Atsushi Ikariya and adapted from the 1989 manga of the same name, Garouden follows a martial artist named Juzo Fujimaki who is on the run after killing the attacker of his instructor's daughter. While living as a fugitive and saving stray civilians from threats including, but not limited to, grizzly bears, Juzo is forced to join a deadly underground fighting tournament called Kodoku. Garouden is presented as a thrilling drama about a man fighting his inner demons and deadly martial artists with nothing to lose. In reality, it is more like a slowly burning incense candle that threatens to lull its viewers to sleep.
Stars: Ell, Jennifer Caitlin Roberts, Caden Shaffer
While unaffected by the jarring 3D animation that made Baki and Kengan's early episodes difficult to watch, Garouden's animation style is equal parts stiff and lifeless. Its eight-episode run is littered with horrendous, distracting compositions in which 2D characters stand awkwardly within what appear to be airbrushed real-world environments. While the attention to detail in the rotoscoping moves of professional wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and karate is admirable, none of that matters when the fight scenes lack tension, drama, or a sense of fighting. Most of Garouden's early fights are about as exciting to watch as a modern-day Steven Seagal performing half-hearted wrist takedowns to a blaring heavy metal soundtrack. And boy, what does that music do to inject some energy into this mediocre fighting anime?
Stranger is the fact that Garouden seems to be aware that he's not cooking in the action department. Most, if not all, of the tournament's fight scenes, beginning in the fourth episode, end unceremoniously or exclusively depict finishing blows. Which isn't to say there aren't thought-provoking images to be found here: depicting Juzo battling his "inner wolf," a rough neon outline bursting at the seams, is a stellar choice.
Unfortunately, the only times the show effectively flexes its artistic muscles is during the opening and closing themes, which feature macro photography of real-world nature, snarling wolves, and repurposed rotoscoped silhouettes. Any anime where the credit sequences overshadow the animation interspersed between them is on the defensive. Unfortunately, that's the case for all eight episodes of Garouden.
Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf, the drama about a martial artist's guilt for taking one life to save another, comes dangerously close to being more compelling than the MMA tournament at its center. Exposition-filled dialogue, timid line delivery, lackluster fight choreography, and TikTok-filter-looking character designs make this a tough watch. Director Atsushi Ikariya desperately tries to forge an emotionally resonant triumph from rotoscoped action sequences, a soaring heavy metal soundtrack, and enthusiastically sneering spectators. In reality, Garouden has all the gravitas of a wet fart.
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