A big anniversary for a long-running franchise is always a good excuse to look back on and celebrate where it all began, but what about going even further back to before the beginning? This is how the GARO franchise decided to celebrate its 20th anniversary, with the release of GARO: Taiga - a brand-new feature film starring a Taiga Saejima , father to Kouga (and grandfather to Raiga) whose time as the titular Golden Knight had previously only been seen through flashbacks. Series creator Keita Amemiya  returned to write the film, as well as co-direct it alongside Masaki Suzumura who handles the action sequences. Shoichiro Kitada takes over as a younger Taiga, with the character having been played by Hiroyuki Watanabe in previous appearances.

As the GARO franchise continues to celebrate its 20th anniversary, fans are lucky enough to have two projects representing its two main continuities. Whilst the Saejima family timeline added a new chapter to its story last year with prequel film GARO: Taiga , 2026's offering instead focuses on  Ryuga Dougai - continuing his story from when we last saw him in 2024's Heir to the Steel Armor . Though at only eight episodes (plus a prologue episode which quickly recaps Ryuga's story from the very beginning) GARO: Sentinel of the East  is one of the shortest entries in the franchise thus far, it does however reunite Ryuga with Rian - the Makai Priestess who first debuted alongside him in The One Who Shines in the Darkness  and continued into  Gold Storm ,   Gold Storm -Sho-   and Fang of God . As with the previous series, The Eastern Sentinel was made available worldwide via the official GARO YouTube channel with multi-language (albeit AI generated) subtitles.

While it may not seem like new GARO series come around quite as often as they used to, every time a new one is announced it feels all the more special. With the franchise currently celebrating its 20th anniversary there have been a few new projects celebrating its different timelines. The tail end of 2025 saw the release of prequel film GARO: Taiga , taking place in the Saejima family timeline and focusing on Kouga's father and previous Golden Knight Taiga. Meanwhile 2026 kicks off with a new instalment in the alternate Ryuga Dougai universe, GARO: Sentinel of the East ( Higashi no Kairo ) - the fourth series to feature the character. As with 2024's Heir to Steel Armor , the series will be simulcast worldwide via the official GARO YouTube channel . However like before whilst multi-language subtitles are available, these are machine generated and thus of varying quality.

In 2013 the GARO franchise took a surprising turn with the release of GARO: The One Who Shines in the Darkness – a series featuring a brand-new protagonist in the golden armour completely removed from previous entries. From there the story of Ryuga Dougai continued to grow, expanding into multiple series and films to truly become its own separate continuity. Ten years on from Ryuga's debut and GARO has marked the occasion with the next chapter in his story – GARO: Heir to Steel Armor ( GARO: Hagane o Tsugu Mono ). Heir to Steel Armor also marks the first time a live-action GARO series has been simulcast to worldwide audiences, releasing on the official GARO Youtube channel with English subtitles shortly after their Japanese broadcast.

Between the numerous live-action series, movies, anime adaptations, action figures and more, it doesn't feel like all that long ago we were in a golden age of GARO . But truth be told the franchise has actually been relatively dormant for the last few years - the last series GARO Versus Road having come out back in 2020. However it's been ten years since the franchise's second Golden Knight Ryuga Dougai was first introduced back in GARO: The One Who Shines in the Darkness , and to mark the occasion he's back for a brand new series. GARO: Heir to Steel Armor ( GARO: Hagane o Tsugu Mono ) is the third series to feature Dougai in the titular role, and also marks a big first for the franchise. Much like what Tsuburaya Productions have been doing with Ultraman for the past few years, episodes will be released weekly on the official GARO YouTube   channel alongside their Japanese airing - available worldwide complete with English subtitles.

Release Date:  April 2020 RRP:  9990 yen GARO  has been a notable inclusion of the  S.H. Figuarts  line for some time now, but there’s no doubt that  Bandai Tamashii Nations  aren’t using the franchise to its full potential. Take a look at the releases so far and you’ll quickly see that nearly all of them have been versions of the titular  golden knight , with the only exception being  silver fanged knight Zero. For anything else, you'd have to look toward the different scaled (and now seemingly defunct) Makai Kado range.   Now that the franchise seems to have effectively moved over to the  S.H. Figuarts -Shinkocchou Seihou-  range, Bandai have finally branched out to their third  Makai Knight .  S.H. Figuarts -Shinkocchou Seihou- Dark Knight Kiba  was the perfect choice for the next character in the line, given corrupted knight  Barago’s  place as arguably the franchise’s standout villain - appearing i...

A franchise’s longevity often depends on just how well it can reinvent itself. Over the past decade and a half  GARO has spread itself across multiple mediums and timelines, all unified by the appearance of the titular golden armour and the malevolent dark karma creatures known as Horrors . And in the year of its 15th anniversary, GARO: Versus Road has done it again. A brand new chapter in the GARO legacy, Versus Road brings in new characters and a brand new setting - one that seems very different to what has come before.

Once upon a time you could have considered GARO to be an obscure tokusatsu  series, at least when compared to some of the bigger name franchises. But after 15 years, multiple television series and movies, three anime spin-offs simulcast worldwide and several official English-subtitled US Blu-Ray releases it's fair to say that ship has long since sailed. The fact this particular film even had English subtitles for its Japanese home video release just reinforces the fact. Celebrating 15 years of the Golden Knight , GARO: Gekkou No Tabibito ( "Moonbow Traveler")   brings back Raiga Saejima and the cast of The Makai Flower  for their long-overdue movie outing - bringing together the various threads of the Saejima family storyline for potentially the last time. (Review contains minor spoilers)

First Kami No Kiba  reunited the cast of the Ryuga Dougai era, and then Moonbow Traveler brought together three generations of the Saejima family for one truly unforgettable movie. So where does the GARO franchise go from there? You clearly can't top moments like those, so instead the franchise has renewed itself yet again for its 15th anniversary - introducing a brand new continuity in the form of Garo: Versus Road . A new continuity isn't the only thing that's different though, with the Golden Knight entering the world of virtual reality in a tale that promises to be rather different than the GARO we've seen previously. So plug yourselves in, because it's time to get digital.

Release Date: October 2019 RRP: 9082 yen Despite first being unveiled at the Tamashii Nations event all the way back in 2014, it would take S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Garo a further four years to finally see release. The end result though was certainly one of the figures tokusatsu figures Bandai Tamashii Nations have ever produced – one so good that they certainly weren't going to be content with only releasing it just once. First we got the Saejima Kouga version, and now his son carries on the legacy of the Golden Knight with the Tamashii web exclusive S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Garo (Saeijima Raiga) version! First appearing the Makai No Hana (" Makai Flower ") series, Raiga's story recently continued in the 2019 film Gekkou No Tabibito (" Moonbow Traveller ") – finally reuniting him with his father as well as yielding a few other surprises for long time GARO fans. One surprise which this particular figure also shares…

Masahiro Inoue may have made his name among tokusatsu fans as the lovably dickish Tsukasa Kadoya in Kamen Rider Decade , but in the last few years he's been making just as a big of an impact as part of GARO as well. First appearing in Gold Storm -Sho- back in 2015 and then returning once two years later in Fang of God , the Makai Knight turned Horror Jinga has gone on to become not only Ryuga Dougai's recurring rival but also one of the most engaging villains in the whole franchise. A character who was just perfect for a spin-off of his very own, and in Kami no Kiba: Jinga (Fang of God: Jinga) he finally has just that. But exploring Jinga's history as a Makai Knight prior to his son's death and fall to darkness would be too easy, as this 13-episode series takes a much more interesting approach to expanding the character.

Release Date: November 2018 RRP: 9990 yen While S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Garo   may have taken a whole four years to go from its initial Tamashii Nation event reveal to becoming a reality, Bandai Tamashii Nations were much quicker at following it up with another high quality GARO release. Why settle for just the Golden Knight when you can have the Silver Fanged Knight too? Rei Suzumura has arrived as the second non- Kamen Rider release for Figuarts' premium offshoot - S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Zero . Coming seven years after the release of the original Zero Figuart , this new edition follows in its footsteps as a Tamashii web exclusive . It's also one of the pricier standard sized Figuarts on the market too, originally selling for the same 9990 yen price tag as Garo himself.

Even though fans were treated to the fantastic GARO: Vanishing Line anime earlier this year, it feels like it's been a while since the last proper GARO series. The last live-action entry in the ever-growing franchise was Zero: Dragon Blood back at the beginning of 2017, which being a Zero series (not that that's in any way a bad thing) was fairly low on Golden Knight action. 2018 did however kick off with a brand new movie entry, continuing the story of Ryuga Dougai in GARO: Kami no Kiba (" Fang of God ").

Release Date:  June 2018 RRP: 9990 yen The 2014 Tamashii Nations Event was notable for announcing the long-awaited return of GARO to the S.H. Figuarts line, but while the releases of both the Ryuga and Leon figures followed fairly swiftly there was one key figure that took much longer to show up again. However after nearly four years of waiting S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Garo (Saejima Kouga) has finally arrived - the first figure in the S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou line that doesn't hail from the Kamen Rider franchise. As the name suggests this is the armour worn by Kouga Saejima , the first Golden Knight from the franchise and lead character of both the original series and Makai Senki . S.H. Figuarts Shinkocchou Seihou Garo (Saejima Kouga) was released as a Tamashii web exclusive , and at 9990 yen is certainly one of the most expensive standard sized Figuarts released thus far.

GARO: Vanishing Line is available in streaming form on Crunchyroll Over the past few years GARO has gained some real traction in regards to Western recognition, an achievement that's certainly partly thanks to its spinoff into animated media. No longer the niche franchise known only among the tokusatsu fanbase it once was, the GARO anime are simulcast, dubbed and (in the US at the very least) released on physical disc – with the live-action series now following suite thanks to a number of Blu-ray releases by Kraken-Releasing  as well as streaming on Hi-Dive (again, unfortunately US only). Last year saw the franchise return for its third anime outing – GARO: Vanishing Line . Like previous shows The Carved Seal of Flames and The Crimson Moon , Vanishing Line is a completely standalone series – starring an all-new cast and moving the action to a modern city setting.

GARO: Vanishing Line is available (in selected territories) in streaming form on Crunchyroll Even though  Zero: Dragon Blood only finished it's run back in April, it feels like it's been an eternity since the last GARO series was airing. That just goes to show how widespread the franchise has become in the last decade, going from a tokusatsu that aired a new season every couple of years to a full-blown franchise spanning multiple timelines and even branching into animation. And speaking of the latter, it's now back for a third anime season -  GARO: Vanishing Line . Once again animated by MAPPA , the latest instalment of GARO: The Animation is another standalone series featuring a brand new Golden Knight as well as its own unique setting.

While the GARO franchise has grown exponentially in the last few years, the anime side of things seems to have been met to a more mixed reception than the tokusatsu elements. The Carved Seal of Flames (released in the West simply as GARO: The Animation ) got off to a slow start but eventually developed into a very strong series, however the second instalment - The Crimson   Moon , failed to match its the worst of its predecessor even when it was at its best. However following the conclusion of Crimson Moon the cast of the original series returned once more in GARO: Divine Flame - a feature film once again animated by studio MAPPA  and released as part of the franchise's 10th anniversary celebrations.

After several months of silence following the release of Makai Retsuden and the Ashura special, the GARO franchise made its triumphant return in 2017 with the release of Zero: Dragon Blood - the second spin-off series following fan-favourite Rei Suzumura aka Zero the Silver Fanged Knight . In addition to Ray Fujita reprising his role as Rei, Mary Matsuyama also returns as Makai Priest Rekka , with series creator Keita Amemiya once again in the directors' chair. The 13-episode series was written by Sumiko Umeda , who had previously written episodes for Yami o Terasu Mono, Makai no Hana and Gold Storm -Sho- .

Despite last year marking its 10th anniversary, 2016 wasn’t an especially great year for the GARO franchise. The year kicked off with the second half to the woeful Garo: The Crimson Moon anime, and while Garo: Makai Retsuden brought back a wide range of characters (including Kouga himself) the series largely consisted of forgettable side stories with minimal action. However with plenty more confirmed GARO projects still to come, 2017 may prove to be much better. First up for the franchise is Zero: Dragon Blood , a second spin-off starring Rei Suzumura aka Zero the Silver Fanged Knight . Zero previously appeared in the original Garo , Makai Senki and Makai no Hana , as well as his own mini-series Black Blood in 2014.

2016 was the year that GARO made a huge comeback in the world of S.H. Figuarts , with a total of four brand new figures (one of which is a repaint, and five if you include the Seimei FiguartsZERO) released after years of inactivity in favour of the more intricate Makai Kado line. After tackling the Ryuga armour from Yami Wo Terasu Mono/The One Who Shines in the Darkness , Bandai Tamashii Nations then moved on to the GARO anime projects with Leon's initial armour from GARO: The Animation (aka The Carved Seal of Flames ). Rounding off the year was Raikou 's own unique armour from the second anime series GARO: The Crimson Moon , which saw the traditional golden knight reimagined into ornate samurai armour to fit the show's Heian setting. S.H. Figuarts Garo Raikou Ver. was a Tamashii web exclusive , originally released in November 2016.