Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?
One thing I've recently discovered is this live-action series MTV Italy has placed in its Anime Night sandwich (in between the latest arc of Inuyasha and Nana, which is coming right after another series heavy with musical content, Beck).
It's from Keita "Zeiram" Amemiya, and it's called Garo - literally, wolf. After only a handful of episodes being aired over here, it has attained the status of Most Involuntary Source of Laughter in the whole package, especially on discussion groups such as it.arti.cartoni, where people like to poke fun at the show and its incongruities each week.
The story is about a "Makai Knight" coming to our world to hunt down "Horrors" preying on the weak, the innocent or the corrupted (the latter usually become hosts or puppets for the creatures).
We're talking, however, about a guy who looks like a pretty boy Japanese idol, with a rigid, white overcoat which gives the likes of Seto Kaiba points for style, goes around chatting with a talking ring, runs and jumps at unnecessary times in slo-mo, and conjures a golden armor with a wolf-themed helmet before inflicting the coup the grace on the monster of the week.
Besides being a possible reject from Saint Seiya, he also has a secret hideout, a butler and these three spirit-things (dressed like Ruri Hoshino on LSD) on a swing appearing every now and then to give some advice. The female co-protagonist is a clumsy, wannabe artist who'd give Azusa Shiratori a run for her money in the cuteness-for-brains department.
I've been told than the series takes a bit before actually becoming worthwhile, and I still wonder whether it does so (for me, Zeiram's better adaptation was as animation - got some Katsura?) but at the moment I'm content enough laughing and spotting homages, cliches and so on.
Update: they're planning a rerun of Muteki Kojin Daitarn 3 (or "when James Bond and Bruce Wayne meet Giant Robots"). It's ooooold, but still lots of fun (and unusually laid back for a Tomino opus).