We’ve known since late April that Kiba: The Dark Knight Gaiden was in production, but we had no idea what the special would look like. A new wave of production and toy stills for Kiba have just hit the Internet, though. Now we know that Kiba’s look is everything you’d expect of a direct-to-video Garo spinoff, something so stylishly gothic that it’s working in entirely new shades of black.

Kiba: The Dark Knight Gaiden focuses on the titular Kiba, a suit of malevolent black armor worn by the villainous Barago in the Garo TV series. The Kiba special takes place before the events of the Garo TV series and is expected to explain how the Kiba armor came into existence and what makes it unique (among other things). The new stills seem to confirm that Garo protagonist Kouga Saejima will appear in the special as a child, along with his father and previous user of the heroic Garo armor, Taiga Saejima.

Garo is 25-episode independent tokusatsu series that aired on TV Tokyo from late 2005 to 2006. Billed by the network as a “Hyper Midnight Action Drama,” Garo used its late-night timeslot to present older tokusatsu fans with darker stories and imagery impossible for an early-morning series like Kamen Rider to feature. Garo was followed up by a special called Beast of the Midnight Sun in 2006 and an original film called Garo: Red Requiem that opened in 2010 and should hit DVD and Blu-Ray on August 2, 2011. A new TV series called Garo: Makai Senki is in production, though no airdate is set.

There are lots more Kiba images like the one above behind the cut. If you’re interested in the Kiba: The Dark Knight Gaiden special or the rest of the Garo universe, be sure to check out the news thread at the HJU forums. Thanks to forum user Kazuma for originally posting the stills.