Anime: Red Garden

I was attracted to this series because of the unique, feminine artwork and because it's a dark tale of friendship between girls, which is fairly uncommon in most media, but especially anime. It does a good job of drawing four distinct and interesting main characters together in an intriguing and suspenseful supernatural mystery, wrapped in an atmosphere of melancholic melodrama.

Around its midpoint, though, it becomes too mild and drawn-out in its attempt to show the evolution of relationships as a result of violence. Nothing unexpected happens. Frowning friends fret over the girls being "Not the same," a boyfriend is tearfully dumped for his own good, fathers are forgiven. And, for all this show's concentration on dialogue and emotion, it really only ever explores one or two conflicts per each character. Claire is tired, apathetic and angry at her father. Rose is meek and self-sacrificing for her family. Rachel is brash and selfish. Hervé is driven by his overattachment to his little sister in traditional anime fashion. There are too many scenes reiterating these traits and not enough that actually challenge or explore them. What relationship or personality developments there are don't really need supernatural, life-and-death battle as a catalyst, making the interpersonal elements of the show seem incongruous with the Dolore-fighting.

While the show spends all this time focused on interpersonal relationships, it misses big opportunities to explore its more interesting supernatural elements, like the two warring groups, the Dolore and the Animus—90% of their scenes consist of groups standing around talking in hospital rooms and the headmistress' office. It's too bad this show couldn't ties its elements together more cohesively.

Five girls die under mysterious circumstances and four of them are resurrected by an organization, the fifth corpse having gone missing. The catch? They have to fight humans turned into mindless beasts by a curse.
*Red Garden* is a shoujo with minor shounen elements thrown in to try give it a different feel (better examples of that technique are *Ayashi no Ceres* and *Escaflowne*).

Supernatural elements, horror elements and superpowers all play a part in it but it mostly stays true to what one might expect from a shoujo: long dialogs, love triangles and the fetish for clothing that anime and manga creators seem to think most girls have.

Animation
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The animation is nothing to write home about, but still quite nice; not as fluid as one might have hoped, but still it doesn't disappoint. The direction is good enough, but there's not much to direct except a few short action scenes and a seemingly endless series of dialogs. The character design is pleasantly unusual, although every dress seems to scream *THIS IS A SHOUJO!!!*

Sound
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I was kind of surprised by the songs they chose as endings, they feel completely out of place when they should instead carry on the mood of the anime. They totally break it instead, in an unnerving way. I didn't mind the OP, though, it sounded feminine and appropriate. Most of the OST is, however, mediocre with just a few tracks good enough.

Story
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Yet another *whoever gets the magical artifact wins* plot. The viewer's expectations are set quite high by a very good beginning, but the story starts to drag and eventually fails to meet them, revealing itself as just another backdrop to throw random existential bullshit on.

Characters
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As crazy as it might sound, after hours of talking the characters are still underdeveloped. Most of what they say sounds nice but at the end of every episode the viewer will find that he's learned about them very little, except that they all suck, although in different ways.

I don't mind characters that suck; I did like *Evangelion*'s Shinji, in a strange, inexplicable way, maybe he appeals to the sucker within us? Anyway, the development of *Red Garden*'s characters is unbearably slow and predictable and after a few episodes they all sound like voice recorders repeating over and over the same old ideas we've already heard in previous episodes, as well as in a lot of other anime and movies. Their ravings may eventually feel like, well, a pain in the butt, something you'd like to rush through using the fast forward function.

The most philosophical parts of the anime, all strongly character-oriented, are overdone and lack any real substance. I do give credit for a few dialogs that are actually very well written and "acted", though.

Personal judgment
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I don't like shoujo very much, I hate repetition and I'm usually irritated by existential bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, *Red Garden* has been a waste of free time.

Overall
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If you really *have* to watch it, know that this is not the kind of anime one can rush through. It would kill you. I suggest watching about one episode per week, like it was aired on the TV, then it may become watchable. If it was possible to take out the absurdly high level of repetition built into it, *Red Garden* wouldn't be bad; it isn't horrible as it is anyway and it does have some good moments to offer, like the very last scene.

How to define Red Garden?
Surely this is a hard question that a lot of reviewers will face. It
isn't a straight up thriller, romance or even drama. Genres are mixed
and influences from a well known horror title - GANTZ,
loom ahead. What saves Red Garden from needing one genre to be fit
under is that it is very good (not great) at incorpotaring all those
aspects.

The animation for the title is to the quality one would expect from a
show of its age. CG and 2D are incorporated effectively - and colours,
rendering and all other aspects one whould classify under the
"technical" are used to the standard advantage. The fighting sequences
could have benefitted from a little tweeking here and there but nothing
about it was distractingly bad. Everything else can easily be
classified under good to great as the character design is interesting
and edgy, especially from a fashion standpoint where characters have
been given height and swanlike necks (which are very much the standard
for catwalk models, and also a look that worked for Utena).
The costume design is equally gorgeous, with the intermissions also
featuring some delightful croquis. What I have just defined will work
for or against the show for some, as one might prefer a more staight
forward design and less stylised characters but this was apleasant
change from the usual for me.

The sound aspect was thought of quite well by the creators with the
characters given a chance to convey their emotion through song in the
early parts of the series. This was also another way the show managed
to stand out from the rest for me. This aspect was dropped later on in
the series though fortunately, the voice actors were so good at
conveying emotion just thru speech that feelings were conveyed to the
same extent anyway. It is worth noting that this anime was actually
created using a fairly revolutionary technique whereby the dubbing was
done before the show was actually animated, allowing the seiyuus to
convey their emotions to the fullest without the constraints of seeing
what the characters would look like. The only reason I am not giving
sound a 10 is because the intro and outtros are pleasant enough,
however they fail to make an impact and stand out on their own.


The storyline starts similarly to GANTZ
(which is where the similarities also stop), the main cast comes to the
realisation that they are dead and that they have been chosen to fight
possessed humans to unsure their survival on the "borrowed lives" they
were given. Unlike Gantz though, the characters do not spend the whole
of the series internalising their emotions. They break down, they let
go, they yearn, they befriend, they FEEL!
The great seiyuus allow the characters to reach you in ways few animes
can. The pain they feel, the reasons why they fight, what made them
this way - all these are explored and expressed to the same standard
one has not seen since the glory days of Saint Seiya.
Even when the story fails the characters (the end works but feels a
little rushed in parts), the seiyuus manage to make the most out of
their characters. Overall though, the story is well adapted and
although it can be a little slow at times, those parts are quite
important when one looks at the series as a whole.

I have enjoyed this anime and applaud what has been done with the main
cast in terms of development - but it might not be something I would
rewatch in a hurry as it is very plot based, and it would be difficult
to pick one episode I really enjoyed to view on its own. I would have
to view the whole thing again, and there is no need to do so for
comprehension, as the story does not have many plotholes at all.

I would put in under the titles I have enjoyed once and would watch
again if I had a lot of free time. Other shows that fit this list in my
opinion are (maybe these can also be recommendations to some):

Princess Tutu
Scrapped Princess
Death Note

Red Garden is an interesting series...not only for the plot line and characters, for the audio/visual aspects also add a lot to the series. However, compelling as the story concept is, I found some serious issues with some of the directions the story took.

Animation:
The animation is very Gankoutsou-esque. Though there are no use of patterns like in Gankoutsou, the colors used for hair, etc. were done in the same manner, which I appreciated. It's not often that a "realistic" looking anime (the people look like actual people) also tries for visual artistry.

Sound:
The voice actors seem to capture the characters very well, and no one has a voice that doesn't suit them. However, I almost always finding crying unconvincing, since it was usually too strong for the scene depicted, or too fake-sounding (and believe me, there was a LOT of crying). I liked both the op/end sequences, I thought they were appropriate for the age of the characters in the show (high school). There are some weird song breaks during the show, however, that I found kind of jarring and awkward, and I feel it took away from the overall effectiveness of the show.

Story:
By far, this anime is story-driven, but that's a good thing here, for the story is intriguing and thrilling. The premise is four girls, none of whom could remember what happened the night before, find out that they've died and now have new bodies. With their new bodies come new skills and responsibilities. How each one handles it is up to them. However, the first half of the anime is definitely better than the second. While it is interesting to contemplate how to deal with such a traumatic shock, that aspect of the story gets old. Also, there is a lot of background on the characters, but not on the two opposing forces (they and their enemies), making their fight seem unimportant and irrelevant. There is an OVA coming out in August, which hopefully will fill in a lot, but somehow I feel like it should have mostly already been explained by the end of the series.
Finally, I thought the ending was a complete cop-out, leaving the viewer with little after the series is finished.

Character:
The characters are very well fleshed-out. It is interesting to see the bits and pieces of their life and how they have to fit a new aspect to it. However, sometimes it seems at times that the story gets sidetracked into irrelevant character developments. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, and consequently, not every character is given their due air time, and we don't care about them as much as the series wants us to (a good example is Lise--everyone is obsessed with her, but we can't really figure out who she is).

Value/Enjoyment:
I enjoyed watching the series, and found the concept interesting and thought it had a lot of potential. However, I don't think the series exploited it enough, and I wished to see more. Overall, I would say that this is a pretty good anime for those who enjoy mystery, supernatural tales and the like.