Anime Review: Red Garden, Volume One

New ideas these days, seem hard to come by. Everything from fashion to food is recycling and revamping ideas from an earlier time. All one would have to do to be “in” 20 years from now would be to stow away their clothing and haul it out again when the fashion “gurus” declare old is new again.

Even movie producers are re-imagining and re-inventing older fan favorites. From Batman to Superman, Halloween and the Grudge, older movies are not immune to modern treatments.

Red Garden is a thriller/ mystery anime that seems to hold many ideas and concepts from a previous anime…

plot summary

The suicide rate is up among teenage girls in New York City. At least, the number of dead high school girls whom appear to have committed suicide is up.

The latest victim is a popular girl, Lise, who attended a prestigious high school on Roosevelt Island. Lise’s death affects the lives of four very different girls whom were close to her: Kate, Rachel, Claire, and Rose.

While these girls seemingly have nothing in common (Kate’s a member of the elite monitor group Grace, Rachel’s a spoiled club kid, Claire is a tomboyish borderline delinquent, and Rose is a quite mouse of a girl) they all have at least two things in common:

• All of them were close to Lise
• None of them have any memory what happened the night of Lise’s death

One evening, this motley bunch of girls finds themselves drawn to a specific location by swarms of butterflies. After the four congregate, they exchange what little information they have about the night no one remembers.

Then, a strange woman appears to the girls. This black clad woman points to a drooling man crawling along on all fours and declares that they will kill this man with their bare hands. The man-animal promptly attacks the four girls.

After a grueling and emotionally scarring fight for their lives, Rachel, Kate, Claire and Rose are informed by the imposing woman that they are dead. Deceased. No longer among the living. Murdered. The woman, Lula, goes on to say that they will continue to battle creatures, like the one slain tonight, at her whim. If the girls refuse, they die. Lula leaves the girls in varying states of shock with a cryptic promise to call on them before midnight tomorrow.

As the story progresses, more nightmarish details of the girls’ deaths and their newfound duties unfold. Can these girls hold up and stay sane under these extraordinary circumstances?

review

The story for Red Garden seems incredibly familiar. It feels like an estrogen-driven, high fashion rendition of Gantz. It even says “From the studio behind Gantz…” on the DVD jacket. Seems like Gonzo wants us to connect the dots between Gantz and Red Garden. But instead of an alien sphere dictating who fights what, it’s a fantastical bunch of butterflies and red flowers?

Red Garden progressed fairly slowly. I was hoping that this series would pick up the pace in the initial volume, to get the ball rolling, but no such luck. Things plodded along; even the fight scenes seemed to stretch on forever. The character development, while much appreciated seemed out of balance with the story, i.e. more character development than story.

The characters all have a good amount of development, so far, and have enough diversity and interest to add a very human touch to the series. Each girl’s reactions to being attacked are realistic; not like other anime wherein said characters instantly go into a battle stance and display zero fear. This is a pleasant change of pace, but it seems too much like a female Gantz for me to get into these girl’s performances.

Plot recycling aside, the character designs for Red Garden are superb. Gonzo used an interesting fusion of 20’s flapper style and modern day club wear to outfit and coiffe the girls. This is a new style I haven’t seen so far in a modern anime. Grace’s black dresses, Rose’s outfits and finger curl bob hairdo are all inspired by a bygone era. Even the makeup Rachel wears, the cars and the architecture are reminiscent of that time.

Gonzo’s decision to have New York City be the backdrop for Red Garden instead of Japan was a new move. The character designs are a perfect match for the Big Apple. I even liked the nod to a certain infamous soup seller who calls NYC home…

The animation was a good compliment to the character designs. Strong lines defined strong features and delicate lines, barely visible, delineated softer characteristics. This gave the anime an Art Nouveau feel. There were some shots that didn’t flow smoothly, but the animation was, for the most part, exceptional.

The OP “Jolly Jolly” by JiLL-Decoy association, is a jazzy tune with a breezy flair. The graphics for the OP are silhouettes of the main characters filled in with shifting flowers, pearls, and butterflies. The OP is a catchy piece and coupled with the graphics, creates a well done opening.

The ED cracked me up. It’s a rocking song, appropriately named “Rock The LM.C” by LM.C. In the ED the two black clad “agents” (Lula and JC) who handle the girls, doff their drab outfits and rock out to the band’s performance with the rest of the cast.

The Japanese voice cast is fantastic. They really emoted well. All the fear, whining, and whimpering and snotty airs comes through. I didn’t like the English voice cast, even though the setting was right here in the US. Their fear came across like howler monkeys.

The first volume of Red Garden had a very strained quality to it. It started out fairly solid, with an interesting opening and a decent amount of character development. After the second episode, however, things started to draw thinner.

There wasn’t much offered as to why the girls died and were reanimated, which I understand will be doled out piecemeal throughout the series. But, nor was there much explanation as to who Lula is, how she reanimated the girls, why these girls have to fight in the first place, and what the hell those doggy men are. It all had the tantalizing feel of a carrot on a string, which is a common plot device. However, there wasn’t enough info, action, or draw to entice me make me even want to chase the carrot.

out of a possible four gummies.