Red Garden Vol. 1: Large Print Menus
Posted by: CalAggie in Anime, DVD, Reviews, tags: Anime, DVD, red garden, review
When I first saw the trailer for Red Garden, I said that I would be interested in watching it and now that I’ve seen some of it, I see that there is more drama and downer moments than the horror-action-oriented trailer conveyed. I got the first DVD in the mail last week after ordering it from ADV as a part of their 15th Anniversary Sale and also received Wild Arms v.1 as a free gift. The first thing I noticed when I popped in the disc was the larger-than-usual font size on the menus. The video itself has some grain on it when watching on an LCD monitor (similar to what I experienced with Tsubasa v.1) which is kind of sad considering this is a Gonzo title, but it doesn’t show up for the most part on a CRT television.
The Story:
Four different girls in New York City who attend the same high school don’t remember what happened to them the previous night. Each notices little things that are off like sleeping standing up, a chipped nail, slight wrist twitching, and a friend’s comment that their skin feels cold. They all knew a particular girl, Lise, who turned up dead in the woods and it isn’t until the four congregate in a park that night after being guided there by butterflies that they think something strange is happening to them.
The second episode starts off with the girls attempting fending off the beastly businessman. After that, the scenes alternate between that violent night and the next day until the quartet finally defeats their attacker and are informed by their “teacher” that they have all died and are currently living “borrowed lives”. She further informs the group that they must fight to stay alive on the nights she calls them at midnight.
Analysis:
The emptiness of killing to live affects the girls emotionally in different ways, Rachel the most out of the four. The one who sits with the hip crowd, she becomes apathetic about lunchtime conversations after weekend parties and begins to stay at home the night after she is stuck on a roof with the others and sees an apparently unmotivated friend be killed by a beast-businessman, unsuccessfully screaming down at her. Kate, the member of Grace, a group that maintains order with the school, is also psychologically affected by being thrust into fighting but manages to keep her head. Rose manages to get her mind off the topic by taking care of her younger siblings while Claire looks for the mansion that started this whole mess.
A couple non-literary things that I like about the series are the variety of clothing and the setting of New York City. A majority of characters in anime series wear the same thing except for beach episodes or special occasions but as you can see above, there are many different colors and people. Aspects of the city that appear include the bridge, a subway car, and a bad part of town where Claire lives - couldn’t really tell you where because I don’t live there.
The opening music has an light, metropolitan feel with a visual style to match while the ending features a rock concert given by the LMC with almost every character in attendance. The English dub voices were better than I expected given the previews and on par with the Japanese voices for the most part.
Overall, I thought these first four episodes were pretty good in establishing the starting point of and some progression within the story but it was a little slow and so while I am looking forward to the second volume, I’m probably not going to buy it right when it comes out.
Shots of Kate under stress:
The Little Details:
That phone number actually does correspond to the Seattle Cafe on 1634 Broadway in Manhattan.
CNC is really using scare tactics with such breaking news as “Your child is being attacked”. Also: temperatures in Celsius? Not in America, at least not outside of science!
The Strict Attention sheet given to Rose Sheedy reveals that the series apparently begins in autumn 2009.
The Engrish “indenticatytion” or the regular “identification”? You decide.
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