▪	RELEASED BY:		DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING
		▪	AUTHOR / ART:		FUMI YOSHINAGA
		▪	FORMAT:		JAPANESE / BW
		▪	PAGES:		176
		▪	RATING:		T
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		10/24/2007
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		01/06/2008
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		HOLLY ELLINGWOOD

Ten years ago, a war between the East and the West left many casualties. Now in a feudal world of fiefdoms, two traveling Eastern bards wander and discover a castle with a gloomy baron. The baron is kind and taken with their music, his melancholy ways intrigue the younger bard, Farhad. Together they discover the fullness of life in all it’s variety of sorrows and hard won joys. All of the beauty, tragedy and hope that springs eternal in even the most sorrowed heart, this is the manga Garden Dreams.

From the creator of Antique Bakery, Solfege, and Flower of Life, Garden Dreams is a wondrous fantasy tale of love’s varied trials and triumphs. The drama is exquisite to the point of painful at times, as readers learn about the terrible sorrows that burden these people. Farhad orphaned by war, was taken care of by Saud who was a like an older brother to him. But Saud has his own tragedies that bear weight on his soul. His wife dead, two children, and a terrible choice still haut him these ten years past. But an amazing discovery of an astonishing connection may reunite him with hope for the future. But it will leave Farhad alone, abandoned again. He stays with the moody baron and learns of the man’s life and the reason for his lustrous garden and gloomy ways. The tragedy involving a beloved fiancée, a wife’s untimely fate, have taken their toll on the handsome baron. Farhad stays with him to console his ongoing grief and the baron finds new happiness. But the fear of loss causes him to put distance between them. Farhad will have none of it and it will lead to a shocking choice.
 
Melancholy yet compassionate, such is this story. It has happy endings of a sort, but grounded in the realism of the tragedies these people have suffered. Fumi Yoshinaga offers some of the best storytelling here with tremendous poignancy and more than one unexpected turn of events. Although this is not a yaoi manga, there is some mild yaoi subtext within the story, not unlike other works such as Antique Bakery, where the love between two men is not anathema and hearts are offered willingly.

The manga holds a lovely art style with exceptionally expressive faces, every nuance of emotion can be read there. There are well done background art with the interior of the castle and exterior lush gardens. The book does hold some harsh subject matter at times regarding the war and the tragedies that have occurred in the lives of these people, but it is not graphically shown, but inferred emotionally through the art. It’s a beautifully rendered one-shot story about hope.

IN SUMMARY:
Garden Dreams is a story both tragic and beautiful and offers the last thing one might expect in a story involving war and loss, the story offers hope.