 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | ADV FILMS | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 4:3 FULL SCREEN | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH DD 5.1 AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 100 MIN | | | ▪ | RATING: | | TV MA | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 03/25/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 04/20//2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
An odd string of suicides surrounds a private institution on Roosevelt Island. On the night a classmate dies, Kate, Rachel, Rose and Claire wake with no memories of the evenings' events. The next night, the four girls are drawn together by mysterious red butterflies only they can see. Converging at Central Park, the girls are approached by a strange woman who tells them they are dead. Now, the four girls must work together to learn the secrets of their death - and the means to return to their previous life. Red Garden is a stylish Gonzo produced anime series that continues to prove itself interesting due to its depth of plot and attractive animation style. Character designs and general look of the show continue to impress by being so cool and unique. Beyond that of character design, the background art continues to be just as impressive with its murky night scenes and vast cityscapes, as well as in the simple details of room interiors. The four girls are all very different and their characterizations are subtly brought out with every step along the way. Each brings a really different attitude and dynamic to this motley group of supposedly “dead” girls. They have all grown and changed over the course of four discs already - they will surely continue to become stronger, or falter along the way due to the many stresses and dangers they face. In volume four, things are getting tense. Now that they know their fate, the girls begin to embrace their battles, and discover remarkable powers within themselves. So while their daylight lives fall apart, their nocturnal battles become more violent and more bloody. Yet as one of their members continues to be the weakest link, they begin to plan – they may need to leave her behind to die. At the same time, their shadowy enemies are making their own advances, sacrificing an innocent child to a disgusting curse, and trapping a beautiful girl in their horrible experiment. As difficult as all the problems are that the girls must face, they have usually been able to remain friends and stay confident after each battle because they know they need to stick together. Recently however, there have been some close calls – especially relating to Rose’s inability to fight and come to terms with the violence she must exude if she wishes to stay alive. It’s hard to watch them fall apart in this way – they start getting very realistic and wondering if they need to forget about her so that they can survive this nightmare. This is definitely a very important, defining chapter. On top of all that, Herve and his involvement in the series is starting to make a lot more sense, and his infiltration into the group through Kate is certainly a point of interest. Herve is trying to fight to save his cousin and his sister's lives as they are subject of a curse (that causes their complications to manifest and die), and his family are their enemies. They are the Delor clan. It is later revealed that the two sides of the battle have cursed book and the reason they fight is to retrieve the book from the other side. It is because of these books that Herve's family was cursed as they stole their book from the Animus. The Animus are also cursed in that their masters have been living for several centuries. They were forced to give up what is referred to as their freedom (they are in an inanimate state) and therefore they cannot die, again the only way to lift this curse is to take the cursed book back from the Delor family. The girls find out that if they retrieve the book from the Delor family then it will result in them losing their memories which would mean that they could not remain with their friends and family. However, if they lose then they will die. It’s a tough call, but that’s a big part of what is making the story so interesting right now – it’s tense! An interesting little side fact about Red Garden and its production: A unique trait featured in the series is the fact it employs a technique often used by animated productions outside Japan, but rarely used in an anime series. The character’s dialogue is animated after the work of the voice cast, synchronizing the animation with the voice actor’s voices, much unlike what is traditionally done in Japan. The scenes where characters are singing (occurring in some of the earlier episodes) are when this feature is exploited best, but it actually really shines throughout the series and just seemed like something worth mentioning because it is quite unique. Red Garden is great for all sorts of reasons – it really tries to do things differently in a number of ways and in turn seems to come out on top by being a great anime!
EXTRAS:
Clean opening, clean closing, ADV previews and DVD credits.
IN SUMMARY:
Red Garden is both thrilling in story, and beautiful in visual presentation. It is smart, stylish, and demands the attention of the mature viewer. It’s a Gonzo production, so you just know extra time and care have both been put into this one!
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