Review - Red Garden Volume 2 - Breaking the Girls
Reviewed by Richard Brownell on 11.30.2009.
Score: 8/10
The first volume of Red Garden left me interested in the show, but the pacing was a definite hindrance. The way the story was told of the girls first encounters with the monsters they have to fight was too slow and awkward. This volume changes things for the better. It flows much nicer and we get a lot of emotion and great characterization.
At its heart, Red Garden is about the development of the four main characters, Rachel, Claire, Kate, and Rose. They are thrust into a situation that forces the to be together and a tenuous friendship is developing between them despite their differing backgrounds. Of course, the other side of the show is the dark menace that is forcing them together and what it all means. Both aspects of the show evolve nicely in these episodes.
As things start, Rachel has pretty much lost it. She can't function at school or with her friends and seems to be going crazy. The traumatic experience of being forced to kill people who have turned into monsters is too much for her. The scenes of her insanity are tense and well done. They are uncomfortable in a good way. Oddly enough, they even captured a reality of New York City. You can stumble around like crazy and shout rambling nonsense and people will glance at you for a few seconds, but they will then go about their business.
The girls of course want to save Rachel from herself, but things aren't so simple. Each one of their is facing their own challenges. Kate is a member of Grace and hasn't been doing her duties well so the other members are becoming angry. Additionally, her best friend Lisa is still missing. Kate is bottling up many of the emotions that are hitting her and who's to say if that reaction is any better than what Rachel is doing.
Rose and Claire each come from difficult family situations, though we don't fully know what's going on. Rose has to take care of her two younger siblings all by herself. And Claire has to work a part-time job to pay the rent at her apartment where she lives alone. But her job suffers when any given night she might have to follow red butterflies and kill monsters.
Red Garden struck me as being similar to Gantz when I first watched it. After all, both involve people dying and being forced to kill monsters. The initial difference was largely cosmetic. In Gantz, the targets are bizarre looking aliens. In Red Garden, the targets appear to be zombies. With volume 2, the real difference between the shows is apparent. Red Garden is largely about how the girls cope with the situation they are in. The few battles we see in this volume are shown in mere seconds. This is no action show, but that is by no means a problem.
Red Garden also contains a great mystery: what is going on and why? The creators do a great job in this volume giving you a lot of looks into the organization behind what's going on and yet hardly telling you anything. We see some familiar faces, some new faces, and learn a little bit about the truth. But there's a lot more to learn and the pace of new information works quite well.
Though the character designs are odd, they've grown on me. Sure, some characters have massive noses, but so many of the people you see do look distinctly American when compared to other anime. It works well and a lot of the art in the show is detailed and nicely done. The animation doesn't always take the forefront though. There are a lot of still shots due to how dialogue heavy the show is, and like I said, there isn't much action.
The music, however, does work well in most cases. It sets the scene for the creepy factors when needed and a lot of it just barely keeps you on edge, just so you don't get too comfortable. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of the songs that show up. They seem out of place. It's not a musical and yet the girls will bust out harmonies as if they've been practicing these songs that they are making up on the fly.
This volume made a better impression on me than the first one. The story telling is working better, largely due to better pacing. We're knee deep in the mysteries of the show which is making it very interesting. The highlight is the four girls though. They are believable characters and their reactions to the world around them is what makes this show work.
