Julian Gnam
January 19, 2009 Western otaku are used to being inundated in Japanese cultural elements when watching anime… Whether it be the school uniform “sailor suits”, the honorific “sans”, “chans” and “kuns”, or characters dutifully removing their shoes on entry in a home, almost every anime is steeped in these traditions even when the setting is a fantasy one far from present day Japan. Therefore it’s rather unique that Red Garden takes place in New York City and portrays a host of all-American characters.
Red Garden follows four teenage girls attending an elite private school in Roosevelt Island, NYC. They have nothing in common and travel in completely seperate circles, yet find themselves all plagued by the same series of mysterious events. I could go ahead and tell you what happens, but that’s half the fun isn’t it? There are murders, there are missing memories, and even combat with zombie-like humanoid creatures.
What is most unique about Red Garden is that the four female protagonists don’t face their circumstances with much heroism. They don’t display unerring wit and bravery or uncommon strength, they don’t even handle their situation with any real degree of competence – they mostly just run around frantically screaming and crying, scraping by out of sheer luck. Red Garden is refreshingly realistic in this respect.
Another reviewer noted that Red Garden is similar to a previous series of Gonzo’s, Gantz, and surmised that since Gantz was criticized for being long on plot and short on character development, Red Garden attempts to do the opposite. This is pretty true… Red Garden is mostly about how these four teenage girls deal emotionally with their bizarre troubles, and how they band together to face their troubles despite having so little else in common that they never would have spoken a word to each other otherwise. The plot of Red Garden‘s supernatural phenomena is a secondary focus, and moves at an extremely slow pace. While something new happens in each episode, it’s not till about 12 episodes in that any of the series’ strange events are actually explained to any serious degree, and even by the last episode, some details still feel pretty thinly fleshed out. The fighting comes in as a distant third in terms of focus, skirted around in a manner almost comparable to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Only one or two episodes of the whole series feature combat of intensity comparable to any action show.
Red Garden features a pretty intense and distinctive fashion-influenced visual style. The intro and commercial break screens look like a Gap commercial. There is exquisite attention to detail in each character’s hair, lips, and surprisingly, even their noses. Whereas in 90% of anime every character is depicted with a dimple of a nose drawn simply as a single dot or short line (if their nose is even drawn at all), Red Garden‘s characters have noses of all shapes and sizes – pointy noses, stubby noses, hooked noses, you name it. Characters in Red Garden are as recognizable for the shape of their noses and lips as their hair color and hair style. Taking place in the US, most characters have hair and clothing styles which look more western than the typical Japanese-influenced wardrobe of most anime – lots of curly hair, sideburns, and Abercrombie. I also detect a considerable 80’s flair to Red Garden‘s designs…every other female in this show looks like an anime rendition of Molly Ringwald.
Despite being essentially a mystery-injected high school drama, Red Garden‘s story is ultimately pretty satisfying. I wouldn’t put the plot and character depth up there with Evangelion, but it avoids most of the typical cliches, formulas, and filler techniques which turn many merely average anime series into laughable schlock. Some viewers will undoubtedly have trouble sitting through all the crying, screaming, and catfights (also, the singing). However, Red Garden is nice to look at, and its story of teenagers who don’t fit in struggling to endure traumatic circumstances is dark, dramatic, and compelling if you give it a chance. This series comes recommended, but only to those armed with a large reservoir of patience, prepared to handle both a lot of girly-ness, and a slow trickle of plot details. If you’re one of those people who HAS TO KNOW the secret reason behind every event, you will probably burst a blood vessel long before you get the answer you’re looking for.
Publisher: FUNimation
Rating: Unrated
Available: 12/16/2008
