Red Garden 1

This is interesting stuff. It seemed to be pretty normal for me in the first 20 minutes of the show. I know that it is a mystery show but it did not impress me at all (well, it makes me think for a moment but…) until the last two minutes. I will spoil you later with my mini episode summary but for now, I will tell you that the last two minutes of the show will make you scream “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!”.

Without further ado, I will say just this. Give this show a chance. It is good. Read on for more details.

Character introduction

Rose: She seems to be rather timid, with two kids to take care of in her house. All four of these characters study in the same school and she seems to be the strangest one in the mix since the other three tends to be less studious in nature. She seems to be a sleepyhead (considering that she’s late for twice the past month). She fell asleep (was standing) during the first episode while rushing the two kids to school.

Kate: This gal seems to have many problems on her hand. We know that she was a very close friend with Liese, the girl that went missing and died apparently in a suicide case. However, the same style of murder had happened five times the past month. It seems that Liese was about to have a boyfriend and the relationship between the dead girl and Kate were the closest. Her parents do not seem to come home often and she has an elder sister.

Claire: One of the deliquents. She was with her friend in the morning, instead of going to school. She seemed to have a history of theft and the likes. She seemed to realize that something was amiss with her, since she knew that there was someone who acted like her yesterday and did some theft. She cannot remember anything though…She also seems to be the girl with the best survival instinct among the four if there is any battle royale of sorts.

Rachel: Another punkish gal with her group of friends. She seemed to enjoy partying a lot, even though she was not allowed to go with her parents. Apparently, she is pretty unruly, with no interest whatsoever with rules in the school. She also observed that she had a clipped fingernail even though she had no idea what happened during last night.

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Episode summary

It is that good. Red garden seems to start slow, with a nice interesting OP to boot. It gives off this mysterious vibe, especially with the butterflies (they will have something to do with the episode later too). Then the scene switches over to various gals that looked to be unconscious, with them escorted by cars. One of those cars carrying the gal seemed to be hijacked by others, as they were carried back to a room.

We then found the scene changed with Kate talking to her elder sister. The elder sister said that there was a loud commotion at 2 am yesterday, with police cars driving all around. Kate did not seem to notice it at all and she was surprised as her elder sister was generally oblivious to the situation at night when they were sleeping. She also could not remember when she fell asleep yesterday. As the elder sister left, she informed Kate that her parents would be back later. We then saw Kate feeling dizzy as she fell, spilling the milk on the floor. The scene changed to Rose as she was chasing two kids to school. However, she also felt giddy as she fell asleep while leaning to the wall.

It is now Rachel with her bunch of friends on the bus planning the trip to a party of sorts at late night. She also noticed that there was a clipped fingernail that she could not explain. The last was to Claire as she was sleeping in a grass field. Her friend was trying to wake her up and moved closer. She then woke up and started to talk about what happened yesterday. She realized that someone that looked very similiar to her robbed a place, even though she could not remember what in the world happened the day before.

Now, we realized that Liese, a girl studying in the school that was missing, was found to be dead in a forested area and it was already the 5th case in which a girl died this way. The news hit the school and Kate in particular, was hit particularly hard as she was very close to Liese. As she walked home in sadness, she found butterflies above the sky and gazed while Rachel also noticed the butterflies in the sky (her friends with her did not). The four gals then found each other guided by the butterflies and reaching the same spot. There, they were greeted by two people, telling them whether they could remember the thing that happened yesterday.

They did where they realized that they were already dead after being killed by wild dogs. A man then appeared, with sheer animal eyes. They were then instructed to kill the man while the man ran forward on all fours, jumping up and ready to pounce on them….

A loud scream ended the episode….

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Thoughts

Impressive stuff. It is really good and I am now wanting to know what is happening. Both the OP and ED are very good in my humble opinion. The animation will take a while to accept, especially with the nose. This is commented quite a bit by others but Red garden’s character design is pretty decent, even though it is nowhere good for today’s standards. It’s pretty average but the story is pretty entriguing to say the very least.

I will give this a few more episodes at least and I am seriously surprised that I took to it so fast. Gonzo had made a good deal with this first episode and I hope they do not fail me with the remaining ones. The premise where they are still alive, who are they and the people who instructed them seems to be a good mix for mystery.

I might blog this series, even though I never mention it in my preview. That’s why I guess you never know what happens with anime series.