Red Garden Vol. 2

Following directly on from Red Garden’s first volume, with its climatic ending, we now watch as the four girls of Red Garden struggle to come to terms with who they are, what they are doing and slowly piecing together why they have been given this task. It’s only going to get more intense from here.

Kate, Rachel, Rose and Claire are trying their best to get their lives back on track, but recent revelations aren’t making things as easy as they’d like. As more is explained, the girls are being driven to the verge of madness as the girls try to deal with the problem in their own individual ways. This is where the human aspect straps itself into the driving seat of the series. Once again we’re shown the individual personalities of the four main characters beyond the concept of the whining one, the strong one, the timid one, etc. These girls are reacting like real people would handle these kinds of situations, which continues to be arefreshing change from the norm.

Problem is, if your typical anime viewing is made up of shows that are as deep as a puddle and you more interested in the fighting of monsters from who knows where, then volume 2 is pretty much going to confirm that Red Garden is not the series for you. The characters are deep, the storyline is interesting and an episode doesn’t need a fight at the end to keep you interested. Yes the girls do fight, but it’s more to show how they are coming to terms of their newly created world and the stresses that are evident to all the girls and the people around them.

If there is an issue with Red Garden, its that the series has a slight LOST sense to the storyline. No, there are no polar bears are strange islands, more in the realms of revealing information to the viewer. While some connections are made, many questions are up in the air and the relation and relevance of some characters that appear are not made clear. However, being a one-series show, things are much more bearable compared to LOST in this regard.

One other issue that comes across as odd is the random singing. While no doubt the song being sung is tied into the plot and made clearer in future volumes, it just seems bizarre that at random places during the story a character or group of characters start singing. Very odd.

Red Garden volume 2 is a good conclusion of the current storyline. The characters are rounding up quite nicely and there are some interesting developments for the secondary characters. Volume 2 isn’t as action-packed as the first volume, but then that was never the point. Just be comforted by the fact that things are still ticking over nicely for this surprise series and fans of volume 1 will be catered for.