Red Garden, Volume 1 - DVD Town
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"a standout"
"an engaging series with unique style, suspenseful action, and heart-pounding mystery"
"a dark, bloody series, with strange twists and turns"
"The production values are high, with smooth animation, slick design, engaging characters… and horrific mystery."
Set on Roosevelt Island, New York, "Red Garden" is the story of four high school girls- Rose, Rachel, Kate, and Claire- who wake up one morning with no memory of the previous night. All four girls attend the same high school, but are very different in personality and social status. A string of mysterious suicides and murders has been baffling the local police recently, and these four girls find themselves caught up in the supernatural and violent mystery surrounding the deaths.
The whole school is hit with grief when one of their classmates, Lise, is found dead in Central Park. What happened that night? How did she die? Is it connected to the blurred memory the girls have of that evening? When each girl follows butterflies in the air that no one else can see, they end up meeting at a lonely car yard, where they are told the horrible truth: they all died last night.
Living "borrowed lives," Claire, Rose, Rachel, and Kate are unwillingly recruited to become brutal killers, fighting an invasion of horrifying beast-like humans that are terrorizing the area. Each girl must fight and kill, or they will somehow lose the second life they have been granted.
With this grim setup, "Red Garden" follows each girl as she adjusts to this horrifying situation, struggles to come to terms to what has happened, and tries to remember what really happened that one fateful night. This is a dark, bloody series, with strange twists, turns, and spontaneous melancholic singing. Each girl is different in personality and home-situation, and each reacts differently to their new reality. Rose wants to hide from it all. Kate calmly takes charge, yet hides her trembling hands. Claire acts tough, but the mystery of the situation bothers her. Rachel tries to hide her strange new activity from her wide social circle. Different reactions, yet their shared experience slowly brings them together to figure out the truth and to find a way to lead normal lives again.
"Red Garden" is an interesting production. The character designs are very exaggerated, stylish, and very different from other recent series. Noses and lips are pronounced, hair is fluffy and bright. Lula, the woman who informs the girls about their new "job," has a jarring, unpleasant design, with her strong facial features. This version of New York is creepy and mysterious, and, as far as I can tell, creatively different from reality, with buildings, schools, and bridges where none really exist. The opening animation is ridiculously bright and cheerful, considering the dark subject matter. It is a upbeat, psychedelic, girly fashion show of an opening. The ending credits are just as hilarious, given the mood of the series- a rock concert, where even Lula can rock out and party.
"Red Garden" volume 1 contains episodes 1 through 4 of this 22 episode series. There has been a trend, in the last few years, of series featuring pretty girls surrounded by death and killing. The girls are often the ones doing the killing. As a part of that general trend, "Red Garden" is a welcome, stand-out series. The production values are high, with smooth animation, slick design, engaging characters- I may not like how Lula looks, but she sure is interesting- and horrific mystery. How can the girls be dead, yet still appear to be alive? How can regular teenage girls be expected to kill beasts with their bare hands? Volume 1 sets up the impossible situation that these dead girls are in, and hints at greater back story that will hopefully be revealed in future volumes.
Video:
"Red Garden" volume 1 is presented in 16:9 wide screen and looks fabulous. This series has a nice mix of bright colors and dark scenes. Both are handled equally well. Edges are crisp and colors are solid, with no artifacts. I spotted a few small jagged lines on the bridge in the opening, however, it is minimal, and hard to notice amidst all the whirling colors. The DVD menu is simplicity at its best. The vivid butterfly and bold, no-frills text menus are easy to navigate and somehow fit the stark mood of the show.
Audio:
ADV gives us two audio tracks on this disc. The first is a powerful English dub track in Dolby Digital 5.1. The second is a solid 2.0 stereo Japanese track. Both sounded just fine in both the quiet school scenes and the loud action scenes. The characters often break out into spontaneous gloomy singing, and it sounds equally haunting on both tracks.
Extras:
ADV is stingy with the extras on this disc. They consist solely of textless opening and ending credits. That's it. Granted, the opening and ending are really fun to watch, however, I would like to see more about the production of this series on future volumes. The Extras Menu on this DVD is rather irksome because the menu selections are all text, and the actual worthwhile extras- the textless credits- are written in a small font, while the advertisements and DVD credits options are huge and fill the screen. How obnoxious.
--Miscellaneous--
This release is fairly minimal, however there will be a collector´s box released with volume 2.
Film Value:
"Red Garden" is an engaging series with unique style, suspenseful action, and heart-pounding mystery. The end of volume 1 had me itching to see more. "Red Garden" takes the worn out pretty-girls-killing-things storyline and puts a stylish, gruesome spin to it.
Posted on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 (Archive on Thursday, October 04, 2007)