Okay, that was an amazing episode. Finally Gonzo has made a really good series. The major focus lies on Rachel, though each of the four girls gets a bit of fleshing out. The thing I really liked about this episode (and all of the other Red Garden episodes as well, by the way) is that it’s just one big chunk of atmosphere. The characters just work so great in combination with each other, and not to mention how each episode continues to flesh them out a bit. If this goes on for the rest of the series, this series can have amazing results.
Kate and Rachel are currently the ones who have the most problems with the people around them. Rachel keeps staying home, which makes her boyfriend worried, while Kate, as a member of Grace, is starting to slack off. Right now, Paula’s protecting her from the other Grace-members, but it has to end somewhere, doesn’t it? Rose actually gets distracted by all of her tasks at home, and doesn’t know that many people who’d be worried about her and Claire just doesn’t care.
Kate and Rose decide to leave school early, in order to visit Claire and Rachel, seeing as they haven’t come to school. Rachel acts like she really is dead. She starts yelling at Kate, though it does make her worried. I think that’s why she went berserk at the end of the episode. When they arrived at Claire’s hose, I was surprise how run down the building was she lives in. Clare wasn’t home, by the way, she was trying to find the mansion in which they were killed. She actually finds it, and the guy who killed them seems to have discovered her. Butterflies are preventing her from entering the mansion. The blond guy can’t see these butterflies, and he also doesn’t seem to know about them. Interesting.
I also loved the fight, at the end of the episode. It was short, but sweet, and knew exactly what its purpose was.
It gets better (or worse). I am torn between watching this raw versus subbed. The story is fairly compelling, but without understanding what the girls babble about it’s hard to apperciate the mood of it all, and be empatheic.
The butterflies didn’t prevent Claire from entering the mansion. They were there to call Claire to go fight the monsters.
Omo: There are certain series which can be seen with just undersanding the big picture (like Asatte no Houkou and Otogi Juushi Akazukin), but there are others at which you really need to understand it to fully enjoy it. I figured that Red Garden belonged to thelatter category as well.
DoReMiFaSo: ah, okay, thanks for explaining. I originally though that they would be phoned on exact midnight if they had to fight monsters.