Red Garden – 16

Short Synopsis: Randy is just barely alive, Claire yells at her father, Rose finds her father, Luke breaks up with Rachel, Hervé finally reveals the goals of the endless fighting, Lula finally does something for herself, Hervé nearly kills Kate, he finds out that the headmistress is the leader of his enemies and somebody actually dies. Good: Finally Lula actually does something; the climax of the episode was grand; Claire’s fight with her father. Bad: Why does Rachel keep quiet about her reason to be with Nick? Overall Enjoyment Value: 8.5/10 Finally this anime is getting steamed. The past two episodes have been amazingly good. We finally see some results of the building-up of the first season. It already starts out great when Claire has a fight with her father. Red Garden is unique in the way it portrays two characters yelling at each other. It’s interesting, most anime go from a close-up of one character to a close-up of the other character, with usually an increase of tension. The character says something and the camera switches back to the first one. Red Garden, however, has people talking right through each other’s speeches. Because of this, there’s no room for a small break between two statements. Because it doesn’t focus on just one character yelling, the scene just doesn’t give room to relax a bit. It’s a great way to turn up the intensity of that scene. Especially when such a scene takes so long. The middle of the episode was filled with a number of random scenes, dedicated to develop the characters a bit more. Kate’s sister gets on another date with Emilio, Claire didn’t regret the things she said about her father, Luke finally has had enough about Rachel, and his patience finally ran out, because she just doesn’t dare to tell what’s on her mind. That’s why he breaks up on her. Jessica becomes quite interesting when she actually starts to worry about Kate, based on the things she overheard Paula say. It’s interesting, I rather disliked her previously, but with this, she also shows actual signs of character development. Hervé meanwhile gives Kate a suspicious call. Anna’s condition is getting worse, while Rose finally managed to track down his father. It seems that he left his family because he got caught in some heavy debts. He didn’t want to trouble his family, so he left. He isn’t planning to return, as his troubles still aren’t over. But then he finds out that Rose’s mother has been hospitalized. It’ll be interesting to see what he does in the next episode. The police officer is getting closer to the bottom of the mystery when he actually gets a clear suspicion that the missing girls have been reincarnated from death. Hervé meanwhile calls Emilio to inform him that he’s going to see Kate. Lula, the headmistress and the others meanwhile hurry to Kate. It seems that they found out about his plan… Phew. That’s another thing I like about Red Garden: so many things happen in one episode. And everyone is just different. Everyone has their own problems and twists. The climax was the best thing of the entire episode. First of all, Hervé tells Kate the truth. Kate and the others have been fighting in order to recover one of the Cursed Tomes. Whichever side collects both of them, wins. If Hervé’s side wins, Kate and the others will die. If Lula’s side wins, Kate will lose her memories. The question remains whether he told the truth or not, but I’m suspecting that he actually did. At least, I’m hoping so. Things will turn out very interesting if that indeed is the truth. 🙂 But then things get even more interesting when Kate and the others take a step back, to show a fight between Emilio and Hervé and Lula and the rest of the school staff. In the end, this comes down to a fight between Lula and Hervé. He’s about to finish her off, though JC jumps before her, losing his life. And surprise: they’re actually siblings! And finally Lula shows a bit more of herself! The next episode will obviously be an aftermath, but it’s interesting to wonder how this series will continue. I think that JC’s death marked the end of the first half of Red Garden, and that now the second half is about to begin.]]>