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.

Short Synopsis: My prayers have been heard: A Randagio-episode!!! Bremen-tachi also return.
Good: I can’t believe I cried during this episode! That was SO incredibly sad!
Bad: What can ever be bad about this episode?
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10

Seriously!

Oh my GOD. When I thought that episode 30 was awesome. This one is possibly even better! I really can’t believe I cried during this episode. Not just once, but for nearly a quarter of the episode! But this proofs that Randagio can be SO awesome when he gets serious. I never expected such a sad episode to come from a show like Otogi Juushi Akazukin.

Over the past few episodes we’ve come to know Randagio as the cute little idiot you just can’t stay angry about. Twice, he got accompanied by his fellow brothers, Esel, Cane and Alektor. He’s been mostly used as comic relief and small challenges. I think that the reason Cendrion hasn’t kicked him out yet is the fact that he does provide useful information at times, and he’s a nice person to order around. Still, with that, you don’t become the perfect employee, and right now, Randagion is in quite some trouble with Cendrion. It seems that Nightmarians are actually made, from special Mazoku who have enough dark energy. That’s why Randagio always came up with animal-like Nightmarians. They were just ordinary Mazoku, or talking animals to put it more bluntly, who have been converted. I’d like to meet the snake-men, though. ^^;

Anyway, because Randagio and his companions have been so adorable lately, this episode turned out so incredible. I just couldn’t help but care about them. Esel, Cane and Alektor finally realized in how much trouble Randagio has landed, and they decide to turn themselves into a Nightmarian. Because they don’t know how the flower who does the magic works, they all end up being turned into one Nightmarian. Randagio turned amazing when he learned that the only friends he probably ever had went to such lengths to help him out, without an even 100% chance of certainty.

The rest of the episode was SO sad. It definitely proved that quirky characters can be incredibly touching as well. This anime has built up perfectly for this episode. Obviously, the combination of Esel, Cane and Alektor wasn’t enough to turn them into Nightmarians, so they start having problems in the midst of fighting Akazukin and the others. Because of this, Randagio is about to lose a number of loved ones.

Seeing that this anime is aimed at children, you would expect a cure for them to be found, no? Well, that’s half of the story. Shirayuki indeed knows a spell, but it does blow away all of their memories. Because of this, they’ve got no reason anymore to remember Randagio or work for Cendrion. Seriously, this episode was awesome, awesome, and even more awesome. It’s a perfect example of an unpopular series which doesn’t deserve so little people talking about it.

Sayonara, Bremen-tachi. Things have been fun.