Ranked #2155

Winter Garden

===Foreword===
As you might know, this is a spin-off from Di Gi Charat, which I have never seen or read about in any great detail, so there is some stuff on which I just can't comment or write enough detail about.

===Animation===
Not the strong point. The colours are simple, without any gradients used. The backgrounds are simple as well, but nicely drawn. The character designs are quite simple too, but they are cute. The notable thing is that as soon as there many characters on scene, like crowds, they are just drawn plain white with black lines. Something that doesn't actually ruin the animation in any way, or doesn't annoy the person watching it. Running animation is I think one of the better points. Sometimes there is a chibi scene thrown in, but they are done fairly well and are not annoying in any way. Overall the animation is poor, but I don't think it's a factor that affects the overall rating by much, but I was expecting something more complex than this.

===Sound===
This special features quite a nice OP and ED, and fairly good background music, which is a bit on the simple side. There is also a French song in the second episode, which is quite good as well.

===Story===
Since this is only two episodes long you can't expect anything complicated. It's a simple story about a girl who meets a boy. An unexpected encounter which starts off everything, and a misunderstanding as well to create some drama. It's a rather light and sweet story. Considering the fact that they had only two episodes I think that it was done quite well, with a good conclusion.

===Characters===
This is a section on which I won't be able to comment too much since I don't know what the characters were like in the original Di Gi Charat. Overall they were good. Though this special lacks characters, but what would you expect from a two minute special? We barely get to know the names of four characters, and the rest is there just for comic relief. Overall the characters are good, and some are cute as well, like Puchiko. :)

===Enjoyment===
I enjoyed watching this, since it was nice to take a break from all the other serious anime around which fills my mind with questions and useless answers, and also had a laugh over some light comedy which fits in well. However don't watch this if you want to see something serious. Watch this if you want to take a break and need something light, then you'll see the hidden beauty of this... read more

Overview:

Well, I have seen a fair amount of anime, and I decided to pick up this little special after seeing random videos of it that piqued my interest. Anyway, I'm very glad that I did. If you don't want to read the whole review, the bottom line is this anime is very much worth watching, regardless of its score, and also that you don't need to see the main series to enjoy this special, as I saw this first. I've seen better scored animes which I didn't enjoy quite as much, so take that with a grain of salt, not to mention this review.

Story:

The story is a typical anime romance scenario, except the beauty of this special is that they manage to fit so much action into two episodes and make it work extremely well and make you wish it were longer (at least in my case). But the story doesn't really leave anything unanswered, so if you're a perfectionist like me that has to have closure on everything, you won't be disappointed.

Art:

Well, what can I say, really? It's Japanese animation and it's quality. some of the scenes seem to be low detail in the distance but it's the style of the anime and it works well. I didn't find any part of it to be really lacking. The colours are bright and easy on the eyes, and everything looks very nice.

Sound:

Well, there's not a whole lot of songs to the anime, being short, but what it does have is superb. This is the quality of Winter Garden that made me want to watch it, which is surprising because I tend to go for anime for the story, but that's okay. The sound is very good.

Character:

Well, there aren't many characters, but they are introduced quickly and everything develops nicely and you never really forget any character's name because they are all important in this anime, there are hardly any "minor" characters. This is another thing I love about this special.

Enjoyment:

The plot in this anime is very well constructed and keeps you on the edge of your seat till the very end (or at least it did for me). For only 2 episodes, you get plenty of bang for your viewing buck (please excuse the overused idiom, I couldn't find anything much better to use here). But I really did enjoy this anime. It is one of the best ones I have seen despite being short and is worth watching.

Overall:

If you haven't seen this yet, I would highly recommend doing so sometime. You probably won't feel like you wasted your time, and with only 2 episodes, you're not risking much anyway. I would recommend this anime to anyone who likes romance-driven plot and interesting characters. read more