Winter Garden DVD: Charmingly cute

(tags anime, DVD region 2, kawaii, seiyuu, Koge-Donbo, Sugar, omake, telephone card)

Winter Garden aired at the end of 2006, but I knew this would be my type of anime to purchase, so I didn't watch it live. Instead, I waited for the DVD to come out. It's been 4 months people! I've been waiting to open this Christmas Box for some time now.

It has the lively Di Ji Charat sisters banter coupled with the cute character design originally by Koge-Donbo. Shinya Hasegawa (長谷川眞也) refined the character design for animation, and this refinement looks so very familiar to me because he's the same person who took care of the A Little Snow Fairy Sugar series.

Greatest! I'm pretty happy just watching this anime because so charming. Then again, I'm not very well versed in the Di ji charat universe, so I didn't figure out the in-jokes. I only know about the in-jokes because of the booklet and the audio commentary, which was very entertaining and informative. Other works' audio commentary tracks left something to be desired (ugh: Kasimasi) because they lacked focus. This anime's audio commentary was blessed with the director, Hiroaki Sakurai (桜井弘明), adding the necessary backbone to the talk. For example, I totally forgot that Dijiko is a Akihabara gal, because this anime forgos the otaku atmosphere, but Sakurai explains this point.

Since I'm not a hardcore Di ji charat fan, I welcomed the change of pace of this anime. It's more homely and down-to-earth, with a little bit of romance to lighten it up. Gone are the "cat ears". I did have to question the connection of this series to the previous outings, because it seemed so out of character. Asami Sanada (真田アサミ) and Miyuki Sawashiro (沢城みゆき) reprised their roles. I didn't expect Sanada to have a normal girl voice but I'm not an expert. Sawashiro's definately has range and variation to her voice based on the different series I've seen with her, but I kept superimposing her "Shinku" persona onto "Puchiko".

I do have to admit the animation is a little rough in places, but there are plenty of high quality scenes. There are not much gags in this run, so the director emphasized the little body movements that make a character seem alive. There are references to other series. Even the live band scene took on Haruhi-like parody atmosphere.

For this photo-expose shootout, I didn't open that Christmas Box, which evidently contains a micro-fiber towel, a telephone card, and pocket watch with serial number. But instead, I bring the picture of the Gamers' tokuten mug cup and Comi-Deji magazine's special telephone card for Winter Garden. Isn't it just so kawaii? I do have a gripe with that mug cup picture. It just doesn't seem cute enough. This is blasphemy because Koge-Donbo herself drew it.

Thumbs up. 5 out of 5 stars. Only 2 episodes but this is very special.