As I’ve discussed in my reviews of the Red Garden manga, Volume 1 and Volume 2, the story in the manga is mostly similar to that in the anime, with a slight emphasis on the grotesque and gothic. This trend continues in Volume 3.

Herve’ woos Kate while hating her, and Kate struggles with her position in “Grace” at the school, while Rachel fights a battle on all fronts. We watch Herve’ flail against his sister’s fate and we watch Kate, Clare, Rachel and Rose try to understand the truth without giving in to it.

As in the anime, all of this is punctuated by moments of complete normality, and moments of violent battle again men who have turned into slavering beasts.

On the Yuri side, Paula is stepping up her campaign of touchiness in regards to Kate. Unlike the anime, where her love comes across as genuine, touching and admirable, her behavior here is inappropriate and makes Kate very uncomfortable. When it appears that Paula is stalking Kate, Kate flat-out tells her to leave her alone.

So, when the four are walking through the woods where Lise’s body was found, in order to maybe learn *something* about what is going on, they are all horrified at finding yet another body – even more so to realize that the corpse is Paula’s. The implications hit hard and we leave the volume with the four of them in complete shock.

It looks like the Yuri is headed towards the unbalanced, pervy side, but now that we know that Paula is “one of us,” i.e. dead, I wonder if Kate will find patience with the perpetrator. :-)

I’m too tired to really give this manga the praise it deserves. This story is compelling, the characters and their wardrobes are charming, the craziness is utterly appealing and the violence is…violent.

And my goodness, Clare is so hot on the cover.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story – 7
Characters – 8
Yuri – 5
Service – 3

Overall – 7

EPL Paula works for me, too. ^_^