Di Gi Charat - Winter Garden

Information of Anime

Dejiko & Puchiko are now ten years old & living together in a small apartment.  The 20 year old Dejiko works in a cake shop while the 15 year old Puchiko goes to high school.  One Christmas night, Dejiko meets a boy named Takurou Senbaat at a park who gives her some cakes after she crushes her's when she fell.  From that point on, Dejiko develops feelings for him & begins looking for him.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Ever since Dejiko met Takurou who is planning a career in acting & script writing, she tells Puchiko about her encounters of him when they met on the streets or in their workplaces.  Instantly, Dejiko goes out with him & thinks about him a lot.  However, a girl named Aiko sometimes goes to Takurou's place & sleeps over.  This raised some suspicion with some of Dejiko's workplace members as they think he already has a girlfriend.  They tell Dejiko about this as she doesn't seem to made as her parents ask her to return home to run their family hotel business.  As they are starting to move out, Takurou looks for Dejiko as he finishes a script that he wanted to show her.  The show ends when Takurou catches up to the moving truck that Dejiko is sitting in & she discovers that Aiko is Takurou's little sister.

My Personal Review

Although it bears the name Di Gi Charat, you should not expect some wild comedy as Winter Garden is a drama & spinoff of the series.  It takes place in an alternative universe & the show is more on the realistic side.  I originally thought it was the past Di Gi Charat shows with insane comedy, but it's really a love drama.

Animation

The character designs are a little bit different from the past Di Gi Charat designs.  Mainly because the characters are now ten years old.  They still have that Di Gi Charat design & appearance, but Dejiko & Puchiko look very different & it's quite hard to recognize them.  One may think that these characters use just using the name as different people.  They still have the cute factor, but they are missing their hats & neko outfits that they are pretty famous for.  Rabi~En~Rose makes an appearance at times as a celebrity & looks very different.  But, she still maintains her bunny ears to make her recognizable.  At times, the characters & side characters do have those strange face & body appearances that keeps that Di Gi Charat style.  They appear at funny moments or a lot of people are set in the background

The backgrounds are very simple & messy.  It's quite similar to the ones from the first Di Gi Charat show.  Take the McDonald's building for example (yes, it's really McDonald's & I think they were sponsoring or advertising the show).  The "M" is like a scribble & Ronald McDonald looks like a paint brush drawing done by a 10 year old.  The backgrounds aren't detailed.

The colour is soft & dull.  There are no bright or bold colours in the show.  Because of its softness, it fits the show very well due to it's drama theme & messy background.

The animation movements are more on the realistic side.  There are hardly any of those silly movements like Dejiko shoot laser beams from her eyes, which she doesn't here.

Sound

The sound effect are on the realistic side.  There are some silly sounds here & there, but a lot of it is on the realistic side due to the drama theme.

With the exception of the new characters, the seiyuus here are the same from past Di Gi Charat shows.  They may not be recognizable at first due to the characters being older now.  Because of the new character personalities, the seiyuus seem to have done a good job on portraying their "new" characters.

The music are mainly ballads.  Soft ones.  This is pretty much a first in a Di Gi Charat show as past shows usually have childish & silly tunes.  This one doesn't.  The songs here don't seem to be very memorable though.

Story

Basically a love story of Dejiko.  A serious one on that matter.  Because of the new personalities, it was quite hard to adapt.  Dejiko is very calm & Puchiko is now somewhat of a trickster.  Although this is something totally new, the story isn't too bad.  However, the ending is somewhat incomplete when Takurou meets Dejiko before she leaves town.  Although she feels more happy about the misunderstanding of Takurou, it's not something viewers will want.  For me, I wanted the show to continue as it left too much hanging.

Overall Conclusion

Di Gi Charat - Winter Garden is really not a bad TV show special despite the misleading use of Di Gi Charat.  Although it has "new" characters & personalities without the hard & silly comedy, this is somewhat a surprisingly relaxing show.  Even if you don't have any background on the Di Gi Charat series, you can pick this up without problems.  This is mainly a Christmas love story.

On a scale of ten, Di Gi Charat receives a 7.5.  Although it misuses the Di Gi Charat name, it's a nice gentle love story with a soft pace.  A pretty nice change from the usual Di Gi Charat stuff.  However, the ending is not good as it leaves the viewers wanting more.

Last updated on January 22, 2008