Bell peppers: Alive or dead?

Last year I bought two bell pepper plants. A cheap green one from a farmer's market and an expensive red one from Del Monte at the home center. Only one green pepper was harvested last year. No red ones ever developed.

That was last year. This year, I'm hoping that they made it through the winter and will produce some fruit. However I'm not pinning my hopes too high since last year I was disappointed.

Starting from seed, the sprouting season is right now until the beginning of April. After that, the seedlings should go into the ground and the fruiting season lasts from late June through the end of October here in Tokyo.

Since I have plants still growing since last year, I expect that I will have a small headstart on production, but it all depends on the condition of the plants.

This is the green pepper. It has leaves and flower buds, but I'm not sure how healthy it actually is. It hasn't changed much since last November.

It was a bit bigger before winter, but I cut it back significantly since most of the growth was wild and uncontrolled. You can see the flower buds poking out here and there. These were also present before winter closed in.

This is the red pepper. It is in much worse shape than the green pepper. It lost all its leaves before winter and I had to prune it back quite a bit due to dying branches. If this is still alive, I'd actually be very surprised.

If I don't see any leaves develop by the middle of April, I'll probably uproot this one and plant something else.