Okay, I finally decided to watch some anime again after a while. I own the original Time Stranger Kyoko manga and one of the extras in the third and last volume was "Leave it to Chocola", a 16-page short story mainly about Chocola, the king, and the Destroyers as side characters. It seems an OVA of this sadly rushed manga (that seriously had potential, idk why Arina Tanemura decided not to make it longer) got made and it either adapts this short story, or the short story was made after this OVA did. I dunno, either way, let's give this a shot.
The animation and art of the actual frames and stuff (like the shading) is very dated, somehow looks even more dated than Full Moon wo Sagashite (another anime adapted from a work from the same author)—in fact, the "animation" is honestly almost non-existent. The voice acting is just meh, it's there but it doesn't really feel outstanding or anything. The music and sound effects are actually kinda obnoxious and might have actually ruined the whole thing lol. The attempts at comedy are there, but it didn't really make me laugh. There was also an attempt at making you sad and I do like the way Chocola's backstory is presented here, but it doesn't really work at the sad part. At least the short does feature a bit more of Kyoko than the manga version did.
Overall the whole thing is just a 5/10, just average and passable.
Just read the short manga version of this OVA, it's a lot shorter and faster to get through (especially if you're a fast reader), has quite timeless shoujo art imo, and does a better job at trying to express the emotions this short was trying to execute at the end. Or better yet, actually go take some time to read Time Stranger Kyoko. It may be rushed in the last volume, but it is quite underrated in my opinion and has tons of Tanemura-san's best art. I agree with @Berry-Vodka, I wish the actual manga itself got a full fledged anime... instead of this random OVA made off of a short that requires context to get any real enjoyment out of it. |