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Being the result of a Kickstarter project, and a controversial one at that, the reviews are mixed. Some praise it to the skies, while others burn it to the ground. It all comes down to one thing: expectations. Some give extra credit for producing something like this on a KS budget, or as KS Backers themselves felt they got a good return on their investment, while others had nothing to do with the KS campaign, or other Backers might feel they were promised more. To understand a bit about how people have come to judge this OVA, some knowledge of its history is perhaps required.

As ... previously mentioned, this OVA was born from a KS campaign that, at $878,028, achieved almost one and a half times its goal in pledges. This result was probably mostly due to the allready finished trailer used to promote the project. The trailer was well paced, got the viewer intrigued, but most of all showed background art that could rival Kotonoha no Niwa, Makoto Shinkai's movie that from a visual perspective is by many still considered the holy grail of animation. However, as time passed, the KS campaign fell silent, untill an announcement was made that the project was being rebooted by another studio. To the outside world, nothing was revealed of what actually happened. A little over a year later the OVA was released.

STORY and CHARACTERS: 6/10

So, what have we got? The OVA seems to be very much a prologue to the actual story. In fact, it does not even contain many of the scenes from the original trailer. While some have pointed out that the story and characters are poor, the fact that the story is can be forgiven based on the premise that it is a prologue, while the characters being poor seems to have been to make a point in itself, something which can not really be elaborated upon without spoiling the OVA. I personally also quite liked the point made by the characters being poor. Overall there just is not much to go by (yet), when rating the story and characters. They are bland, yet at the same time provide an adequate setup for future installments.

SOUND: 9/10

Sounds in the OVA are solid, with gun reports being portrayed a bit more realistically than is common in anime, normal English, rather than Engrish is spoken, even with the Japanese original audio, and the soundtrack is simply amazing. Sound is definitely the OVA's forte.

ART: 7/10

Finally comes the art, which is where things get a bit more difficult. Animation is fluid and the backgrounds are still very much above average, but at the same time it looks like corners were cut. Especially grunt characters just look off, and it looks like there was not even an attempt made at proper shading. This stands out all the more because it contrasts so strongly with the backgrounds, and even generally with the main characters that seem to have been drawn with much more attention to detail. I have rated the art with a 7/10, because it is still quite good, but bear with me as I will explain later why this is actually the OVA's weakest grade.

ENJOYMENT and OVERALL: 7/10

Enjoyment, not taking into consideration any possible feelings of dissapointment with the art, comes in at 7/10, which combined with the other grades makes for an overall appreciation of 7/10 as well.

With an overall rating of 7/10 it is not the worst anime has to offer, but it is also quite far from being a must watch, even for fans of the genre. I myself was not a Backer of the KS campaign, but I did follow the project closely from around the time it was succesfully Backed. While I do understand the notion that it is "only" the product of a KS project, I am not so inclined to lend it extra credit for that. After all, considering the amount of money they picked up, the amount of money with which they went over their goal, and at what stage they allready seemed to be, I think a certain level of expectations was justified, and that level would be no lower than that of any non KS product. At the end the fact remains that the OVA did not come anywhere near the quality of the original trailer, especially in the arts department. What happened?

Like I mentioned ealier, I feel like the loss in art quality was the result of cutting corners, and while I said that the story and characters were perfectly acceptable for a prologue, I strongly suspect the choice of making it a prologue also being the result of cutting one huge corner. It just seems like someone seriously underestimated what it'd take to produce a full episode worth of content, and tried to cut those corners just to release something. $878,028 Might not be a whole lot for the production of an anime anno 2016, but then if that was what held them back, that also was a part of underestimating what it takes. In fact, I would not be suprised if the studio switch and reboot were the result of the first team failing to deliver because of that very reason. The second team would have then picked up with a more realistic mindset, while having to deal with the impossible expectations set by the first. Whether this was a sincere attempt or just damage control - after all, those Backers were still expecting something to be released - remains to be seen. If sequels, containing the actual story (and the missing scenes from the trailer), are made, they might convince me of the first. If not,..

One word review:

REDUNDANT

Halfway through a 12 episode single cour first season, one simply does not need a recap episode, especially not one that adds no new or revisited material and hardly has any editing.

The material recapped is included exactly as shown in the original six episodes, and no narration is provided to further elaborate on the events or even highlight them. Also, the recap has little potential for newcomers to the series, as it covers only a small amount of material, than can easily be caught up. At the same time if, in the future, a second season is made and someone wants, for whatever ... reason, skip the first entirely, a recap of “only” half of it, is not going to suffice. Placed at the end of the season, or before the finale, it might have served some purpose, but as it is now, it is just filler.

This recap’s art, characters, etc., are up to standards, in fact they are exactly the same as in the first six episodes of the series, which in fairness were rather good. However, overall I can not but give this recap the lowest possible rating.