Ranked #1512

Gravitation: Lyrics of Love

Gravitation: Lyrics of Love is a side-story to the main plot that was actually part of the main story in the manga. One of the main facets of the story is shounen-ai, or boy's love, a relationship between two men. Though there was no lovey-dovey kissy stuff contained, it did feature a small part heavily insinuating gay sex and domination themes(at most, it's "ecchi").

Story
Being from the original manga, the story was okay for what it was trying to do and where it came from. Some moments made me laugh, some put a smile on my face, and others were downright silly.

Art
Considering this was aired in 1999, the animation isn't all too bad. The only thing I noticed was some laziness by the animators in that there is repeated footage and they copped out to using illustrations from the manga artist for the ending credits. There were also some parts where the animation was a bit off anatomically(AKA QUALITY), but overall it was okay.

Sound
One of its main focuses is music, and like the anime(from what I have seen) it doesn't really fail to deliver. The music itself is slightly reminiscent of boy bands from the nineties, but they have a strong rhythm borrowed from techno music. I personally liked the songs, as silly as some of the Engrish in them is(spicy marmalade, anyone?).
The sound quality(aside from the music) is fairly good, although you may have to turn up the volume a little at times for speech if you're listening to the Japanese voice-over.

Character
If anything, it succeeds in characterising the two main loverboys, Shuichi Shindou and Eiri Yuki. Shuichi is quite a character indeed, and Eiri Yuki is a good foil to his childish, boisterous nature. However, they seemed to skimp a little on character regarding the rest of the cast, but it wasn't too big of a deal since that was covered in the anime(I presume) and the focus was on the couple.

Enjoyment
I quite enjoyed it. It put a smile on my face at the end. Albeit it wasn't the greatest OVA I've seen, but it succeeded it what it was trying to achieve.

Overall, it was fun. I suggest watching it for extra story if you've seen the anime only, but for manga readers, you're not missing out on much except the actual music made for this. read more

I feel like I must redeem Gravitation Lyrics of Love from past reviews. So here we go!

Story (8): Okay, just saying now. If you've seen the anime, I suggest it. If you've only read the manga, not so much. It won't make as much sense. But I really enjoyed the story behind this. I liked the first episode more than the second episode, though, because it made me cry. (I love angst...) It doesn't really have anything to do with the actual anime, but it's still an enjoyable little thing for Gravitation fans.

Art (7): Eh... it's a lot different from Gravitations art style. It's not as good or clean or bright. It's definitly not as bright. Even Shuichi's hair is a darker pink, which kinda disappointed me. Although I gotta say that it matches the art in the manga better. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't as good as the original art.

Sound (9): This would have gotten a lower score for reasons I will explain later. I feel like they changed Shuichi's voice. But maybe that's just me. It sounded different and more high pitched, especially when he's doing the looong screaming scenes. It hurt my ears a little. But, of course, the music redeems it up to a nine. I had bought the CD before watching this, so I could sing along to every song. Spicy Marmalade and Shining Collection are my songs, so I was really excited to hear them. Especially the duet with Shining Collection with Ryuichi and Shuichi in the end. I watched it six times...

Character (10): Well, they're all the original characters. There aren't any new ones, as far as I can remember. Although... K's character changed a little from his badass self. He seemed less badass. But, I can ignore that as long as he's still shooting people in the face.

Enjoyment (9): This is probably more along a nine and a half... it was brought down for the many long high pitched screaming scenes I mentioned earlier. But I can overlook them for the greater good of the anime.

Overall (8): I really did enjoy this. I'm going to watch it a couple more times before I send it back to Netflix, so that's always a good sign. So, hardcore fans like me, if you love Gravitation, go pick this up. ^_^

~Trey
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