A-Girl

The main thought I had while watching "A-Girl" is that I bet this is someone's favorite show. It's sort of a Minimum Viable Favorite Anime, which got me thinking about what that means. There is not a whole lot to this. Not to imply that there's not much to silent film, but this is a silent film, so it conveys its narrative through pictures and title cards and the music selection. The relationships it depicts are archetypical enough that you could probably understand even without the cards. The character designs look somewhat similar to each other, enough so that it can take a second to ... differentiate secondary characters.

But there's so much emotional imagery compressed within this OVA. And I don't mean that in the "you're supposed to cry here" sort of way; you couldn't even call this story sad. I mean it walks us through an impressive number of different emotions and caters each scene to expressing that feeling and making us share in it. That was impressive and a wonderful approach to animating this story. It felt fresh and unique enough in a way that could make me absolutely understand someone finding this and going "This is my favorite thing ever."

I don't know what's up with the very low review score for this OVA on MyAnimeList, but rest assured, A-Girl is one of those hidden gems that makes sifting through all the garbage of late-eighties-early-nineties anime OVAs worth it. It's genuinely something special.

I didn't expect this to be a weird experimental silent film, and I also didn't expect this to be legitimately pretty moving and sweet. The animation is so good, too, which baffles me for how obscure it is. I love it when we get really nice coming-of-age stories for women out of nowhere. Plus, thanks to being a silent film, there's a ton ... of great music!

Story 7/10 : I absolutely didn't get a damn thing about the story but I had an overall impression of cuteness and sadness about this love story.

Art 8/10 : Nothing to say considering the age of the anime. Reminded me of Aishite Night mostly because of the chara I guess.

Sound 10/10: The music is a real tear-bringer, seriously.

Character 8/10 : We didn't have much time to get to know the characters but fair enough for a single 25-minute episode. The characters were way to similar but it's a common problem for almost every romance anime from the 90s

But damn, I need an explanation of this ... anime or I won't sleep T_T

This film presents us a gentle approach to the subject of romance and relationships.

First thing that comes to you at the start of this film is the immediate strong musical presence, that is only complimented by the visual presentation. That already sets this film apart from many other anime and films. However in addition of the strong visual presentation and musical aspect that is present throughout the film, you can see that the film is composed of segments. There are several layers of these segments and together they form the narrative of the film that is partly told through the visual presentation and in part ... through the musical atmosphere. The combination of these segments and how they play into each other I'd say is one of the strengths of the film.

There are multiple songs used throughout the film, usually change of song signaling the dawn of a new musical segment in the narrative of the film. Another type of segments consist of black screens indicating the use of silent dialogue. As opposed to the segments relying on audio, these segments are purely visual. These two kind of segments together form create a sense of harmony and conflict within the audiovisual experience. They are separate from each other but they somehow managed to weave both of them together forming a magnificent audiovisual experience.

The art brings beautifully life the designs from the manga and the struggle of the characters romance is portrayed thoroughly through both visual presentation and through musical performance. I'd say this approach that taps into multiple layers individually enables emotional connection to the setting and characters that cannot be obtained from a single layered experience. There is just more depth in the setup of the experience when the output is on multiple layers.

Overall the content and design on the film I'd say that the multilayered audiovisual setting reinforces the context on the scenes and the allows the film to have one of a kind impact to the viewer, which is something I value.

This anime isn't for everyone and was probably not intended for the masses. It is a piece of high art.

Story: The story is fine and relatable if you are familiar with anime tropes of the time and can follow the storyline. This anime is dense and doesn't tell you anything. It wants you to perceive the storyline rather than give it to you.

Art: I'm watching a VHS rip on a 40" 4K monitor. Of course it doesn't compare to anything modern. It is on par with many things of the same time period and better than ... most. They took their time to draw a great animation.

Sound: There is very little spoken dialogue. Most of the anime is visuals and music. The music is well chosen and always fits perfectly with the animation. It is a S tier soundtrack.

Character: They aren't well fleshed out, but they do a lot with the minimal time given.

Enjoyment: 10/10 for me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here writing a review.

Overall: 9/10 It's just good. If you like old anime just watch it.

Such an underrated gem of an anime!

I watched this from a VHS, so not the highest quality I've ever seen, but still,the art was very gorgeous.

The music in this anime is gorgeous and some of the best that I've heard from the time it was made even brought me to tears at one point.

The characters aren't the deepest or most fleshed out I've seen, but for the short time you see them, they work pretty well.

Overall, while this anime may not be for everyone, it is an adorable romance anime. Would recommend it if you're a fan of old romantic anime!

This was just meant to be a quick OVA to throw on in the background, as I knew it was supposed to eschew dialogue—not quite. A-Girl utilizes title cards in the same way a silent film would, but it has much quicker pacing and often a more natural usage of the device—especially used to great effect during the walking sequence without cuts, where the characters have text near their heads.

If silent films tended to use the device so quickly and naturally, they would have aged better. The direction is solid and some of the chosen imagery and editing borders on the experimental—or perhaps you ... can say it already is because of the short story told via music video format and the aforementioned title cards. There IS actually one scene of spoken dialogue that is supposed to provide contrast in the same way you'd get from Pokemon's Brock opening his eyes for once in his lifetime.

As for the story, it's a sickeningly sweet shoujo that's entirely superficial in its telling of a story far too simple to tell by any means other than the gimmicky manner in which it was told. Without the subtitles, it's almost so universal a story and so tropey in its exploration of a back and forth relationship as to not need explication at all. The pop is passable, but I'd definitely pass on it. It fits the scenes well enough—some of it is awful, while other tracks are mediocre.

The aesthetic is peak moe, but you also have the male model pretty boy who—sometime in-between getting his nails manicured—tries to act so hardcore when he's like "IT'S NOTHIN'" after he simped-out in a fight with some punk and got a badass scar on his face to prevent him from looking like the world's biggest metrosexual wuss who accidentally walked into a shoujo instead of a yaoi.

I mean, what's the difference? Often the same authors, and in many cases the same demographics are targeted, just different wish fulfillment and shipping. It's ultimately some fetishy lovey-dovey thing rather than anything close to art. Anyway, I'm sure the mangaka was happy with this OVA, as were the fans—as it seems like a nice tribute to the manga, from what I can understand—I'm simply not the audience this was intended for, even with the alluded to experimental nature.

Not everything goes well, and there's some added conflict, of course: the "sad" part is supposed to be the male being a playboy who two-times our little moelita, yet she continues to see him, and guess what? True to form, he does it again. Play with a player and get played. That's like being sad when a wolf eats a sheep, which should only be sad for you if it's YOUR sheep (or it wasn't your sheep and you were planning to eat that sheep...). What I find actually sad is that this short is like a high-fructose corn syrup IV drip, and I've needed kidney dialysis ever since I watched it, which was only like... 10 minutes ago.

Going into this anime, I expected your usual high school shoujo romance. I was completely wrong and immediately got hit with an experimental silent film. Like, legit. No dialogue, 0 voice acting, and title cards.

I almost gave up on this 6 minutes in due to a negative review, however, I pushed through and realized how charming it is. I wasn't exactly invested in it like I would be in a usual anime... if anything I was invested as if I was watching a music video with a good story. Which it actually could be categorized as. It reminds me of VIDEOCLUB's Amour Plastique.

Not everyone's ... going to like this but if you like cute and quirky romantic media, I would recommend this. It's an experience.