Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara: Christmas? Sonna Mono ga Boku ni Tsuuyou Suru to Omou no ka?

Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara, or If her Flag breaks, was a show that really pushed itself beyond what it tried to be. Being a show that got mixed reviews and a rather poor assessment from me, well, I had to see the OVA to be completely honest here. So...what little secrets lie within the quest dormitory this time?

Story (6.78/10): Well, to answer that question, not really much. To be blunt, this is a christmas special, with pretty much the entire cast of the show celebrating christmas. There's not really much to say beyond that. The characters essentially have a ... party complete with the King game, food, and overall wackiness that this show attempts to deliver, in addition to Kanojo ga Flag's signature style of character interactions, overly reserved catfights. This brings me to my next point.

The majority of this OVA, and even the original show itself, utilizes the idea of "overly reserved catfights", which basically entails our main harem protagonist Souta, being surrounded by about eleven or so girls, most of whom fight against in each for his affection in a way that each of them both don't want to lose to anyone else, but also want to be fair and share Souta within them in a very, very passive way. (Yeah, confusing, I know.) More or less, this is what the entire OVA is filled with, and really...not much else.

Overall, the story of the OVA was decent for what it came from. I personally didn't expect very much from this OVA, so I wasn't really thinking much of it. To put it simply, it was an extra episode that did continue on for what the show was known for without really any major changes to what people who have already seen this show already know.

Overview:
+/- Overused story idea
+/- Kept true to the "way of storytelling" (This is a plus and a minus on account of how repetitive and sometimes idiotic the passive catfights are presented.)

Characters (5.99/10): The characters in Kanojo ga flag return really without much change. Although it is standard for an OVA to do this, as the audience is reviewing characters and personalities that they have witnessed before, and may require a refresher, the characters on their lonesome here really aren't all that spectacular.

We have our main protagonist Hatate Souta, our somewhat emo downer that has a little horde of girls of varying ages trying for his attention. Throughout this OVA, Souta really just falls into a passive role more than anything else. While the entire 22 minute runtime is essentially the girls devoting all of their time and effort for Souta's sake, Souta...really doesn't do anything. More or less, he just sits there and lets whatever happen, happen. He didn't really take much of a commanding role in the original run of the show either, but here, he just feels a lot more submissive and passive than I had seen before.

And then we have the girls of the series. Nanami, Akane, Kikuno, Mugumu (Yes, I convinced this one is a girl, no matter what anyone else thinks.), Rin, Ruri, Mimori, Obaba, Mei, Kurumiko, Hakua, the teacher and Serika. This OVA, as I have stated before, is for the most part, all but three of the females listed passively fight over Souta with varying views of love, including but not limited to, little sister, older sister, childhood friend, man friend, etc. The show really doesn't even attempt to go beyond what it already has stated for each of these girls. Everyone but Nanami is a single trait character, with one trait detailing their entire personality, as such making them perfect for the roles as harem girls. While this does make understand what is going on a little simpler since characters are easily recognized by their personalities, it really is all just average at best. Plus, there are just too many of them. I don't remember this show being To-Love-Ru with the sheer amount of girls here. Hell, they even made a proper dogpile of them in the last few minutes.

Overview:
+/- Harem troupes (good for harem, not good for anime)
- Overly passive main character, who is also quite dense at times (like always.)

Art and Sound (7.00/10): Both aspects of music and visuals stay relatively the same as before with the actual series. They reuse the same OP and ED tracks for this OVA, and the art itself doesn't really stray from the overly colorful and moe artstyle that this show went for. The aesthetics for the show are decently well done, and I'm glad that the style stayed on the same good quality throughout.

Overview:
+ Consistent quality

Personal Enjoyment (6.99/10): Kanojo ga flag was in my eyes, an anime that failed on account on trying to accomplish too much in WAY too little time, aka, something I like to call Angel Beats Syndrome. This OVA however, really didn't add too much to the series or redeem it in any way aside from being an extra episode where we get to see the wacky antics of the Quest Dormitory. I mean, when you have something that's a christmas special, what else can you expect?

Did I like this OVA?

To say it wasn't enjoyable is being harsh. The OVA was really more of a entertainment thing more than anything else. Particularly because of how it was structured just to be focused around it "passive catfights" more than anything else. What I did like in this however, was how Nanami stayed in her role. As the character that I consider to be the best out of the entire cast, I was quite happy to see that she didn't deviate from her role too much and stayed as a character who was both close to the main protagonist, but wasn't made in a way that made her an obvious member of the harem.

What didn't I like about this OVA?

Most likely, the overly reserved catfights. While they are a part of the show and are essential to how the show was structured, it got tired and old really fast. I have stated previously that these catfights made up the show and made it infamous for that reason alone. But when you have an entire episode just straight up about that, yeah, you're going to bore your viewers cause there's nothing really entertaining about that.

Would I recommend this OVA?

If you liked Kanojo ga Flag, then go ahead. If you haven't heard of the series or don't like it, I would suggest no. Because of its position as an OVA, this episode I feel would only really appeal to fans of the show on account of its position as an extra episode.

Overall Score: 6.47/10