Do you think the OVA felt rushed?

Jonesy974 said:
Here? You could definitely feel it. They went from fall, to cultural festival, to christmas, to the end of the year in 4 episodes. You could tell that there were character moments left out and maybe some scenes that just would've added depth.

Crusader_8 said:


So here's the rub - when you say rushed, do you mean chronologically or narratively? Because from several of the comments here I'm getting the sense that people conflate chronological pacing with narrative pacing. Narratively speaking, each episode's basic acts, conflicts, resolutions in the OVA as well as the overall OVA's arc came at all the typical time signatures and beats of any other story of similar length. A time skip of a month or two is largely irrelevant because it just means nothing meaningful happened in that time that would've been important to the main story. For example, if a 2-hour movie features a three month time-skip, do you conclude that a movie which covers multiple months in two hours is "rushed"? Or do you tell yourself "well they skipped three months so it mustn't be important?" We can *imagine* important things happening, or *feel* like more could've been added, but that is just a viewer inserting their own version of the narrative into the show and doesn't reflect on the actual pacing. You could theoretically add substantial character interactions ad infinitum if we went down that rabbit hole.

To distinguish the OVA from the season: being an OVA of a slice of life, imo it would be expected to have a condensed chronology to highlight key school events and key character interactions. Lots of slice of life shows, being only 12-13 episodes, only have enough time to cover holidays and school events/breaks anyway. The OVA's arc didn't need to superficially manage its pacing by injecting irrelevant character interactions between each school event to make it *feel* more like a school year to viewers who conflate chronological pacing with narrative pacing.

To the manga readers (like @thesarcasticguy ): did you consider that the adaptation feels rushed only because the manga had more content, so you were inevitably going to feel like chunks of story were missing? Did you consider that without reading the manga you'd have a more objective view on the OVA's pacing, or did you throw out these possibilities?

Jonesy974 said:


If you want to be specific about it, it felt rushed both chronologically and narratively. Chronologically is self explanatory. They fit a timeline of almost 6-8 months within 4 episodes.

Narratively speaking, I know there's mini arcs and bits of character development that were removed for the sake of time and length. Some of those things may be important to some people more than others. Depends on heavily invested you were in the characters and the series. If the overall story was more important, you'll probably like the OVAs a bit more than if you enjoyed all of the bits of mini-drama and character interactions.

Crusader_8 said:
I was heavily invested in the story and characters; this was one of my top 3 shows of the past two years. I just don't see the necessity of padding out a story with week-by-week depictions. They had 4 episodes for the OVA so they focused on the most important interactions that move the story and the characters forward. This is just like how in a lot of films and tv characters rarely say "goodbye" before hanging up; this is done so on purpose because it's an irrelevant interaction for the audience. when a few months pass between two episodes, ESPECIALLY in a high school scenario, is it really that outlandish to assume that nothing extraordinary happened in that time, or that nothing happened between the characters that would meaningfully change the dynamic of their relationships? In real life school kids can go for months without anything life-changing happening between themselves and their friends, so I don't understand why a lot of ReLIFE fans feel cheated.

Jonesy974 said:

You say you were invested in the characters, yet the general consensus from people who also happened to read the manga, is that the concentrated amount of time in the OVAs removed a lot of emotional buildup behind the characters which had a greater impact on how the ending was presented and received by the readers. Some things people seemed to dislike most were the fast pace of the date, some skipped over scenes from the manga, and how condensed the Ooga brother arc was.

So the things you seem to deem irrelevant, other people deemed worthwhile buildup, and your thoughts on the matter seem to be largely in the minority.

I'm also no sure why you're trying to compare what happens in an anime to real life high school scenarios. Of course real life high schoolers can go for months without anything life-changing happening. Ordinary high school life is/was boring as shit. The entire premise of a fictitious anime is to present you with things that wouldn't normally happen regardless of the timeframe. By your own logic, any character interaction that doesnt change the dynamic of the show or the characters in any way is just a wasted scene.

Crusader_8 said:


I always love being called a liar at this hour in the morning. So by what standard do we judge emotional investment in characters and story, and who gets to determine which viewers are qualified to meet that bar?

To fix poorly-worded analogy comparing anime to real high school: real life is 24/7. If we're writing a story, it's going to be in an obviously shorter format, and we can't depict 100% of a character's life. A writer starts with "well if my characters were real they'd have countless hours of interactions, but my story will only be ____ long." They have to judge which moments are important and which aren't. Even then manga/comic writers pad their storytelling with unnecessary dialogue and scenarios! Professionals who write serial comics drag intentionally out their stories all the time to keep that sweet cash flow going, because it's job security and it's hard to crank out another hit - look at the author of Walking Dead. And look at a lot of American tv, many of the best shows went on 2-3 seasons longer than they had to because of $$$.

Arguably, EVERY moment in a character's life will inevitably be considered important by some fans, even stuff like brushing one's teeth. However a studio adapting manga needs different priorities - conflicts, climaxes, resolutions. It's their job to prioritze delivering those parts effectively while achieving maximum characterization in minimum screen time. That process is an art we should appreciate, but we often get so obsessed over our favorite characters that we may feel cheated by not getting every minute detail of their lives. But writing an adaptation means you have to stick with the story and not waste precious animation budget on unnecessary padding.

You may have gotten so into the manga that you view each panel as one of your children that you couldn't possibly sacrifice, but if that's the case then maybe anime isn't the right medium for you. Your love of the manga doesn't mean the anime is legitimately too fast-paced, and it doesn't mean your definition of emotional investment supersedes others.

Jonesy974 said:


Weird. Pretty sure the word liar never came out of my mouth. Twisting my own words doesnt really do anything for your argument. At best I'd could call you a hypocrite.
By your own thought process, any scene that doesnt move the characters or story along is a scene that doesnt matter. If that were the case, most anime would only be 10 minutes long and 8 episodes long. You can literally pick any episode of any anime ever made and using your logic pick out scenes that didnt matter at all.

You're also completely over-reaching to make your argument seem like the right one. Nobody gives a shit if a character brushes their teeth. That goes well beyond "fluffing" an episode. There's a big difference between scenes that are just fluff and scenes that arent plot relevant but add depth to the characters or the world building.

Maybe anime isnt the medium for me? LMFAO. Amigo, check your list against my list and realize what a dumb remark that is. Also, I havent read a single page of the ReLIFE manga so that assumption was completely off base.

You may be on to something though. Perhaps anime isnt the medium for you. All of that preaching about "how studios have priorities when adapting things", "having to focus on the story and not waste precious time"...really makes it seem like you dont have a lot of viewing experience under your belt. I already mentioned how every episode of any show ever has padding in it, but the amount of shows in general that have entire episodes dedicated to filler content and side stories is damn long list. There isnt a single show in existence that doesnt completely shatter the "perfect image" of how you think anime is created.

Crusader_8 said:
you accused me of being insincere in my emotional investment, as if you didnt trust me because I didn't meet your standards of what counts for emotional investment in characters. So dont act like words were put in your mouth unfairly.

And anime IS the medium for me when it comes to this stuff. I look at the anime for what it is instead of going in with the intent to compare it to its source material.

I DID make the mistake of forgetting you said at the start you didnt read the manga so I apologize. however I stand by the things I said - most manga characterization is unnecessary embellishment for the sake of padding chapters/volumes (all about that paycheck), and people who have read the manga go into watching the anime expecting to see this extra unnecessary stuff. I probably forgot that you said you didnt read the manga because you made such a passionate case for filler scenes/dialogue (not to be confused with filler episodes). Perhaps if I go about reading the ReLIFE manga I can see for myself just how necessary the omitted content was and finally understand why everyone feels the OVA was bad and rushed. I just hate this feeling that IM the bad guy for liking a story to be concise and to get to the point instead of trodding out a play-by-play of all 365 days of their third year

SigmaTheLolicon said:
Okay, so I just finished the ReLIFE: Kanketsu-hen OVA after having finished the main series about a month ago and I had no idea (according to the various comments here) that the four episodes skipped so much in a time-skip.

So if I am understanding this right:
Anime: End of ReLIFE -> TIME SKIP -> Kaiaki and Hishiro meet and remember each other

Manga: End of ReLIFE -> a lot of drama, a suicide?, new character who was important to Kaizaki and Hishiro's reunion? -> Kaizaki and Hishiro meet and remember each other

I would like to know those omitted details, but I am EXTREMELY happy with how the OVA concluded the story. It didn't feel rushed at all to me. I mean, time-skips are not uncommon.

Congintive said:
Rushed? what did they even adopt from the last hundred ch it's more like anime original content more than rushed.