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This is a hard series to judge, but it's the kind of show you end up binge-watching in spite of yourself.

Apparently the manga was fantastic at the beginning, and had far more than could have been reasonably adapted into a 12-episode anime, but such is the curse of the seasonal anime cycle we've been in. Without having read it, I can only guess at the subplots that were missing, but I suspect it would have been a much stronger series had they had room to breathe with it.

The anime itself isn't as trashy as one might expect from the premise, it's more along the lines ... of the movie "Cruel Intentions" in tawdriness. In fact, if you combined that with the 24-episode series "The Pet Girl of Sakurasou" with a healthy splash of "Peach Girl", all wrapped in a student teacher relationship, you're about 95% of the way to getting the vibe of this series.

If the premise doesn't turn you off, you can handle some adult situations handled relatively tastefully, and you enjoy good characters you wish you'd seen more of, with a few truly *exceptional* scenes of dialog (the first scene at the beach and most of the cafe scenes were great), you should give this slightly trashy romance novel a shot. You might find it to be a guilty pleasure.

Note: Although this is *about* high school students, this handles adult situations with a bit more gravity and drama than you might think you're in for (after the first episode).

It's hard to imagine a better example of "gothic lolita" as a concept than what we're presented with here. A cautionary tale of obsession getting out of control, with the protagonist alienating those around him and eventually enduring some rather gory metaphysical punishment before the end is out.

Although the OVA has some ambitious ideas, those get lost at times through clumsy handling of themes and a lack of restraint on the part of the director and his or her bag of visual tricks. The art direction stays good for the first two episodes, but mars itself with bland CGI and over-use of filters in the ... third. Same thing goes with the psychological tension that ratchets up slowly but can't do much in the end besides resolve the main plot threads.

It might sound like I dislike it, but I don't! It's actually a rather compelling work, but it's difficult to review or make a direct recommendation to someone for. It certainly stuck with me for quite a while after watching it.

I feel like I would have liked to have seen the group explore the themes here in a full length 10-12 episode anime rather than a 3 episode OVA. The side characters' relationship with the protagonist (and he with they) had a lot of threads started while the OVA was building up tension, but you never really get much resolution for it all, and what happens with the leads might have had more effect with a few more episodes of things to rip away by the end.


The OVA has its flaws, but it's art direction is generally very good, it's soundtrack and design is great, and its ideas are unique and creepy enough to leave you with a general sense of unease.

This is the perfect anime for watching on a Halloween night you're planning to stay in with your roommates for, with the lights off and a mutual desire to share in some creepy psychological gothic horror. And anime.