First off, the story: I'm going to be straight up-- other than about five-ten minutes in between, there's really no romance. And the romance that is shown is mostly just some kissing, and once it nearly escalates before being interrupted. So if you're here for the shipping aspect, this really isn't for you! On the other hand, for people who prefer a different type of story, there is a murder mystery going on in the background. Personally, while I'm a really big crime and horror fan myself, I found this unsatisfactory-- it was very, very painfully predictable, and in many spots it really did make sense. I won't go into detail here because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but it was disappointing as a mystery overall since I was able to figure out pretty much the entire way the story would play out in the first ten minutes-- it was ridiculously simple.
I don't really watch old anime all that often, but I have seen a few (mainly Ai No Kusabi from 1992-1994 and Hunter x Hunter from 1998 and 1999-2001) and both have a cleaner art style that leads me to believe more effort could have been made. The art isn't necessarily BAD, but at times it seems sloppy. However, I was very happy with the more realistic body types-- most of the time in 'gay' anime, the seme tends to have a massive, hulking structure with gargantuan shoulders, while the uke is more of a tiny little feminine dwarf. I'm glad that both of our leads looked like... well, men. Normalish men. That being said, I didn't really like how the eyes were designed on most of the characters, but that can be easily overlooked.
The background music and songs of this OVA weren't bad, but completely forgettable. All of it really lacked the fire to make a real impression, so I really didn't care for them. As for the voice actors, I watched a dub, where they did mostly a good job, other than some parts were they sounded rather flat.
I think the main thing that saved this OVA from being completely terrible was the characters. While I didn't really like the way some of the characters were structured and the things they were saying (there were too many stereotypes, including the 'I'M NOT GAY! guy who just kissed a guy and admitted to having feelings for a guy' guy, the 'let's rape this person just because they totally gave me consent though they are currently struggling as I try to get close to them' guy, and the 'totally nice old person who really isn't as nice as they look' guy). On top of that, some of the dialogues were unnatural because... well, people don't really talk like that... Regardless of all that, however, I found the chemistry between the characters to be endearing, even if some of the slightly racist and homophobic comments haven't really aged all that well.
Overall, this wasn't too bad, but not really what I expected.
I would recommend this if you: like murder mysteries, like simpler murder mysteries, like (just hints) of romance in your anime
I would NOT recommend this if you: are here for the romance/yaoi, like more complex mysteries, don't like cliche/predictable plots, are really touchy about slightly assaulty behavior (think classic seme forcing themselves on someone clearly saying no but then the entire situation being treated like a joke...)
Have a great day everyone!
