Under the Dog is pathetic through and through. I doubt the entire staff were inept, but it was at least most of them. I'm lost as to how this even got to release without any of the rest raising their hand and saying to the room; "Fellas, this is awful. Please tell me this isn't the finished product."
Supposedly Under the Dog was originally a concept for a 2-cour anime, with this OVA possibly acting as an episode 0. In that regard, it's even worse than a standalone work, as it fails to feel like a primer for a longer story. The world and lore isn't set up at all, and the supposed main character doesn't even do anything until the final few scenes. Like the design of the girl on the poster? Cool, you get about five minutes total screentime of her.
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The OVA does in fact have a story, in that there are people doing actions for a reason. The people are boring, the actions are dumb and the reason is altogether vague, but the absolute minimum components for a story are there. It's presented poorly, as Under the Dog is comprised almost entirely of a single long action sequence. I kept expecting it to wrap up and move along to the next scene, but it never did. The penny only dropped when I spotted that more than half the runtime was over and the story was just where it was fifteen minutes ago.
The characters do not meet that same minimum. Of the few we see, nobody seems to have a presence outside the confines of their surroundings. There's no long-term goal other than to carry out the mission, and the one not affiliated with the Flowers, namely, the male lead, just blunders around the school in tow of the female lead. He could just as easily be a box she has to carry around.
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From a production standpoint, Under the Dog doesn't shine either, but is at least average. Animation and art are consistently alright, as is the music, which I don't recall being bad but also don't recall at all. The character design is also quite weak with the sole exception of the poster girl, but as stated, she is so transient to the OVA itself she may not even have been present. Audio isn't something I usually mention, but I did think it was quite interesting to have the American military speak English.
Finally, there is the world, or rather, how it is presented in the OVA. It appears to be another case of exposition-in-supplementary-material, as the majority of information is direct from the creator's mouth rather than in the production itself. It almost expects the viewer to study up on the setting in their own time.
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Under the Dog puts me in mind of the Victorian practice of Post-mortem Photography. It's dead, literally a corpse of a show that was didn't make it, but dressed smart and stood up on a stick just enough to look proper. But of course, poking around reveals it's all a ruse.
If I were to repair this, then the simple instruction would be to add at least an hour's worth of content before this OVA, allowing ample time to properly explain the world and give the characters something to do other than shoot everything.
Four words: Not worth anyone's time.
