The character art from Yoshitaka Amano is striking, and the female character often reminds me of Seiichi Hayashi's art—a pretty distinct look; seemingly an iconic one for the '80s city pop era, kind of like what the flapper was for the 1920s (except flappers are gross). Shinji Kimura also provides some great background art, and I personally prefer the more "normal" scenery, which is well-composed and storyboarded, and Mizuho Nishikubo is also a quite talented director. This is worth a watch for the art alone, and the mood and flirtation with experimentation gives this a kind of a "new wave anime" feel, in the tradition of the Japanese or French new wave films of the 1960s-1970s, and to some extent, into the 1980s.
Wish I could say something for the sound design, as anime is a subset of the animation medium that doesn't tend to place much emphasis on that area, and the music takes center stage. Seems like the music is always pounding away in the background—a whole album of it! I initially thought this was going to sample a wider variety of music, but it's just Virgin VS: that's great if you like the band... unfortunately for me, I'm not crazy about them, but it fits most scenes pretty well. When the music really gets going, we're treated to very lively animation—truly, it's not always integrated into the plot too strongly, but it does reinforce the themes, no matter how vaguely. The imagery here can be hit or miss and contains a bit of visual mismatch. Sometimes the backdrops or characters/items on the backdrops look a bit flat—one or the other. Some are better than others, but there's always an appeal to be found for most enthusiasts of old animation of an artsier bent.
It's a simple enough boy meets girl slice of life romance (since I like this, I won't say slime of life this time), and there's very little plot—emotions, themes, and some story elements are fleshed out a little bit through the music video portions, but they often kind of just stand alone as psychedelic or whimsical animation segments that carry a particular tone—often with a childlike or fairytale-esque atmosphere. The female is being pursued by some shady men, but we never figure out why this is the case, even when the male main helps her escape at one point. I guess it doesn't matter—they're there to play the diabolus ex machina role and separate the two characters for the more solemn final arc as we ponder what flavor of ending we'll get.
I need to do a better survey of the '80s OVA period, but I feel this is one of the better and more memorable selections, especially considering it's a very early OVA. If it could have been expanded and used a better OST, this might have been one of the anime greats of the '80s—whether or not it's a minor classic or not, it's one of the more notable early examples of anime OVAs combining storytelling and music videos. The Nishikubo-directed Karuizawa Syndrome came out just a few years later, and I'd also recommend that for a fairly similar visual style.
