Story:
Our tale takes place in an all boy's school where our protagonist, Shou, comes in search of his long lost twin brother, Kai. At least they're not Gundam pilots or one of them would be killed and then replaced by the other and they wouldn't be allowed to have different personalities at all. But moving on, Kai doesn't remember Shou, leading Shou to wonder if he actually is his brother even though they look virtually identical aside from the length of their hair. But I digress. Unbeknownst to the brothers, they're from a different world which they only discover when Shou sprouts white wings during a ghost hunt.
Let's start by delving into the problems with this things. The biggest is that the world building is very weak. A lot of the elements are hurriedly introduced and either not explained or given a rushed explanation. I'm sure in the actual visual novel they spend upwards of a dozen hours of scrolling through text meticulously explaining everything with walls of text and dialogue, but in the anime that isn't the case. The anime also likes to have "intense, shocking" moments as part of its big conflict in both episodes, but they don't really work because they centre around characters we've seen for all of a couple minutes. There's just no real impact in spite of the attempt at having an impact.
About the best I can say about the story telling is that I could see some of the ideas working if they were well developed and properly extrapolated on. There's also nothing really heinously bad about it which is more than I can say about a lot of the OVAs I've reviewed this year.
Characters:
The big issue here is that there are a lot of really under-developed characters running around and to make matters worse, a lot of them look similar. Like the two guys with short blue hair or the three somewhat older guys with dark hair and glasses. It's a case of quantity over quality with there being a lot of characters, and very few who are memorable in any regard. The only characters who left any kind of impression were the twins, because they're the focus characters, and the silver-haired effeminate guy with the healing flute. And he's only memorable because it's weird to see him in the back, playing a flute during action sequences.
Art:
As a whole, the art looks fine. At its worst, there are a few too many close ups of specific parts on the boys that are clearly meant as fan-service and there's the aforementioned issue with characters who look overly similar. The OVA could have potentially gotten by with that if they were written in a really memorable way, but their also being under-written leads to a bunch of characters you don't care enough to distinguish from one another. At its best, it has some action sequences that work pretty nicely and the backgrounds look pretty nice.
Sound:
The acting is fine. They got some pretty big names like Yamaguchi Kappei, Midorikawa Hikaru and Miyata Kouki to name a few. This just isn't among their best performances. It falls more under the, they did the bare minimum to be competent. And, in all fairness to them, I think that's largely due to their characters being dull and unmemorable. The music isn't very good. It's not terrible but it's not good.
Ho-yay:
There is a lot of flirtation among the guys. With several being heavily implied to be lovers. I don't mind it being really gay at all. What I mind is that none of the relationships are strong. You'll see one of the boys either briefly flirt with another or in a situation with sexual implications but you'll never see a proper conversation or anything substantial to the relationship. So, they kind of give you the implication and just leave it at that.
Areas of Improvement:
1. Have fewer characters and more development. Look, I do understand that they're trying to adapt a VN and that VN probably spends more time on its introduction than the entire OVA lasts. However, when you're making an adaptation, you have to accept that there are going to be viewers who haven't seen the original. Which means it has to be able to stand on its own. And a major way they could have simplified things to make it stand on its own, would have been to cut out some of these non-characters and used some time to actually develop the ones they kept in. At least a little bit.
2. Have some proper build up. These big betrayals they have in each episode don't really work, because we barely see the people in question with the guys they betray beforehand. You need to show us enough to strengthen those character dynamics so that it means something when they get completely altered. Not a minute of them together and then some random flashbacks of their past after the betrayal.
3. Do more to illustrate the fantasy elements. Part of the problem with this OVA is that the fantasy setting is largely downplayed and it seems like a regular ass boys' school until things take an abrupt shift into fantasy during the action sequences. Which makes it a little jarring.
Final Thoughts:
This isn't a good OVA. It's better than a lot of the OVAs I've watched during this past year, but when you're being positively compared to Mad Bull, Iron Virgin Jun and some of the other tripe I've reviewed this year, that isn't much of an endorsement. It's still a below average work. As such, I'm giving it a 4/10.
