Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

I see a lot of people raging about this series on the forums and the review section, so I'm here to give you my two cents.

Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu is a difficult OVA to recommend. For newcomers who have never read the manga will find the first episode (and probably the rest of the OVA) to be confusing. Why, you ask? Because the first episode starts at the first major climax of the manga. Which I believe in the manga starts at chapter 15, so all anime viewers would be missing 14 chapters of background content of the first episode. If you do want to watch the OVA be prepared to be completely mind blanked at some scenes.

But this is the true nature of the OVA of Kyou, Koi. The OVA is suppose to cater to the manga readers and draw the anime watchers to read the manga. Which effectively worked for me again. (Since I dropped the manga and plan on reading it again for the second episode of the OVA.) How do I know this? Because the OVA was bundled with the ninth volume of the manga in Japan. So it was not set to sell to the mainstream audience, but only to the manga followers who continue to read and support the manga.

J.C. Staff is at the helm of animated Kyou, Koi. (Who is also animated another shoujo this series Kaichou wa Maid-sama.) And the art is decent and stays true to the manga, which was a good thing. Obviously, J.C. Staff did not plan on having a big budget to animate this OVA, because it was just going to be an extra bundle to a manga volume. But I was surprised at the background art, which were drawn very well considering the small budget they had to use.

Soundtrack and voice acting wise, I thought were pretty good. Lots of piano/orchestra music fitting the shoujo setting of the anime. And Itou Kanae voices the main female lead in the OVA. Who is also know for doing Himamori Amu in Shugo Chara. Coming right from another shoujo is Namikawa Daisuke, who is fresh off the shoujo scene from voicing Kazehaya from Kimi ni Todoke. He voices the main male lead, but instead of playing a cheerful character like in Kimi ni Todoke, voices a rough serious character instead in Kyou, Koi.

Overall, I did enjoy this OVA, since it was literally a copy and paste of the manga. Except with added color, voice acting, animations, and background music. But again what makes this OVA so hard to recommend is because it was specifically made for the manga readers and will be a total loss for the anime only watchers. So here's to me hoping that J.C. Staff will do a full adaptation of the manga if they find out the OVA did well. But I'm not keeping my fingers crossed, since it seems to be such a small chance.

*Second episode of the OVA comes out bundled with the tenth volume of the manga, so expect that to not follow the time line of the first episode of the OVA.

*Also posted on MyAnimeList