Anime: Kimi ga Nozomu Eien: Next Season

This is the long-awaited Haruka's version of the KGNE storyline. As one who thought that Takayuki should have swayed Haruka's way, I've really been looking forwards to this.

This is a four episode OVA supposedly telling Haruka's tale (i.e. you should already expect a certain ending). However, true to the KGNE style, they add in a few plot twists to convince you otherwise. Pretty much this is exactly like what happened with Shirakawa in Da Capo If.

While it was indeed Haruka's storyline, it didn't quite live up to the expectation I had for it. Certain critical characters just didn't seem to be themselves. The animation and sound department didn't help much either. The characters look AND sound different.

I wouldn't expect much out of this OVA. In fact, the only thing to expect is the inevitable ending.

Animation:
The animation studio is different from the one that did the original KGNE so the charactors/color look different. Personally, I find this a bit distracting as the changes in appearances are quite noticeable and I liked the originals better. Overall, the quality is still decent but it's a step backwards.

Sound:
The OP/ED haven't really gotten my attention compared to the original KGNE and the background music is average. Not bad but you won't find anything spectacular either. The voice acting cast is COMPLETELY different from the original cast save Haruka. This was quite disappointing at first but the overall quality is still acceptable.

Story:
This is where it gets interesting. So this OVA is about Haruka and Takayuki getting together. How nice, everyone knows how the plot is supposed to go now, or so one would think. Expect plot twists where one would not expect them. As with KGNE, these are what make this series stand out. I won't spoil the story but I'll say that it is quite engaging. It starts off where KGNE ended, where Haruka leaves the hospital, except that Takayu is there to pick her up!

As for actual progression, the series puts up a dramatic front just like the original series and (despite being Haruka's storyline) throws the pair way off course. In the end you'll still get the ending you want, but don't say I didn't warn if you if you find it less than satisfactory.

Character:
KGNE was all about character relations and how they developed. This OVA focuses its attention on Haruka. Expect relationships to grow and move. It seems that Haruka and Takayuki's personalities themselves have changed since the end of KGNE. Haruka is tired of people treating her like she's still ill, which isn't helped by Takayuki's babying of her. The show brings back some of the original cast but other than for Haruka, don't expect any large changes.

Value:
As I noted, I was slightly disappointed at the change of studio and animation quality. When I heard that there was going to be an OVA for KGNE with Haruka's storyline, I was ecstatic. Sadly, I am no where near ecstatic for how the story progressed. I'll probably burn myself a copy of this to keep but you won't find it spinning on my HD.

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To be honest, I really liked the original Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (KGNE from now on since the title's too long). I liked the intense drama, although some people prefer relaxing daily life stories or just simple romance stories. I like romances with lots of comedy or those filled with drama, or else it bores me. So after watching KGNE and I saw this, I thought it would be fairly interesting to see what happens to Haruka and Narumi if they get back together; judging by the summary on the anime page on AniDB, it interested me a bit. Unfortunately, that "synopsis" only applied to the last 10 minutes of episode 4.

I make many references and comparisons to the original series, so if you haven't already done so, read some of the reviews for that series if you haven't watched it already to get a feel for what I'm trying to say here.

Animation

Not much changed in the animation from KGNE to this. I only noticed that the colour palette seems to have slightly changed, since people's hair colours were a bit lighter than the colours used in KGNE. Otherwise, I didn't notice anything completely different, so I don't have any complaints here.

The opening sequence is somewhat plain, and just seems like a normal romance opening with characters flying in everywhere. The focal character, Haruka, appears in it 90% of the time, and half the time she's just standing there so it's pretty boring. And if you're wondering, there was no ending sequence; it was just scrolling credits.

Sound

The seiyuus didn't change from the original series. The only things that really changed were the theme songs. As always, Kuribayashi Minami, Haruka's seiyuu, sings these songs. The opening, "Next Season", and the ending, "Eternity", aren't anything special and are similar to many of her other songs. I do like her singing, but it's just that these sound fairly plain compared to those other songs.

Story

I never thought that KGNE would be a series to follow a generic storyline, and it's almost as bad as the story from Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka. Here's how this one goes:

1. Main characters remain together even though something happened that separated them for a long time
2. They break up
3. They get back together with some cheesy lines

Well, at last it somewhat progresses, unlike AkaSaka. They could have done a lot more with the two hours they had, instead of making almost all of episode 2 a recap of what happened in KGNE from Mitsuki's point of view. Either way, this bored me halfway through it, and the drama was nowhere near as intense as KGNE. Actually, most of the storyline was comedy, now that I think about it, and there really wasn't much drama in it at all. One other thing that I didn't like was how they suddenly switch from a peaceful scene to a semi-dramatic scene without any build-up, and then end the episode, like what happened at the end of episode 1.

Character

They focused a lot on Haruka and Narumi, and left out a lot of other characters, who seemed to just be time fillers, but I guess that was to be expected, since it's only supposed to cover Haruka's "route". None of them really undergo any development, except Haruka and Narumi learn a little lesson after a little while. Can't really comment on anything else here in this section.

Value and Enjoyment

In short, it bored me to the point that I wanted to stop halfway through an episode. The only "message" this OVA gave was the one that Haruka's mom tells Haruka in episode 4, which isn't much and mostly common sense. However, if you watched KGNE but you didn't like how the drama in it was so intense, of even if you just didn't like Mitsuki, you're probably going to be a fan of this OVA. Otherwise, I would suggest that you stay away from this, since there was nothing particularly interesting about it.