AKA: グリーングリーン

Genre: Romantic comedy

Length: OAV, 26 minutes

Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America

Content Rating: 13+ (fan service, some sexual innuendo)

Related Series: Green Green TV

Also Recommended: His and Her Circumstances, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien , Love Hina, To Heart

Notes: Based on a hentai dating sim of the same name. This is an alternate telling of the Green Green story and isn't directly related to the television series.

Rating:

Green Green OAV

Synopsis

After arriving for a brief week long coed exchange program at Hananoka Girl's High School, boys from the rural Kanenone Boy's High School are excited about their opportunity to be around so many girls. However, a groping incident starts them off on the wrong foot with the girls and soon they are suspected of being panty thieves!

Review

If you only have thirty minutes to work with, it is extremely important to focus your story and character development. Even in a short running time, it is entirely possible to produce some intriguing romantic drama as proven by such examples as Voices of a Distant Star or the initial episode of She: The Ultimate Weapon. There have been plenty of comedic OAVs that are just an episode or two, so it isn't as if a huge amount of time is required to really amuse an audience with a few jokes either.

The Green Green OAV, on the other hand, doesn't seem to quite know what it wants to accomplish in its short running time. It hints that it is trying to develop a sweet romance between the main female lead, Midori, and male lead, Yuusuke, but it fails in that regard. It tries to provide some comedy through the randy antics of Yuusuke's friends, but again, it also fails in that regard. It is a shame really. Perhaps if they had decided to concentrate on the former, they might have been able to produce something that would have had at least some emotional and dramatic impact.

While the later television version of Green Green had twelve episodes to try and develop its large cast, the OAV's cramming in of so many characters into a single twenty six minute feature was a mistake. They do manage to give each character a bit of screen time, but at the same time they ensure that there is insufficient time for any individual character to get significant development. Though, compared to the television series, the male characters, in general seem a bit more likable overall, if only because they didn't have as much time to get involved in obnoxious scenarios and seem a bit less perverted. The female characters pretty much have no opportunity to move beyond their initially defined shallow character types.

The humor in this OAV failed to really amuse me. Mostly it centered around Yuusuke's male friends trying to take advantage of their new situation by groping girls in darkened rooms, attempting to sneak into the girls' dorm at night, and other such standard adolescent male antics. It is harmless fluff for the most part but I can't say that it really did much to keep me entertained.

The character design work, scene design work, and animation for this OAV seemed a bit substandard. It rather surprised me to realize that the artwork and animation was actually better in the television series than this OAV despite it being under a year older than the series. The low animation quality, in particular, stood out. Perhaps if the storyline and characters had been keeping me more engaged, I would not have focused so much on the animation. After all, this type of story generally doesn't always require hyperfluid animation to be effectively told, but in the case of this already severely mediocre title it just ends up being another strike against it.

If this were simply the opening episode of a series, perhaps one could excuse some of the lack of development, but as it stands the Green Green OAV ended up being rather unentertaining. Had I seen this first, it would have done little to encourage me to watch the television series. With two bland leads, an underdeveloped romance, and generally unfunny humor, there just isn't much to really recommend about this title.

A rushed OAV full of underdeveloped characters and unfunny situations. Though the romance angle between the leads provides the vague hint of something for the future, in isolation it just leaves the viewer unfulfilled. There is the hint of potentially something interesting here but that is simply is not enough to make a good OAV. — Jeremy A Beard

Recommended Audience: Surprisingly, the Green Green OAV is considerably cleaner in content than the TV series. There is a bit of fan service and a bit of innuendo, but nothing that really rises above being inappropriate for young teens.