AKA: 夏色の砂時計 (Natsuiro no Sunadokei), Hourglass of Summer Colors

Genre: High school romance / dating sim with supernatural elements

Length: OAV series, 2 episodes, 30 minutes each

Distributor: Currently unlicensed in North America

Content Rating: 13+ (adult themes, fan service)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: If you like this sort of thing...Triangle Hearts~Sweet Songs Forever~ and any other gaming anime.

Notes: Based on the video game of the same name by PrincessSoft.

Rating:

Hourglass of Summer

Synopsis

Makimura Koutarou is your typical high school student, focused on confessing his love to adorable, popular, but extremely inverted Serizawa Kaho. It is July, the end of summer vacation is near, and he makes the decision to finally come out with it and confess his true feelings for Kaho. He goes to sleep that night with a newfound determination...only to wake up the next morning, the 1st of September!

Utterly confused, he walks to school, only to find his classmates in mourning over the tragic accident that took the life of his girlfriend (Koutarou: "Eh?!") Kaho the day before.

Enter Ligene, a time-travelling patroller, who clears up everything and tells Koutarou the truth about the fate that awaits him and his love. In this version of the future, Kaho dies in a tragic accident -- and it's up to Koutarou and Ligene to put the timeline right before fate claims its victim...

Review

You know, anime titles based on video games like this could be good, if they would actually give the characters some redeemable qualities. The storyline here was feasible, the animation and art wasn't anything stellar, but it was tolerable--if it weren't for the mindless cliches that haunted me every five seconds or so.

I mean, gosh, it would really suck to wake up one day and totally miss out on your entire summer vacation, especially if that means cutting out the day you and your S.O. finally succeed in hooking up. (From a shoujo standpoint, that would totally ruin the series!!!) Even worse if your S.O. winds up being gacked while you were sleeping, too. I dunno about you, but I would be pissed.

I am sure that this made for an awesome video game. But as an anime title, good grief, was it lacking. First off, the guys were extremely flat. We have no idea why they like the girls they do--I am assuming it is because they all look like twelve-year-olds and a lot of otaku seem to get a real kick out of that. They are protective, I will give them that, but when Kyousuke is always trying to get Kaho to break the rules (she has a very controlling father. Boo-hoo.) the alarms started going off. The entire relationship between the two leads is immature, mindless romanticization that would only really be appealing to a) junior high students who don't know any better or b) otaku that have never been anywhere beyond a 25-metre radius of a female.

The girls were even worse. Kaho and Ai are both weak, squeaky females whose lives revolve around boys and their relationships with them. They say all the right things at the right time--and if I had any impression that they had an inkling of brains, I would take lines like "I had no idea the movie was going to be so scary!! But it was okay because I was with you, Maikmura-kun." to be snarky and sarcastic. Insert rolling of the eyes *here.*

And oh! Of course there has to be the love triangle! We sooo want Kyousuke and Kaho together, but poooor Ai! She is in love with her childhood friend, too! Good thing their ol' pal Takeshi is nearby, so when Kyousuke and Kaho finally get their happily ever after, Ai can have a happily ever after, too. How conveeeenient.

The one saving grace would have been Ligene, who was a spunky and cute sci-fi "chick from the future." She pushes Kyousuke around, meddles in things, and can be a bit of a smart-aleck...unfortunately, she is also victim to fanservice, and of course she is heartbroken in the end too because OMGTEHSHOXXRZ! she fell in love with Kyousuke too.

Am I missing something? Kyousuke is duller than gray.

Anyway, there are also a few other characters--all female--that were mostly forgettable, but I assume that they were more key players in the video game that just had to have their props for a few seconds of screentime in the OVA.

Again I ask, am I missing something? I realize that the majority of the digital sourcebing community are into this sort of moe thing, but surely we could do better things with our time and money than releasing this drivel. And there isn't even a KOTOKO song to at least give a false impression of this series being remotely interesting.

Okay. Am I done now? I would like to delete this thing off my precious hard drive now, and use the space for something more worthwhile, like--like just about anything. Mippa gets another point for taking one for the team.

Another example of why Japan isn't better than every other country in the world. Get a clue, folks! — Melissa Sternenberg

Recommended Audience: Absolutely nobody. When the exact same thing is presented so much better via the game, why waste your time on this? As for age appropriateness, with general romantic themes, on top of a bunch of forced fan service that certainly WASN'T in the game, I'd say teens and up.