NekoPara OVA Review

First off, I want to fully disclose I backed the KickStarter for $30. Art book is cool, and whilst I’m not super happy with the pricing of the OVA (Original Viewing Aired) on Steam. That shouldn’t dissuade people from the product, nor should they be entirely surprised considering this is practically coming straight from Japan essentially and that is a niche as hell OVA/feature length. Mini-rant aside, this is just context prior to watching the OVA. Also, a review of this can go two ways. Treating it with a critical perspective, or from a fan’s point of view. For this, I’m treating it from a more reviewer’s perspective as I’ll explain later.

NekoPara OVA is an anime adaptation of NekoPara Vol.1. Having done the review for it (link), the long and short is that it was the equivalent of a low budget anime in terms of animation strength and that it could easily transfer into an anime format. Fast forward to now, the task of adapting it may have been too much. To summarise, the main plotline follows Kashou Minaduki. Setting up his own cake shop, his two Nekos Chocola and Vanilla tag along, against his wishes. Over the course of the OVA, Kashou learns to accept them as part of his new family living away from home. Like the Kinetic Novel (a visual novel with no branching paths), its main emphasis is on the two Nekos. However, unlike what the KN can achieve, where the player embodies a faceless protagonist. The adaptation to the anime format isn’t as clear-cut. The OVA almost struggling to figure out what it should, and shouldn’t, focus on.

Maples are known for getting down with the kids.

Given the task of converting a six and a half hour story worth of dialogue is a behemoth task alone, condensing it down to an hour is a monumental challenge. Like many VNs adapted to anime before, this transition has left a lot to be undesired. Character moments with Chocola and Vanilla, that have important characterisation arcs, are cut or shortened significantly. In terms of its pacing, it doesn’t quite hit the strides to fully develop a character arc that doesn’t leave you questioning “how did this happen exactly?”. Whilst the OVA does achieve a solid story structure of three acts (opening, interlude, climax/closing), it creates more of a skeletal structure for you to imagine what happened in between. To break one of the acts up and to explain why aspects felt rushed would be the aquarium scene. In this section, we see a developing relationship between how Chocola and Vanilla act around each other. Kashou being the MacGuffin of the scene, it allows them to effectively open up. However, the OVA in its place creates a more moe like scene. Where the story arc is put on hold to make room for animation cuteness. Acting more of a lead into the closing act, it almost lives in the shadow of Vol.1. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re a newcomer into the series and you just watched the OVA, it doesn’t lead to a compelling recommendation.

The story itself isn’t bad, there’s still things to like about it. But because of how condensed it is, there isn’t as much to like. And if you were looking for cute Nekos to wish were real, the OVA achieves this somewhat. The first thing to note is the difference between art and animation, in relation to budget, these can be tough things to balance. Being a clear middle road of maintaining Sayori’s art from the KNs. The animation, whilst not terrible, isn’t the best. Given that the final kickStarter achieved almost a million dollars, it is somewhat surprising to see quite a few corners were cut. Especially given the hour budget was achieved with leftover funds raised, it’s a little disheartening to see what they’ve done with their budget. With quite a few between frames not existing, those being the most obvious examples. Granted budgeting is a very different and very difficult topic to discuss, it’s worth mentioning if you value animation budget to how much you spend. Regardless though, finally seeing the animation of the weird interludes and character moments is an exciting prospect for fans. With one of the key moments being when Chocola and Vanilla are being taught for the “Bell Test” by their elder Nekos: Azuki, Cinnamon, Coconut, and Maple. This brief interlude is short and relatively well animated, possibly being one of the better animations. It very much symbolises the animation vein it achieves, working as is to keep it afloat from being bad. But doesn’t feature the “money-shot” most anime OVAs use to pull new fans in, although to memory not many OVAs of the slice of life have this “money-shot” scene.

But at least the anime tries to get off on the right foot; the opening section is nice and full of eye-candy. With the first act being accelerated with setting up the cafe, things start to unravel in terms of pacing as stated. From here aspects of the narrative derails at times, being an OVA it had a lot of freedom in terms of choice. A feature length movie that springs to mind where it could’ve taken its narrative in pacing is 5CM Per Second, a film by Makoto Shinkai, not his best or highly regarded, its approach to narrative is worth comparing. Featuring time jumps that span years, its narrative remains consistent thanks to its tone being centralised. Something the OVA lacks is conveying time, whilst this is something Vol.1 also struggled with, it’s further compounded by its shortness.

Side note, Steam subbing is trash but not Shigure disguise level trash.

Looking into the main people behind the OVA, Hayashi Hiroki looks to be lead Storyboard/Production. Given his veterency within the anime industry, it’s somewhat disappointing to note that there’s very little in the way of positives in terms of how different the OVA is compared to Vol.1. The same goes for Animation Directors Hirano Yuichi and Mishima Chie, both of whom having a lot under their belt. Chie-san’s record (link) shows that he’s worked more as a mercenary animator, jumping into various projects such as Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Bladeworks movie as Key Animator, and Pokémon movies for the Kalos region as Animation Director or Key Animator in them. A notable exception being Pokémon Movie: I Choose You as Animation Director. Yuichi-san on the other hand has operated similarly as a mercenary animator. He’s not had a single series or notable leading role beyond being Key Animator and Animation Director for shows like Attack on Titan ep8, Fairy Tail ep165, and Highschool of the Dead ep1. His notable exception being The Irregular at Magic High School, working as Animation Director, Assistant Animation Director, and Key Animator. Not one of those listed examples really showcase a technical fault, whilst the examples are relatively high budgeted anime series. They’re also shows with more constraints, and less running time, to maintain a visual consistency and narrative that’s meant to help the medium’s ability to evoc a story. But when swath chunks of frames feel ripped out, it raises the question of potential scheduling issues. Or even an over-expectation, where modern standards and trappings of currently aired anime have led an expectation of what is the norm with production values.

Given the kick-starter’s description of the project being “based on NEKOPARA Vol.1”, the story isn’t so much based as more of a retelling. With, what feels like the original soundtrack to Vol.1 being put directly into the OVA. There’s a lot that could be said with how average it turned out. But, despite its pacing issues, it needs to also be observed as what it is: fanservice. If you’re a NekoPara fan, this is probably an OVA for you. As like many OVAs that have come before, it’s a stand alone piece of media that isn’t able to critically achieve the same strides the main series achieved. Darker than Black’s OVAs being a prime examples of not living up to series expectations (ignoring second season’s pitfalls and failings).

Verdict:

Score: 6.5/10

This score is meant to be a recommendation, as it struggles to be anything more than something that’s fun to watch, and is still adorable. But if you’re a veteran anime watcher who’s grown used to seeing certain qualities, this is something that’d become more of a hard sell. Struggling to be Vol.1’s equal in most regards, it falls into the watch if you have nothing else to watch to watch category, assuming Steam’s player works.