Everyone knows the "poisoned by manga" phenomenon, when someone reads the parent manga first and then unable to take an anime adaptation on its face value. Since I never read manga and essentially play no games, I rarely experience it. But, as I mentioned before, Hourglass of Summer, or Natsuiro no Sunadokei, spawned a little 2 episode OVA. Of course I had to watch it.

The biggest part, I just cannot take the cold and computerized art of the VN. But OVA felt warm and comfortable from the start, despite obviously lousy animation. Probably it's only a matter of habit, but it's strange how big the difference felt. Once screencaps are sized down, it's almost not there anymore. Also, I love the motion, and if the game art were moving, who knows how it would be.

Otherwise, the traditional art was about the only good thing about the OVA. The script stuffed more elements from the VN into the OVA than its 2-episode format could take, especially the 2nd episode suffered. The segment with Tomo was not explained at all, cellphone explained poorly, Ai's appearance in Kotaro's house taken self-evident. I did not understand just how Kotaro's intervention saved Mana.

They also made it worse by introducing ecchi, in fact fetishist elements which were missing from the game. If you think that anime cannot be ruined by adding ecchi, think of the poor 2-ep OVA which just does not have the time for this.

So, overall, a deeply flawed little anime, but at it was enjoyable if you squint just right. And I still liked it better than the VN. Weird.

P.S. The weird shit with the mirror in the OP is explained in the Postscriptum, just watch it. However, the latter itself contains weird shit. It almost looks like stolen from Lain for lulz.