Since a fan translation for the Tsui no Sora Remake was confirmed, it’s only right for me to cover the 2002 OVA adaptation of the original Tsui no Sora.
WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE
Tsui no Sora is a rather massive title from KeroQ, and was SCA-Ji‘s first major work as a writer, although the game also features SCA-Ji’s character designs. Nowadays, SCA-Ji is mainly known for Subarashiki Hibi ~Furenzoku Sonzai~ , or SubaHibi for short.
As for the OVA? Well… It took a ten-hour game and packed its story into a single twenty-three-minute video made with limited budget and awful animation.
Tsui no Sora starts with N43 Project‘s introductory animation, which is similar in quality to my old YouTube intro. The animation then cuts to an image of a girl, Zakuro, on a rooftop. She’s talking to a man named Mamiya. Mamiya makes Zakuro doubt herself, and then he rapes her.
The rape scene is interesting for one reason: it looks AWFUL. Seventy percent of it is one repeating animation of Mamiya’s head approaching and then moving away from the camera. Most erotic anime rely on animation loops, but they use hundreds of them, rather than just three in a single scene.
Once Mamiya’s attack on Zakuro concludes, the opening frame returns, and Zakuro jumps from the school’s roof to kill herself. All of this occurs in just the first five minutes of the OVA.
The next part introduces the audience to Tsui no Sora‘s main characters: a boy named Yukito and his best friend, a girl called Kotomi. For the next seven minutes, events happen at random.
In terms of visual design, Kotomi is quite possibly the most “early 2000s” character ever made.
Anyway, throughout most of the rest of the OVA, the characters just do things and then random people dump exposition. I would explain more of it if it were possible to do so coherently, but I can’t. It’s as if they took the CGs from the original game and just put them together with no bridging between them.
This shot of teary-eyed Kotomi got a chuckle out of me, though.
Most of the OVA features egregiously large censorship mosaics and a few shots of the camera zooming in at random. It feels as if some of the edits were done by accident, and honestly, if they were, I wouldn’t be too shocked.
I tried to discover who created the OVA, but as far as I know, there isn’t much information available. We know the director went by the name “Yarimaru Ayanokouji” and that he had some kind of relationship to N43 Project, but that’s all I could find.
Even N43 Project’s official website doesn’t say anything about it. I suppose it’s possible that poor sales caused the company to refuse to acknowledge it.
I won’t spoil the beautiful ending of this direct-to-DVD monstrosity, but at least it ends on a decent note.
Tsui no Sora OVA is something that could only have been produced in the early 2000s, when many people tried to produce and sell erotic anime. Today, it’s a relic of its time. Nothing made now will ever approach its poor quality level, and in some ways, that’s actually bad. Despite all of the OVA’s faults, I can’t say it’s wholly unenjoyable. I recommend this OVA to anyone looking for something to mock.
Normally, I would mention where to buy this product, but it’s no longer sold anywhere. Sorry.
