Kokoro Connect: OVA

“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.” – Carl Jung

Following on from the original TV series, this collection of four OVA episodes continues the tale of the strange goings-on at Yamaboshi High School’s Student Cultural Society.

Taichi, Iori, Himeko, Yoshifumi and Yui have been given a new problem to deal with thanks to Heartseed. He has started something called “Emotion Transmission”. At random periods the thoughts of any one member of the group will suddenly be readable in the minds of one or more of the other members.

It is on Valentine’s Day that things start to take a problematic turn. Taichi asks Iori out on a date, but she rejects him. She even asks him to forget about the whole relationship. Iori starts acting cold and distant to everyone. Then, as the end of the school year draws close, the gang have to both prepare for their exams, as well as an end-of-year presentation. To make things worse, it looks like StuCS are going to have to battle against the Jazz Club in order try and get Mr Go to continue to be their advisor, as it seems he can only be in charge of one group next year. 

The Emotion Transmission starts to cause chaos as Iori and Himeko share their thoughts, with Taichi in the middle of it. All of this results in Iori having a breakdown. Everyone tries their best to get Iori to cheer up, but in the end she just seems to get worse. It is not just Iori who is going through rough times, as something terrible happens to the entire club as well.

This story has been fun, primarily because of the drama between the characters. Up front you have Iori dealing with her issues towards Taichi. Then you have the trouble with her relationship with Himeko, who in turn is trying to express her true feelings for Taichi. But then things take an even more dramatic turn when the whole society itself comes into conflict with something other than Heartseed.

Again, the music has been another highlight, with the opening theme “Kimi Rhythm” by Masaki Imai and the ending theme “I Scream Chocolatl” by the Team Nekokan featuring Lia making pleasant listening. 

On the downside, again, the only extras are clean opening and closing as well as trailers for other shows. Also, it seems really perplexing to release this OVA separately from the TV series, especially when the OVA is only four episodes long. You feel that it would be more convenient for the consumer to get the whole series in a single collection, rather than having to fork out for two separate collections.

One thing we do know about this series is that the original novels continue into the next school year, so it could well be the case that we might see more of StuCS.