pearline.fritsch - 2016-06-12 08:22:38

[Old review is old.]

It’s not like I held Happiness in high regards to begin with, but it seems that it’s overflowing with boring content to animate! And if I didn’t think that making a character trans as their sole quality of identification was stupid enough, we have a whole extra OVA dedicated to wacky gender-bender hijinks to make sure I actually get angry at this show’s laziness.

All of the qualities I described in my main review of the show still stand, aside from the plot that isn’t present at all in this special episode. The story that they do come up with is easy filler, because it’s an extra episode and nobody really gives a shit. The guy character who dressed and acted as a girl is hit with a freak magic spell one day and is transformed into an actual girl, and now everyone at the school is attracted to her because of magic, so then she uses magic to drain her magic and turn back to a boy and everything’s fine. Oh yeah, spoilers.

The biggest issue that the trans character goes through is deciding if she wants to stay a girl and deal with normal straight attraction, or turn everything back to normal. The show already used transgenderism as a means to get out of personality creation, which was already insulting enough, and now it harmlessly creates metaphors that just happen to push ideas of “real” womanhood and trans invalidation? These ideas are brushed aside for lighthearted laughs (and that’s giving their comedy way too much credit), and the special ends without purpose.

I could always ignore the jokes about the entire male population of the school suddenly becoming attracted to a once trans girl whose physical appearance didn’t change whatsoever and be on my merry way, but that was a bit too offensive for me to forget. At least I do have reason to be insulted at this thing, since I couldn’t put this OVA on the same level as the show and there’s nowhere lower I can go on my pompous little rating system.

Happiness! OVA (2007):
2.2/10