Let me tell you: Im not a fan of shounenai or yaoi. I did try writing a yaoi fan fic in high school but not only was it extremely awful and very poorly written but I lost inspiration for it. I wouldnt have heard of Earthian if one of my favorite internet critics The Cartoon Hero hadnt reviewed it. Yet against my better judgment I got curious about the OVA and decided to check it out because I was sad and gloomy and wanted something deep to get me out of my funk. Now I love it when shows are deep and have underlying messages in them whether its a kids show or an anime for teenagers. One of the reasons I love anime so much is that sometimes when you least expect it they question humanity and how things are being handled in todays society. I love an anime that makes you think. If its done right it can be absolutely marvelous but if done wrong then we have no reason to think about it. Unfortunately Earthian is the latter sad to say. In this series angels come from a planet called Eden and have observed humanity since their creation. Sometimes pairs of angels go to Earth and observe humans as plus and minus checkers. Plus checkers report on positive aspects on humanity while minus checkers report on negative aspects. If the angels decide that humanitys progress reaches 10000 they will destroy them. But they can discriminate against their own species as if an angel goes against Eden too many times their hair and wings turn black which is grounds for discrimination and hatred from white winged angels. Chihaya is one such black winged angel but he was born with his black wings and hair. He and another angel Kagetsuya go to Earth and get caught up in some events that could entail humanitys destruction. I want to like this anime. It has so much that I like in it but not only does it not live up to its potential but it leaves many questions unanswered plot threads hanging on for dear life and many events not properly resolved especially since theres four episodes none of which bother to explain whats going on. I hear theres more explanation in the manga but I havent read it. I plan to eventually. But even not reading the manga you can tell that theres so much crammed in four episodes that you dont have time to really get to know the characters and why they behave the way they do and everything goes by so fast. Its symbolism is extremely ham handed none of it is subtle the villain is cliche annoying and we have no reason to care about him and everything just gets thrown at you without going into why you should care about these characters and their stories. Speaking of characters theyre also the weakest part of the story. The villain is your stereotypical mad scientist who wants to create the ultimate weapon and destroy humanity two of them are forgotten without a second thought and Chihaya while I usually like characters like him is useless and whiny. Like The Cartoon Hero says and I echo he always causes trouble is always either getting kidnapped or beaten up always gets rescued by Kagetsuya does things without thinking and absolutely cannot do anything on his own. But I hate Kagetsuya even more because of the way he treats Chihaya. While I can understand some of his grievances he treats Chihaya as though hes some troublemaking kid constantly never praises him for good things he does always calls him names and is always harsh with him. And the thing is? They have sex once. One it comes absolutely out of nowhere. Two there was never any hints or implications of them having a relationship let alone a romantic one and three with the way Kagetsuya treats Chihaya I cant fathom why Chihaya would want to be with Kagetsuya romantically. Even if Kagetsuya does rescue Chihaya on occasion I dont think its out of genuine concern for his well being but only so he doesnt get in trouble with Eden. At one point he even locks Chihaya out of the apartment because he came home late for dinner. Kagetsuya has absolutely NOTHING positive to say about Chihaya. If I was in a relationship like this Id get the heck out of there because I would not want to spend my life with someone who constantly belittles everything I do and isnt grateful for the good things I do. And Ive dealt with people exactly like Kagetsuya both in real life and online Sorry Kagetsuya is nothing but a bland static pathetic and harsh character and I have absolutely no reason to care about him. What is it with anime convincing us that harsh people who constantly belittle you and call you names and blame you for everything is your perfect romantic partner? Im really not down for this construct. For its time the animation...admittedly isnt all that good. When the characters move theyre all jerky and sometimes it feels like entire scenes have been cut out. The character designs are good and we can tell whos who but considering theyre Yun Kougas designs they didnt look like they translated well to animation and animating them clearly wasnt the producers strong point. Plus the colors are extremely washed out and it doesnt feel all that good on the eyes. The voice acting in both the English and Japanese versions are forgettable at best terrible at worst with the English dub being hilariously bad with wooden performances Dr. Ashino having a Texan accent and lots of badly scripted lines Dont let them GOOOO. But even the Japanese version isnt safe from the occasional bad performance such as Messiahs garbled screaming Chihayas high pitched whining and Dr. Ashino sounding like he smoked too many cigarettes. Seriously Shiozawa Kanetos performance as Devimon from Digimon Adventure was better than this Even the soundtrack isnt any better. The music isnt exactly memorable nor did it make much of an impact on me...except for the first episodes ending Mother: For The Earthian. Its one of the loveliest most inspiring most beautiful pieces of music Ive ever heard and it singlehandedly made my top 5 favorite ending songs for how wonderful it is. It also has a very good but VERY HARD TO FIND insert song in Good Night by Kingo Hamada. But those are pretty much the only genuinely good things about the anime. It had so much potential but all of it was wasted and it didnt make good use of the time it did have resulting in a convoluted mess with characters we just cannot root for. Had it been given more episodes we might have gotten something better depending on the staff and production team. But this anime does make for good riffing material as proven by The Cartoon Heros review of it which you really should check out. Hes hilarious and good at critiquing at the same time This anime could have been so much better but at best its just plain average and bad. If you want to make something deep this is not the way to do it.