The OVAs strip away the supernatural spectacle and just watch five people understand each other for the first time. When Iori's emotions literally leave her body, the show isn't being clever about metaphor, it's diagnosing exactly what happens when you've been performing normalcy so hard you forget what you actually feel. This hits because it refuses to solve friendship with a punchline or a moment, instead spending four episodes watching people sit in the wreckage of their own defenses and actually talk.

The five members of Yamaboshi Academy's Student Cultural Society have already lived through body swaps, shifting ages and desires that took control of them, but Heartseed is not done with them yet. A new trial called emotion transmission lets the club members hear one another's true thoughts, with the timing, sender and recipient all left to chance. A hidden phobia or long-repressed feelings can suddenly reach someone else, and in some cases the results can be deadly. Meanwhile, their club supervisor, Ryuuzen Gotou, may have to step down because of his duties for the coming school year. With Valentine's Day approaching, Taichi, Iori, Himeko, Yoshifumi and Yui find their close bonds tested as their real feelings for each other come into the open. These four OVAs mix supernatural drama with romance and slice of life.