Kokoro Connect

(Promotional Video)

Kokoro Connect (Heart Connect) is an anime adaptation of a light novel series, about the five members of a high school's Culture Club (two boys and three girls) who end up as experimental subjects of godlike beings. In the anime, they're subjected to four sets of experiments:
 * 1) A series of Freaky Friday Flips with each other;
 * 2) Being compelled to act on their immediate desires at random times;
 * 3) A series of regressions to earlier points in their lives; and
 * 4) Random involuntary sharing of thoughts, out of context.

Despite all that, this is a character-driven show about how the five students relate with one another.

The series - thirteen episodes and four OAVs - in available in North America as a two-disc set from Sentai Filmworks.


 * Groin Attack: During a Freaky Friday Flip, Yaegashi kicks his own body in order to show Kiriyama how to fight off a rapist. (Not many guys would kick themselves in the crotch.)
 * Love Triangle: It takes a while for the triangle between to form.
 * Pair the Spares: The two members of the club who are not part of the Love Triangle. Interestingly, they become a couple before the love triangle is confirmed to exist.
 * Token Lesbian: Maiko Fujishima, the Class Representative for Yaegashi, Nagase, and Inaba's class. After her first appearance, her sexuality is rarely mentioned, although at one point she laments living in a culture where a couple is defined as a man and a woman.
 * A Wizard Did It: All we know about how the experiments are carried out is that they're caused by somebody or something called "Heartseed".