- Continuity Lockout: The OVA isn't a straight adaptation of the manga and seems to assume that viewers are already familiar with the source material (which had been running for five years by the time the OVA was released). As a result, hardly anything about the story is explained, instead showing disparate scenes set to music or in the style of a documentary.
- Fountain of Memes: Pretty much everything in the OVA has become memetic. Since it has a rather unusual format and assumes that viewers have already read the manga it's based on, very little of it makes sense without context. The music video segment
set to "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams has become the most well-known. - Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: The OVA ends with the two brothers kissing each other on the lips and then walking out of the room like this is completely normal, because the author of the manga honestly thought Americans kissed like that when greeting someone close to them note . This totally perplexed westerners who watched the OVA, and due to the lack of context prior, made some think that the two brothers are gay and in love with each other. This is made worse to the credits rolling immediately after, set to Phil Collins' "Against All Odds".
- So Bad, It's Good: The OVA has garnered a certain reputation as enjoyable and amusing but not exactly good due to its loose (to say the least) storytelling structure, the decision to cast native but non-professional English speakers (leading to much Dull Surprise and garbled speech) and overall unusual nature due to not being a straight adaptation of the manga (at times it's like a 20-minute-long music video featuring music familiar to most westerners, other times it's trying to be a sort of documentary).
- Strangled by the Red String: There are three major cases of this.
- Siva and Anise. It's implied very early on in the series that Siva had romantic feelings for Anise like his brother, but the manga at that point was building up the relationship between Anise and Cipher. Leaving little to no development for Anise and Siva, and never bringing up his crush on her ever again.
- Ruth and Siva. Ruth ends up crushing on Siva but has no idea if it's him or his twin brother, Cipher. Later in the series, she's determined to find out despite the fact her and her storyline hasn't got any meaningful screentime. The reason why she fell for him in the first place is revealed in the final chapter of the manga. She actually met one of the twins four years prior to the story (which Anise concludes, was Siva) and saw him taking in a stray cat and getting flustered when he found out he was caught. Cementing his Nice Guy personality to Ruth. Though, unlike the first and third examples, there's a possibility the two might end up together.
- Molly and Cipher are the worst offenders. Molly already suffers a huge case Advertised Extra, and her initial relationship towards Cipher was an obsessed fan. The two were never even properly introduced to each other, and Cipher barely knows of her existence. Then you have Molly being absent for many, many, many chapters only for her to conveniently appear when Anise and Ruth need help tracking down Cipher in California. When he and Anise finally get together, Molly confesses to her and Ruth that she's has feelings for Cipher, and feels bad because of it. This lasts for all but two pages in the final chapter.
- Unintentional Period Piece:
- The series is very much a product of The '80s with its fashion and hairstyles, and the OVA features several American songs that were popular at the time.
- The prominence of the Twin Towers marks Cipher as most definitely a pre-2001 product. Even more so in the OVA, where they're shown in the very first shot, and in the making-of featurette following the animation it's talked about how important it was to capture the Twin Towers from various angles as they are (were) the symbol of New York.
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