I came into this curious about the animation process, and seeing the overall production depicted in a visual format helps with the impression even if parts can be dramatized. Yes, I have seen this OVA after watching my beloved Shirobako, and after finishing I can say that Animation Runner Kuromi does enough to stand on its own, even leaving me with a smile on my face. The first thing I noticed was how over-the-top the show is, first in its rather dark humor depicting the harshness of the anime industry from the perspective of the production manager Kuromi. We see her coming in asa newbie, being dismayed by the comically impossible deadlines due to key animators not doing their jobs. Through learning the ins and outs of the process itself, her interactions with other strange, exaggerated personalities to get them to work is rather charming. The exaggeration serves in good effect both to convey that production managers have to cater to the artists as they are individuals, and also to just simply entertain as it is a comedy. The jokes hit where they needed to, and although I didn't laugh out loud or anything, I still enjoyed it. I'm glad the OVA didn't simply boil down to a sort of a wiki description that only happens to follow a story.

Moving on to art and animation, I do have some comments. Animation is very wild and energetic, which helped give off that impression I got of the OVA. Characters motions are overtly exaggerated to help characterize them and get us to care, as there are only 40 minutes in the episode to work with. If I had to compare it to a certain show, I'd say I got around the same vibe as FLCL in not the fight scenes. Now on the art, it's pretty standard for a 2001 show, although it is digitally colored. The styling is also a little dated, but characters are funky looking enough for them to stand out from the hundreds of other really generic spiky hair characters out there.

Sound, I haven't got much to say. In terms of OST, it felt like there were only three tracks played throughout the thing and on repeat. However, I didn't get sick of them, so that's fine. Voice acting, as far as the dub is concerned, is well done. The VAs effectively conveyed each character's wackiness, so no complaints there.

Overall, I didn't feel like I wasted my time on this and I even got some laughs all throughout. If you're at all curious about the animation process, I recommend that you take some time off your day and watch this thing. Even if you've already watched Shirobako.

Overall: 7/10 -> B