just watch one of the OVA's, they are just single episodes with different love routes than the normal one, and they'll give you an idea as to how sad the series can be
47334 I just worry that it will turn out as terrible as ef - a tale of* series was. It was only enjoyable for visuals, with a bunch of "so bad it's good" trope in there. It has a really good rep though, so I will still pick it up sometime (also going in with low expectations generally is a good thing).