ef - a tale of memories

Information of Anime

Hirono Hiro is a school student that seldom goes to school to take classes which puts his in a dangerous position in failing.  However, he's a professional manga artist that's not known to many people & makes a living from it.  On Christmas, he bumps into a girl who would take his bike to catch a thief that stole her purse.  He manages to catch up to her as she's fallen on the ground.  Her name is Miyamura Miyako.  From this incident, the two of them hang out together.  However, Hirono's childhood friend Kei Shindō doesn't like how the two are hanging out together.

ef - a tale of memories is based on the ero-game series ef by minori.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show focuses on three storylines on three male characters.  All three of them are linked with Hirono in terms of knowing most of the characters.  They all take place at the same timeframe.

One storyline, the main one, focuses on Hirono, Miyamura, & Kei.  Miyamura attends the same school as Hirono & Kei but has a poor attendance record which makes her famous.  Kei misunderstands the relationship between Hirono & Miyamura & doesn't like it.  She tells Miyamura to stop making him skip classes as he's in danger of failing.  However, Miyamura believes Hirono's decision is what he should stick to as he has tendonitis in his right hand.  The reason for this is how he always made sketches when he was young & hardly played outside.  His manga influence came from Kei's love for manga.  Miyamura believes that Kei's feelings are projected wrongly.

In another storyline, it focuses on Renji Asō & Chihiro Shindō, the twin sister of Kei.  Renji meets Chihiro for the first time at his usual hangout place.  He learns that she loses her memory the next day as she can only remember what occur in a 13 hour timeframe.  She forgets everything the next day.  As a result, she keeps a diary to help her remember what she did from the previous day.  The reason for this is due to a vehicle accident from her childhood which involved Kei taking Hirono away from Chihiro.  Chihiro manages to remember Renji with the help of her diary & her feelings for him.  As the both of them have a passion for writing novels, he suggests that the two of them write a novel together.  However, Chihiro would gain her memory & get out of her four year time freeze as she doesn't recognize Renji.  By re-reading her diary, she tries to become the same person that fell in love with him.  However, Renji has a hard time accepting it as he tries to convince himself that Chihiro is the same Chihiro that he knew.  To go as lovers, Chihiro & Renji go out on a date a as trial period.  During this time, Chihiro has completed the novel that they have been writing together.  She asks Renji to read it the day after their date.  It is not completed until he reads it.  When Renji reads the ending of the novel, Chihiro wants to break up as she can't stand the situation she's in while loving him.  However, he refuses & tries to collect as much of Chihiro's memories as possible to prevent her from forgetting again.  Apparently, she actually doesn't forget him & still loves him.  This brings their storyline to an ending & is the last one to end.

The last storyline, very minor & ties with the first one, focuses on Kyōsuke Tsutsumi who quitted the filming club at school due to a conflict of interest of what he wants to film.  During his shooting, he spots a girl who happens to be Kei & is immediately in love with her due to the form from the shots he took.  With the help of his friend Hirono, Kyōsuke asks Kei to go out with him.  However, that doesn't move as Kei is more interested in getting Miyamura out of Hirono's life by making her disappear, which is linked to the main storyline.  As a result, Kyōsuke continues to pursue in making the best film while trying to regain Kei's natural charm.  Despite the efforts of getting Miyamura away from Hirono, the two get close to each other physically which shocks Kei.  This would tie into the main storyline as Hirono finally makes a decision to quite school to pursue his manga career & keep the same brother & sister relationship to Kei.  He manages to stop Miyamura from leaving town as he confesses to her to be with him forever.  This is the first storyline to end.

The last part of the episode summaries the characters' relationships & how they are doing.  This ends the show.

My Personal Review

ef - a tale of memories was something I heard about back when it was an ero-game.  I had no idea it would become an anime until the Fall 2007 lineup were closely approaching.  This was one of the highly anticipated shows in the lineup, so I decided to give it a go.

Animation

The character designs are pretty nice.  However, I found Renji's hair to be a bit weird.  It's like he's got a small onion head going with that clump of hair in the front sticking up a bit.  Chihiro's eyepatch makes her looks mysterious & I kind of like it.  The school uniforms are pretty plain, but good to look at.

The backgrounds are a mixture of animation & real life images.  However, the anime looks like art.  It's got some interesting background & transitions that makes it looks a bit trippy & fresh.  It's mainly eyecandy when you look at them.  Even the characters will blend with the background in some occasions.  It's gorgeous to look at sometimes.  Sometimes, they wouldn't make sense.

The colours are on the dull side.  My assumption is basically to make the show like a light drama which is pretty much what it is.  There are times where the dark colours would be hard to see in the night scenes.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture of realistic & silly stuff.  Most of the time it's real stuff to show the show's drama.  I hardly notice any choppy frames.  However, the running motions seems a bit slow as in not covering much distance.  It looks natural, but pretty slow at the same time.

Sound

The sound effects are on the realistic & silly side.  They are pretty clear & nicely cued.  Most of it is on the real side.

The seiyuus here aren't that great in my view.  They play their roles pretty well, but I personally don't like their sounds.  The cast isn't full of big names.  They seem to be on the average side.  Overall, it seems a bit weak.

The music is ballads mostly with some soft rock on the side.  It's soft & easy on the ear.  Personally, I don't like the music much.  But they blend in with the show okay.

Story

The show has two different storylines (actually three) going into one.  The show with its 12 episodes is squeezing in a lot here.  Probably to get most of the game's storyline & content in the show.  It's interesting how they interlink with each other as each of them has their own love story.  Because of this, the show runs very smoothly.  However, with little time, it may make the show look rush.  Luckily, the cast is small to prevent the show going off tangent at times.  This creates a lot of opportunities to build & develop most of the characters which kind of happens at a fast but reasonable pace.

As for the endings, it's a mixture.  I found the first storyline to be good while the second one was somewhat rushed.  The reason for the rush is probably because it was going in circles most of the time & the answer looked a bit simple.

Overall Conclusion

ef - a tale of memories is a bit different from what I was expecting.  It's a heavy drama with very little comic relief.  It's kind of entertaining, but can be dry to some people depending on which storyline.  However, I'm not that hyped up for it as most people are making it to be.  It's a great show, but you really need to listen to a lot of text & are into soap opera types of shows.  The show is better viewed for a mature audience.

ef - a tale of memories gets a 7.5/10.  The show has an excellent presentation of using two storylines in one show.  It's written very well.  However, the show is heavily drama based which isn't often seen in a lot of ero-game anime shows today that has some comedy punches in them.  But the ending can be a mixture for some people, depending on the storylines from the show.

Last updated on February 5, 2008