adrain.mann - 2014-05-13 14:22:44

A more or less in depth review.

kuhic.dee - 2013-09-18 06:25:46

Critic's Log - Earthdate: July 16, 2012. Review #12: Ef: A Tale of Memories

The name's Giovanni, I am just an average citizen in the United States. I happen to be a bit different than some people. I happen to like anime because it is something I enjoy, but I don't remember quite clearly on how I was so fascinated from watching anime. One of my ambitions is to write a book, maybe because I like movies, shows, books and video games that have a great story. One of my hobbies includes critiquing anime. What I said is true, and yeah... this is part of the intro that would be most fitting for this review. Here is Ef - A Tale of Memories!

On Christmas Eve, a young male student named Hiro Hirono meets a girl named Miyako Miyamura as she chases a purse snatcher, Hiro later finds out that she attends the same school that he does and they start hanging out together. This makes Hiro's childhood friend Kei feel left out. She then tries to compete with Miyako for Hiro's affection, thus creating a love triangle. Meanwhile, another young man who is named Renji Aso meets a girl named Chihiro Shindo at an abandoned train station, He soon learns that Chihiro suffers from some sort of amnesia where her memory only lasts for 13 hours. Chihiro also dreams of writing a novel , but she has never fulfilled that dream due to her condition. Renji decides to help her fulfill that dream.

To be technical, this is an anime adaptation Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two which had a manga, some video games, and a couple of light novels. I haven't found any details about the manga and light novels but I have found out that the video games are classified as "Eroge", It is what Japan calls games that are erotic. *Insert Klaxon Horn sound effect* Yeah... The games possibly have sex scenes in them. It's pretty much anime video game porn, enough said...

The anime was made by Studio Shaft and I haven't really seen some of their animes but I will admit that they did pretty good on the visual department because the scenery is breathtaking in this anime. The style approach is a bit hit and miss and sometimes annoying. You'll see a short second of something a lot in this show. Here's an example below...

I am a little puzzled as to why some scenes have this visual effect, but I guess the style is unique, I find it somewhat slightly overused, If you can get past these visual one second scenes of the show, you'll be fine. I still think the visuals are quite nice, even the opening looks fantastic.

Unfortunately it seems the animation may be the biggest strength of all the elements of Ef: A Tale of Memories, This anime is definitely going to be a mixed bag for some otakus. There are some people that love this anime because of its beautiful imagery and visuals, some might not like it because of its slow pacing, there are some that have heard of it but never seen it, and there are some people that have not even seen it... AT ALL! I have seen the whole show and I sort of like it to some degree, this probably might not land in my favorites list but I will give Studio Shaft some credit, they did a wonderful effort making the visuals look like moving art. The animation is a bit limited in this show and it is a bit limited, that is the show's big flaw.

The story might be its biggest problem; it has nothing to do with the drama in this show... it's something to do with the romance that ensues in Ef: A Tale of Memories. I'll say this again... THIS ANIME IS KIND OF A MIXED BAG! When it comes to the romance moments, It is a bit boring for me. At least it picks up around the seventh episode.

The music by Eiichiro Yanagi and Tenmon really compliment the show pretty well, and it is really soothing and calming and it really fits the show. Yanagi-san has not composed any animes before or since Ef: A Tale of Melodies (which I'll review eventually), Tenmon on the other hand was the composer for the visually stunning 2007 anime film 5 Centimeters Per Second. (which had a beautiful musical score). The music in Ef is fitting and I guess there were a few songs worth listening to without the show.

The Voice acting is really good on both in Japanese and English but I might strongly recommend the Japanese version because it may make more sense watching this one subtitled, I listened to the dub for about 5 minutes and I thought it didn't sound bad at all. I stuck to the Japanese version because it felt appropriate to the character names, and the setting of the show. Christopher Ayres did great as an ADR director for making a dub that's really not that bad.

The characters themselves are sometimes a bit flat, except for maybe a few. These characters are not too interesting for me and this show uses little action and it is heavy with dialogue. I mean... NO ONE SHUTS THE FUCK UP IN THIS SHOW! That is not a big problem for me, I can handle animes like this, but if the characters are mostly boring and have little personality... it is going to be a big problem. The characters alongside the story arcs are not integrated really well.

I will admit that Shin Oonuma directed this anime in a bit of a unique way, but I will say this one last time, this anime is a mixed bag. Some will like it, some won't...

Ef: A Tale of Memories is available from Sentai Filmworks, the manga called "Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two" which was written by Mikage and Yu Kagami and illustrated by Juri Miyabi has not been released in the US yet, the light novels also have not been released in the US either. The Ef video games also never got released in the US as well and considering what type of game it is, those kinds of games never get released in the US.

With that said, Ef - A Tale of Memories is a unique art house anime with beautiful scenery, affective drama, and with some calming music. The story, characters and some animation quirks may have gave this anime some issues with viewers, it is not a terrible anime... it is just hard to get into...

I give Ef - A Tale of Memories a 7 out of 10, It Is GOOD!

Feel free to leave a comment. are there any memories you don't want to forget?

wnitzsche - 2013-07-07 09:22:03

The story to Ef - A Tale of Memories is a unique experience, don't go into watching this show thinking it will be a run of the mill romance story, it has one of the, if not the most, original stories you will likely come across in the genre.The show is divided into two stories, in one we have a guy named Hiro who meets a girl named Miyako and they end up spending a lot of time together, this creates jealousy with Kei, Hiro's childhood friend and an intense love triangle is formed. The other story focuses on Renji and Chihiro, Chihiro has a condition that makes her forget everything that happened 13 hors ago, she keeps a log in her diary allowing her to recall moment, she and Renji form a close bond as he helps her realise her dream.The art for this show is beutiful to say the least, you can really tell this is a Shaft project as they include so much of there defining characteristics, like there use of text on solid color scenes inserted into the show, they also have quite a lot of 'Photoshoped filter effects' scenes, and quite often silhouettes are used and many shot are styalized. Each character is drawn well and the background art is often very pretty, the show uses a lot of dark tones and rarely see the light of the miday sun as a lot takes place either at night or at sunset. Another thing i noticed but the characters often ended up talking to each other face to face but quite a few paces apart and the camera being pulled back so the background gets a lot of focus. The animation quality is great, everything is beautifully animated and rarely do we see incosistant animation and the use of CG was to the minimum.Sound is another thing this show really makes wonderfull use of, the background music always did its job of enhancing certain scenes and making them stand out, the opening and endings were great, i lost track of them quite often because i swear they kept changing or switching from time to time but each one was a nice song, they mixed up a lot of styles as a harmonica is used then goes into a ballad, the opening was a cool pop rock song that used English lyrics that even had a Japanese version, every song was powerfull and had great feeling to them. All Seiyuu did their job spectacularlly and really gave feeling to the characters.There are five main characters to this show and are split 2-3, Renji is a boy who enjoys a good book and likes to read in quite places where he meets Chihiro, she has an illness that can cause a lot of trouble but her and Renji always pull threw there problems and help each decided and pursue there dreams. The other story has an emotional love triangle, Hiro is a Manga artist who often skips school and has a childhood friend, Kei, who tries to get him to keep coming back so he can get a good academic score, Hiro then meets a girl called Miyako, who has a fear of disappearing from the people shes close too, and he ends up spending Christmas with her and a lot of time after that, this love triangle included a lot of really emotional and powerful scenes like the voice messages, but then also had its clichéd moments that we see in plenty of other shows, such as the difference between sibling love and the romantic kind. The side characters are just as important, Yuuko and Himura appear to the different characters and often give them advice and assistance when required and act as people who they can go see, we also see including those two another guy who turn out to be the main protagonists for the sequel/prequel.Overall the show is an emotional rollercoaster, there are moments that offer a little bit of comedy but it does focus on its drama. It is definitly one of the best in the romance genres and shood not be missed. Everything in the show, the art, the animation, the sound, everything comes together perfectly and really creates the mood of the show.