hontou ni
3Jan/089

[Series aftermath] ef ~ a tale of memories

If you had asked me about ef at ep 10, I'd tell you it's a good but "could be better" series. Now that I've completed the series. I wished it had just been an OVA on Renji and Chihiro since by itself, the series would have been a masterpiece.

I was one of those who was put off by the visual style that cluttered ep 1. Oh yes, I get it. They are meant to accentuate mood, emotions and the less tangible aspectsof the plot/interaction in an artistic, sometimes abstract manner etc etc. The problem was that it was overdone, to the point that it was self-indulgent and distracting. Thankfully, the intensity tapered off within episodes and a nice balance was struck between the story and symbolisms. (Of course it still rears its ugly head sometimes like the second by second count-down for Miyako's call in ep 10. Well, I'm sure it did wonders for the budget.)

Surprisingly, I didn't enjoyed the Miyako-Kei-Hiro triangle as much as I thought I would. It's still a great story; well executed with some really powerful dialogue complete with faux-siscon. But I thought the characters to be rather flat with merely a singularity in their past defining their current motivations. Or maybe it was because I found myself not able to rooting for any of the girls. Miyako is emotionally too unstable to forge a healthy relationship. She needed first to learn to cherish herself/gain self-worth before she can enter a symbiotic, loving relationship. Hiro had better have a great deal of emotional capital to help overcome her relational handicap. Kei on the other hand had too selfish a love that focused on her own needs instead of Hiro's. Honestly, I thought a good end would be for Hiro to choose neither and maintain status quo until either matures sufficiently for a decent relationship. But alas....

Renji and Chihiro's tale on the other hand was spectacular. I particularly loved the image of Chihiro chained in the circle. SHAFT's visual approach worked much better for this segment of ef because their tale had a lot more depth for abstract representation. The struggles are powerful, their love tenacious and outward looking despite the impossible circumstances. I celebrated their love because both wanted only the best for the other hence the painful choices. I understand that their tale has been compared to "50 First Dates" but frankly ef is on such a higher plane in terms of depth and storytelling that anyone would who can't see ef's outright superiority must have a memory lasting less than 13 minutes.

In short, one of the best eroge conversions to date. I'll be waiting for the DVDs.

Related posts:

  1. [Series Aftermath] – Umi Monogatari ~ Anata ga Ite Kureta Koto~
  2. When the journey is the destination – Takeshi & Mayuko's tale
  3. Asatte no Houkou ~ Rooting for Hiro X Karada

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  1. totali
    January 3rd, 2008 - 13:05

    Haha, nice ending line (even though there’s a small typo that totally through me off! ;D).

    I also liked Chihiro’s story A LOT more than Hiro/Miyako/Kei’s, but it seemed like most people were split about that. Her story made the show!

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  2. lametastic
    January 3rd, 2008 - 13:30

    The most common opinion I’ve seem for this series is that while the Chihiro/Reiji story was amazing, the Kei/Hiro/Miyako one was just pretty weak. Looking back, maybe the people for Shaft thought so too, even though the promo makes you think thet the main focus was going to be the love triangle. From what I’ve read about the game, Chihiro’s story should have been about 1/3 of the material, while here it’s about 2/3 :p .
    There are also other problems: Most of the time was spent developing both Chihiro and Reiji into interesting characters, while the other stories only seemed to focus on Miyako and Kei side of things, while Hiro and (specially) Kyousuke don’t really seem to have any real internal struggle. Also, I think it’s pretty obvious, from the beegining, that Hiro was going to chose Miyako, while Kei was going to end up with Kyosuke. Even if that was already given, at least the way they could reached that point was supposed to be emotive, but it just was cliched. on the other hand, we really didn’t knew which path they were going to take with the other story, so they had the chance to take some unexpected turns.
    I find some stuff really frustrating: what kind of relationship do Kei and Chihiro have after the accident? They interact only by text messages, so I doesn’t really seem like a good one. Who the hell are Yuko and Yu? I really think those are crutial questions to understand why this is one big story and not just two unlrelated and patched stories.

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  3. Ivy
    January 3rd, 2008 - 17:16

    I wholeheartedly agree! This is by far the best show of the autumn season.(Judging from the screens of other shows, I’m shallow like that) At first the symbolism was very distracting but they were decreased in the later episode. I too was annoyed by the 100 second phone call. It was an apparent way to restrain the budget, the 99 voice mail thing was too in a way. But that scene had some great vocal talent by Hiroko Taguchi as Miyako. She went from sad to desperate to panicky to psycho during that voice mail scene and I thought she delivered the lines swiftly. The voice work as a whole was actually quite good surprisingly considering they’re all relatively new when it comes to anime. Tenmon did an awesome job with the music, SHAFT did a great job with the art but it left me wanting more animation, it felt like a drama CD at some point. All in all very memorable and I’ll second you on that, One of the better if not the best eroge conversion to date (eat your heart out KyoAni!)

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  4. Xellos-_^
    January 4th, 2008 - 14:56

    I enjoy the symbolism quite a bit and probably more then most people. Like how shaft play around around with all the different colors. I think it really fit Ef quite well. It probably wouldn’t with something Hayate but for something on the serious side like Ef it fits.

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  5. Xellos-_^
    January 4th, 2008 - 14:58

    Note: I would love to see something created by the combine forces of Shaft, Gainax and directed by the Utena director.

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  6. holyman282
    January 5th, 2008 - 04:45

    I know what you mean by the show being over done.. The visual style just feels like they are trying too hard and is just overall distracting… It would of made the same impact if they had just chose to animate normally, which would of simultaneously stopped my random snorting at certain scenes……

    Their approach was way to over done, in an attempt to isolate and individualise this anime from others, they fell into the trap of over doing things and using camera, colour ect technics where it isn’t needed…

    I’m sure the game doesn’t do that.. I hope..

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  7. Stripey
    January 5th, 2008 - 21:37

    totali: Agreed! Chihiro’s part made the show for me too. I wished they had invested more time developing Kei/Miyako into endearing/sympathetic characters instead of the symbols. :)

    lametastic: Indeed, one of my problems was how the 2 tales seemed so independent of each other. The only important link was how Kei felt guilty about Chihiro’s condition which prohibited her from making moves on Hiro. Many valid points you made! :) Probably because of airtime, a lot of these aspects were not developed fully…. though that would be less of a good excuse of this production given how much time was spent doing abstract art. Still a very solid series and great thoughts from you! :)

    Ivy: Oh yes, Miyako’s voice-acting was most excellent especially the voice mails. It’s interesting that despite my preference for the Chihiro arc, I found the Kei/Miyako tale to have the stronger voice-acting. :)

    Xellos-_^: I really need to watch Utena. I think Shaft and Gainax are a powerful collaboration given how I enjoy most of their earlier works. :)

    holyman282: I’m just glad they turned it down a great deal after the initial 2 eps to reasonable levels. So I really enjoy some of them especially the mirrors/inverted stairs depicting the 2 persons of Chihiro. Those were really well employed. :)

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  8. Michael
    January 5th, 2008 - 21:37

    Alright, to start it off. I personally liked Hiro/Miya/Kei’s arc a littl ebetter than the Renji/Chihiro Arc. I’m not sure why, but my best guess to why it’s like that is probably because the 2nd arc was way too confusing for me. I found it interesting at first but after a while I just found it absolutely annoying. If I was put into a situation where I had a girlfriend who could only retain her memories for 13 memories then she would forget everything, I wouldn’t stand for that. Maybe I’m interollerant or just ignorant, either way that story just wasn’t right for me. Hiro/Miya/Kei arc went in place with me better, I found the story to be weak as hell considering I’ve seen the same storyline in so many other animes. Although, the animation seemed to bring out some sort of elegance in that arc. Plus, the voice acting of Miya was perfection. From the phonecall where she first started out happy then to sadness, and finally to a state of depression and panic. I applaud the voice actor for putting on such a great show. Although, that telephone scene really pissed me off. The numbers I just couldn’t take. Once the coutner reached about 54, I started to have siezures. Also, that huge voicemail box that Miya left on Hiro’s cell also gave me siezures. All in all, this is probably one of the better harem animes of the year and probably is a top contender for the top anime list for 2007.

    T

    Kudos to the makers! One day, you’re gonna kill someone with that extensive siezure causing.

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  9. Stripey
    January 8th, 2008 - 04:38

    Agreed on Miyako’s excellent voice acting. Like yourself I was a bit annoyed at the number of voice mails given that by no. 20 I would have walked over to Hiro’s place to burn it down rather than to leave another 80 msgs. Fortunately the scene was redeemed by Miyako’s voice acting. Intense yet varied with the exact application of the right tone. If there was a anime Oscars, the seiyuu’d win something for her performance here. :)

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