ef - a tale of memories

When I first heard that ef was a storybook game-based title that mixed together two separate storylines, I was curious to check it out since I had enough exposure to storybook game-based titles recently with Clannad, School Days, and Myself; Yourself. This series did go beyond my expectations in how it chose to portray itself thanks to its avant-garde approach of visual storytelling. While the storytelling isn't on par with Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, it still stood out enough for me thanks to its visuals.

ef's storyline is focused on two twin sisters trying to find love through different circumstances: one who is caught in a love triangle and the other with a disability that affects her memories from the previous day because of an accident. There is a good amount of psychological insight focused on these characters as I got to understand the traits and flaws to each person I saw, despite how predictable these types of characters are with their problems since I've seen them before in one form or another in other anime titles I've seen. But at the same time, the developments of each situation are painfully believable enough to follow since these characters are only young and lack the lifetime of experience to easily cope with these problems. The resolutions to both stories have their differences that affected my opinion of what I thought to them. The Kei-Hiro-Miyako love triangle was resolved believably for me as the choice Hiro had to make for himself and one of the girls was not an easy one to make. On the otherhand, Chihiro and Renji's resolution seemed forced in order to create your run of the mill happy ending. While I seen Chihiro's actions leading to the resolution believable considering her condition, the resolution didn't feel too believable.

The visuals to ef were my biggest attention of the series filled with bright, beautiful colors with a great amount of detail put onto the settings and character designs. The visuals flow especially well when ef shifts into its avant-garde visual storytelling to reflect on the mood of specific events in the series. A cellphone monitor is shown onscreen while actions onscreen show characters seeing and putting in text messages. Clocks, chains, and pictures are visuals shown through the novel Chihiro narrated as they reflect on her inner world of loneliness and fear of losing memories. These are just some of the visual styles of storytelling that are seen throughout this series.

The soundtrack to the series has a variety of musical pieces that reflect on the mood of specific events that take place throughout the series. An upbeat, powerful opening song reflects on the inner doubts of love that teens go through while there is variety in the choice of music used in the closing to the series to flow with whatever events took place in that specific episode.

Overall, ef is worth checking out for its avant-garde visual storytelling and decent use of psychological character insight. The storyline and characters aren't anything fresh, but this series is still worth checking out.

This is such a beautifully animated series. Very artsy, full of vibrant colors and brimming with emotions or sorrow and loneliness. However, it's not a dark anime, no, on the other hand, it's a story about the struggle of youth with love, heartbreak, and the painful strive to continue living to the fullest.

The animation style and art was quite unique.... fading from normal scenes to silhouettes to pencil sketches, all to lend to the mood of the current scenario. Backdrops and sceneries were at times breathtaking..... or as breathtaking as an animation can get. One thing that caught my attention was the heavy usage of clouds, clouds of various colors and hues. That doesn't mean much in itself however, clouds generally represent a mood or emotion. And in this anime, there are a number of scenes with such vibrant clouds and how the camera would angle or pan across their "vastness", which lent more of an emotional impact to the characters or the scene portrayed. One such instance is in episode-11, where Chihiro and Renji are on a rooftop and the clouds are a vibrant orange & red, with shades of purple. What it signified? Who knows... maybe only the author might know. However, with the visual depictions of breathtaking clouds coupled with the sorrowful wine of a violin, and the two characters on that rooftop expressing their love for each other, would tend to leave more of an impact on the viewer, thus adding much more depth and meaning to the whole scene. Character design on the other hand was "okay", nothing special.

The music style was soft, plenty of violin, and various other string & cord instruments. At times the music would play a sorrowful dirge in-tune with the scene(s) and I would get a sense of loss, or sorrow and be in-tune with the character's emotions. With that said, the music tracks were above the norm and good enough to purchase as an OST.

Overall this anime was good. The plot wasn't amazing but it was beautifully done.

my favorite line: "I want to go back to the time when we were always together"

Analysis : All Fansubs Watched

• Drama : Med / High
• Action : None
• Comedy : Low / Med
• SciFi : None
• Ecchi : Low / Med
• Note there is a few shots of the main characters

Ef, 2 tales rolled up into one. One is about Hiro and Miyako, a strange girl he meets on the way to school, and Kei, his childhood friend. The other is about Renji, a guy who is hasn't decided on his future, and Chihirio, Kei's sister who just happens to forget each day.

What did I walk into? A love triangle meets 50 first dates? It does turn out that Chihiro and Renji are the stars of the show and Hiro's story was just added in. It was very good and SHAFT has out did itself in the beautiful looks and scenery. I was a bit mad that they start with Hiro but he isn't the main storyline. He's #2 (And there is a very loose #3 going on). Miyako is WAY cuter than Chihiro but Chihiro's story is sadder.

It's a good story though and it got a Rent from me.