Anime Review: Ef A Tale Of Memories

Review Ef A Tale Of MemoriesWritten by WarpshadowRating very good/ excellent

Even if I could only count the worthwhile shows that come from Ren ai games on one hand EF A Tale Of Memories would by one of the fingers on that hand.

Hirono is a high school student that moonlights as a manga artist. On Christmas night he runs afoul of strange girl named Miyako. She tells him a tale about a stolen wallet which sidetracks him from a date with his female friend Kei. Parallel to this a boy named Renji meet a girl sitting in an abandoned train station. Her name is Chihiro and she has been living with a memory that only has a thirteen hour lifespan.

Tjere are several preconceptions about anime shows that are based on Ren ai games but this show breaks quite a few of them. First of all this isn’t a harem show by any stretch of the imagination as the male cast is as populous as the female portion rather than the usual lame main character and his even lamer friend. The directing is the most divisive aspect of this show as while just about everyone will say that the imagery is avant-garde there are those that will find it pretentious or distracting. Ef does have some particularly strong and well delivered moments and most of them are in the second half so whatever you do this is a show worth sticking with. Even though it has a few weaknesses EF A Tale of memories is an anime show that is better than the majority of shows and is well worth watching.