wat u say

Well, I was never planning on really watching this series, even though the sequel came out this fall. I had too much on my plate already. I had to marathon Clannad Season 1 and Gundam 00 Season 1 before fall, and I had basically a week or so to do it. So, I decided against pursuing it, because it didn’t seem like any of my other fellow bloggers had watched the first season, nor were they planning on watching the second season.

However, last night, during my usual ‘let’s put off homework’ stage, I was randomly browsing the interwebs and ended up on Menclave’s site, to check on Gundam releases and what not. Being bored as hell and not wanting to do what I was supposed to do, I went looking through the torrent tracker to see what other things they had subbed in the past. And lo and behold, there was ef – a tale of memories, with all the episodes in a nice little torrent pack. So, I figured, what the hell, I’d give it a try.

I remembered reading somewhere, though for the life of me I can’t remember where, that ef – a tale of memories was best watched in a marathon, rather than watching it an episode a week as it came out. I’m not sure which I would have preferred, as I can’t go back and watch it episodically now that I’ve marathoned it, but I feel like that opinion was right. It was a bit frustrating to be bouncing back and forth between the stories every episode, and I think if I had to wait a week only to focus on the other story again, I might’ve been rather frustrated.

EDIT: I don’t know why, but for some reason I feel like I should mark this with a spoiler warning. I don’t usually bother, because everything I write, especially episodically, is a giant spoiler. Perhaps I’m just so head over heels with this series that I don’t want to ruin anyone else’s enjoyment of it. Also, if you do plan on watching it, make sure you have the time to watch the entire thing. You won’t want to stop once you start. I just marathoned it again tonight, and there’s really no other way to watch it. I was going to just watch an episode or two, but you can’t just stop watching it. Because of this, I’m definitely waiting until the sequel is completed before watching it. It’d just be too hard to wait for otherwise.

At first, I was a bit worried that this show was going to end up like most others. A guy who doesn’t try at all at school who just happens to have the affection of a childhood friend along with a couple other girls, but really, it didn’t turn out that way. Perhaps that was where the fact that I was marathoning it helped. In any case, while I expected it to be a drama/romance, I wasn’t really sure what else to expect.

I must admit, I was rather annoyed with the story flip flopping back and forth at times, but it was also very nice how it all kinda tied together even though Renji and Hiro never seemed to cross paths. I feel like that should have eventually happened, but I guess since Hiro skipped classes all the time and Renji was really into reading, they might never have met.

One thing that bothers me though, I have to wonder why Kei isn’t around for Chihiro. Did she feel so guilty that she couldn’t take care of her? Hmm.. or perhaps she couldn’t stand the pain of being reminded of what she did to Chihiro and so she couldn’t keep living with her. Wait, I think I just said the same thing again.

I think I’ll talk about Hiro’s part of the story in depth first, because he confused the hell out of me. And pissed me off. Kyousuke beating him up was great, but I’m glad it spurred him into action. Really, I’m not sure what I can say about Hiro that the story didn’t resolve, but in any case, I was really really confused when he confronted Kei. It sounded as if he had chosen Kei when he came and returned her crutch. Then without any more interaction, we hear Miyako’s phone call. Oh yeah, sidebar here for a moment. Miyako calling Hiro a hundred times was really kinda hard to listen to, I had to really stop myself from just skipping ahead. And Kei is pretty cold hearted when she deletes all the voicemails. But anyway, I really felt like that was an unexpected end to Hiro’s part. I’m not sure why, but I kinda expected him to choose Kei over Miyako. I suppose maybe that’s why I felt like him returning the crutch was him accepting her, not rejecting her. But at the same time, when the story was progressing and we found out that Miyako is actually an excellent cook and Kei fails at cooking, I started thinking that it’d end up being Miyako. Anyway, I’m just glad he came to his senses and did what he had to do, rather than, as the mysterious nun girl said, lose everything.

In my opinion, Renji and Chihiro’s story was the better half of this series. It probably could have almost stood alone, although I do feel like some interesting insight was gained through having the concurrently running stories. Most especially the fact that it seems like Hiro used to really like Chihiro. Perhaps that was just another sibling love that wouldn’t have turned out to be anything even if Chihiro had stayed the same, but it was interesting to see. It also makes me curious if we find out what happened to Hiro that made him stop seeing Chihiro. Did he just decide that after the accident it would be too painful and he wouldn’t be able to deal with her losing her memories or was he maybe forced to stop seeing her?

In any case, the revelation so early into the story that Chihiro had that memory loss problem was really intriguing. It really was an interesting, but very sad and lonely dilemma. Not remembering people you meet from day to day unless you remember to write them down and read them the next day, that’s not an existence I would wish on anyone. Unfortunately, right after Renji and Chihiro’s first meeting, I felt that I had heard Renji’s voice and looked it up. Sure enough, it turned out to be Raki from Claymore. Ugh, no offense to the seiyuu (whose name I’ve already forgotten), but he does the most annoying ‘boy’ voices. And they’re exactly the same too. Thankfully, I was able to kinda tune it out for most of the time, but when he went all emo about finding out her condition and such, I kept thinking, ‘here we go again.’

However, I am glad that after the first encounter when she loses all her memories of Renji and has to ‘relearn’ herself, that Renji stays by her side and helps her cope again. I admit I was a bit worried that he was going to be a coward and back out. But, he turned out to be alright, and even helps her write her book. Although, when he was helping her write it and was talking about the endings, I kept feeling like he was completely misreading her. Or perhaps that he was really not thinking outside the box. What boring endings, really. Chihiro’s is way better, even if it is sad. On a somewhat related note, I’m surprised at how far they had the relationships unfold. Granted, I haven’t seen many romcoms or drama/romance anime up until now. Clannad is the only anime I’ve seen that I think fits into the same category as ef, and they haven’t gone very far in any relationship yet (to the dismay of many). But I was surprised that the couples even went as far as to have a sexual relationship as well.

But then, and I couldn’t believe it, but Chihiro just gave up. I didn’t think I’d find another series that could have me spilling tears as much as Clannad did, but the scene where Chihiro said she wanted to break up with Renji while she still loved and remembered him was just too much. I just couldn’t believe she would be so silly as to think such a thing. I think this is one of those times when I would hate to have to wait until the next episode, because I might sit and brood on it for too long and become frustrated, even though the ending I want might come, I’d be too frustrated by then. Thankfully, as I was marathoning it, I was so glad to see Renji find as many of the pages as he could and return them to her, only to find out that she just couldn’t forget about him. No matter what, she just couldn’t stop thinking about him long enough to fully forget him. It was a perfect ending, one that I could never have thought of if I had all the time in the world. It wasn’t a gimmick miracle recovery of all her memory, it was a memory so strong that no matter what she did, she would always think about him and remember him. And thus, she was set free of her chain which held her firmly to the twelve years and thirteen hours. I’m tearing up again just thinking back on it.

I’m sure I have more to say, but I think I got out everything I need to say about this series for the moment. I’ll either come back to this post later or I’ll make another one once everything sinks in. Marathoning it has a weird effect on my memory, so I’ll likely remember stuff randomly throughout the night and next few days and maybe have enough other stuff to post about later. Or maybe I can throw it in with my weekly anime recap.

OH GOD SOMEONE STOP ME I’M ABOUT TO MARATHON IT AGAIN D: