AMNESIA

You might think a story about a girl that lost her memory and is now would be a really cool idea. You would get to watch as she gets her memories back, and begins to piece together what is reality really is. It would be cool, if not for the astoundingly weak writing that became the basis of the plot.

Our heroine (that never gets a name) is a total blank slate. She barely shows any emotion beyond vacant smiles and utter confusion. Yes, we get it, you have no idea what's going on, so you can be confused sometimes, but there's a point at which I would hope most people can get their act together to actually figure out what's going on, and possibly attempt to do something about it. Because of her vapid existence that consists only of aforementioned expressions and a handful of interchangeable responses (yes, no, thank you, are you okay? why?) she makes no effort to communicate at all, doesn't ever ask questions like, "Hey, where do you think we stand in our relationship?" or "What's your favourite memory of us together?" or literally anything else that would give her a clue to her lost memories, how she should be acting, who is even in that world, etc. It's basically 5 people talking at her. They might as well talk to themselves in the mirror, because their reflection would be more responsive than her. As a character that is meant to be a vessel for the viewer, it's pretty hard to sympathise with a robotic wax doll. There was no obvious character growth. She didn't have any revelations about herself, she was just a static, flat, empty shell of a human right up to the end. She maybe discovered the power of friendship with Orion. Maybe.



Essentially, everything about this anime is aggravating, aside from the very high quality art and voice acting (excluding Heroine, not that she has a lot of lines, anyway.) I loved the style, and the visuals were basically the only reason I watched it. Even then, I thought the outfits were pretty over the top (particularly Kent's, it just looked dumb on him. For someone with such a logical personality, you would think he'd find having 78098495 buckles on his coat extremely illogical. Also Shin's one-red-one-black boots.) and that kind of detracted from the aesthetic.

I do not recommend this unless you just want to look at something pretty for 6 hours of your life. Watch Kokoro Connect instead, or even Hiiro no Kakera.

Amnesia fascinates me. Not because it's good, no, quite the opposite: it's so bad it's completely fascinating.

Now the only reason why I gave this show two stars instead of one is because the art and animation are gorgeous. I also liked the character designs (and I did like the fact that the Heroine was pretty, and not bland looking).

However, Amnesia is a complete train wreck. The main plot of the anime is simple: the main protagonist has amnesia and she's trying to get them back (With the help of an exposition fairy that I think is the reason why her memories are lost? I don't know, it isn't explained very well).

Now the most important thing to know about this anime is that it was based off of a visual novel. And it looks like it was based off of a visual novel/dating sim- now in visual novels like Amnesia, the player gets to choose a specific route in the storyline over which guy gets to be her love interest. That's nothing special, most dating sims do that. The anime though, instead of trying to find a way to take different elements of each storyline and try to make a cohesive plot like some anime adaptations of visual novels do, THIS anime has the main character repeating a span of time over and over so she can complete each of the routes shown in the game. Every time she almost dies, time reverses and she ends up finding herself dating another guy from her reverse harem, focusing on each one at a time.

Now to be fair, there are certain concepts of the story that I do like. The main is the concept of an amnesiac hero going through different timelines/alternate universes not knowing which is one is their real world. In a different anime and executed nicely, this would have been pretty interesting. There are also parts of Ukyo's character that I liked... or at least, certain ideas about his character that I liked. I liked the concept that he has a split personality, and how he had to reset time over and over so his girlfriend could live, but watching her be with someone else each and every time (Although the concept of resetting time so that someone's beloved can live is probably my love of Madoka Magica talking).

Tl;dr, there are concepts about the show that I do like, and could be extremely interesting if this show was written completely differently.

The biggest problem of the show is not the lazy adaptive writing of the plot, it's the characters.

Everyone has said it, and I'm gonna join right with them: the main character has no personality. Like, literally, has no personality. She has amnesia, okay, so it's understandable if she's a little bland in the beginning. But she's personality-less throughout the entire show. She has no thoughts of her own, doesn't react, doesn't THINK for herself, heck, we don't even know if she genuinely falls in love with any of the guys. At least in other reverse harem and harem shows, there's usually a hint of who the main character likes, even if it's not stated out right. This one? Nope.

She doesn't even react when one of the guys DRUGS HER AND LOCKS HER IN A CAGE, which he claims is for her own safety. This isn't romantic, it's creepy and sick. And the anime EXCUSES IT, saying "Oh, it's because he really loves you". WRONG. NO- this is NOT how sane people work. This is how SERIAL KILLERS work. In fact, this same person even threatened to RAPE the main character at one point. ...And we're suppose to think that this is romantic? I pity anybody who thought that these actions were romantic.

The worst thing about the main character is the reason WHY she's written the way she is. She isn't a terrible character because of poor writing; she's bland and boring because she has a specific purpose; her purpose is self-insertion. It's so that female viewers can easily slip themselves into the role of the main character, and imagine themselves being the girlfriend of these gorgeous guys, and have them confess their deepest darkest secrets to. This is the exact same reason why Bella from Twilight is so heavily criticized. But at least Bella has her own name; the nail on the coffin for Amensia's main character is that she has no name. Yes, in the visual novel, you create your own name for her. But that's a visual novel- in the anime, they didn't even bother giving her one. Why? Because it makes it easier for the female viewer to self-insert themselves into the anime.

The key word for this anime is lazy. It's completely lazy in its story telling, in its characters, and it's stupid out of nowhere explanations to how the world works in this show. If you're really that curious to watch the series, go ahead. But only if you're curious to see how bad it is.

I think maybe being familiar with the game would help you catch on to this series more, but its not impossible to follow without the knowledge.
Many people make a point to criticize the main character and her "daftness" throughout the series and her lack for words each episode (mostly consisting of confused interjections). However, I think that the art is very sharp and I love the idea of a character being to pass from possible lover to the next and explore each relationship scenario. While some parts in episodes may be confusing or annoy the heck out of you for the heroine being so dense, I did enjoy the series overall.

I originally started watching the anime because the premise looked interesting. I found myself liking most of the characters in the show, with the exception of the female heroine. The idea of moving through parallel worlds was interesting, and seeing her "life" in each of those worlds, but I felt like she had zero reaction to any of the environments around her, or maybe as someone else put in their review she had no personality.

I also felt like too much of the plot pieces were crammed into the last episodes. I'm not sure whether adding more plot elements through the episodes would have helped, or if it would have been more confusing. I also would have liked to see an actual conclusion - what life she went back to, who she was with, etc.

The animation style was great, and all of the support characters were well developed (even across worlds), so I would still recommend it. Just be prepared that not all of your questions will be answered at the end.

Exactly what the title says. It's definitely not cliche and predictable! If you guys are narrow-minded like me on otome-based stuff, then you'll just have to try this one until the end! Every episode trolled me and everyone else orz. It was so confusing and mysterious. At the end of each episode, you get left hanging there! It's so suspenseful and at times;; Scary. Well, if you watch it at night like me. lol. The ending was worth it; a truly sad and emotional ending. ahhh. Oh! Of course, I found "stuff" other viewers might not grasp in the ending, so anyone who reads this is free to ask me pffft. Personally, I believe this deserves more than it gets. I'd rate it 4.5 but there's no such thing so I'll just round it to 5. lol.

While I loved the visual stimulus this anime provided, that proved to be the only reason to watch it. It's gorgeous and the character designs are a lot of fun. (I did start wishing that some of the characters, especially the heroine, would change their outfits a little after a few episodes. I mean, the girl even sleeps in the same dress.)

But although the initial setup is interesting, despite being a little contrived, the series takes far too many episodes to do not nearly enough. While a dating sim would let you change the main character into the person you want her to be, this anime makes few to no choices about who she is. Thus, while the five main guys get plenty of elaboration, she stays just as uninteresting for the whole season. Given that she dominates the anime, watching her noncommittal responses the whole time becomes something of a chore.

The plot does finally get a tiny explanation within the final three episodes or so, but takes too long to get there and then wraps up without a satisfying conclusion. What works in a game, where one controls the main character, doesn't work so well in this format. All in all, I wish this were a miniseries of 3-4 episodes instead of a full-length season, as I might feel less disappointed in the show. I wanted to like it, but it falls into the same old anime tropes and standard characters with very little originality. If you're looking for a pretty picture to take up some time, this probably fits the bill. But if you're looking for a strong story, or strong characters, or even just a sweet romance, Amnesia misses the mark.