Do you have any memories you don’t want to forget?

ef rocked my soul. (Wait…)

As you may have surmised by the slightly-more-than-late review, it’s taken me a long time to collect my thoughts on this show, which has been acclaimed by the majority to be nothing short of stunning.

Originally when I first watched the show I had that feeling of “this could be something,” but was off-put by the dual storyline, the typically SHAFT (i.e. form over function) art style, and my overall sense of confusion with ef. I put it on the shelf after three episodes.

Later on, I awoke to the sounds of bloggers singing the praise of this show from the top of the highest hills, and decided to get back into watching the show. After seven episodes, I was, to put it one way, nonplussed. I had had it up to here with all the visual novel cliches and concepts, the romance was tacky (Chihiro) or annoying (Kei vs. Miyako) and they spent all of ten dollars animating one of the supposed ‘most powerful moments of 2007′.

Five episodes and one rewatch later, I think I’ve done about as great an about-face of opinion as Kanon did an about-face of animation from 2002 to 2006. Quite simply, ef is top tier.

If I wanted to wax poetic about things, I would say that on the scale of romance, I truly ‘loved’ this show.

Kanon is a show I would ‘worship’, that I would deny any flaws in.
Cardcaptor Sakura is a ‘first love’, blind admiration of something with a feeling that can never be matched.
School Days is a ‘handsome devil’, the kind of show that I know I hate and I know will kill me, but I can’t stay away from it anyway.

But ef really is the full package. It has the moments that charm you and it has the moments that repulse you. It’s handsome yet fashion-challenged, smart yet sappy, serious yet silly. It is a show that sweeps you off your feet, whether you like it or not. And you accept its flaws with its strengths, and really see it as real, instead of something idolized, which can never be touched.

Perhaps, with the extend I’m going on to rave about ef, it’s a bit of a lie that I’m not idolizing it. But the fact of the matter is, that, despite this nagging feeling in the back of my head that ef really should suck, that it really does mess up at times, I can’t help but be absolutely smitten with this show, the characters it has, the storyline it tells, and the messages it conveys. It’s very different from many of the moe-smitten visual novel adaptations out there, yet it still maintains a connection to its roots. Quite simply, it is a brilliant example of what this genre can do.

(Series spoilers ahead, so either be forewarned, or make plans to forget them within 13 hours…)

(more…)

By all means, I should be entirely smitted with ef, like most of the otakusphere (to steal a term) seems to be.

It’s got what seems to be it all: a unique animation style, characters ripped straight from a storyline I dreamed up, parallel plots that look to tie together smoothly, and personalities that are appealing without being overly moe. Not to mention, a green-haired meganekko.

I’ve spent a lot of my time with my hands plugged in my ears not just because I’m trying to get the earwax out, but to avoid the spoiler-tastic raving that everybody has been going on about for ef. It encouraged me to catch up with the show over the last few days of vacation as part of the “My God, it’s Winter 2007/8 season already!?” watching panic.

So I was quite surprised when ef turned out not to be the gripping, awe-inspiring wonder that it’s been made out to be, but merely a show that’s good. Funnily enough, popular recommendations as to shows in off-center genres such as magical girl (Shugo Chara!) and GARmbling (Kaiji) have worked wonders for me, and I can’t say enough superlatives about those, but for a visual novel show that’s pretty much straight up my alley, it’s not working out quite the same.
(more…)

And you always thought that was spring…

Adaptation season may be closer to the truth, as pretty much every show I’ve followed so far is based on an eroge or ren’ai.

This probably says something about the creativity of harem shows nowadays, with probably one completely new romance (Code-E) and one completely new visual novel adaptation (sola) in recent memory, but the content is all fresh to me anyway.

Not to mention, the logistical challenges of adapting premade content still are fairly high, especially with the branching nature of harem-types.

The point still remains that there are a lot of the same shows out there this fall season, and while the moe-bishoujo-hater is probably off cursing somewhere, lovers of either harem, romance, or just general fanservice/moe are having a busy time.

As such it’s time for another triple take, taking looks at three more first episodes, bringing the total to six fall anime so far…
(more…)