[ANIME REVIEW] Amnesia 6.5/10

Type: TV
Episodes: 12
Status: Finished Airing
Aired: Jan 7, 2013 to Mar 25, 2013
Producers: Brains Base, Sentai FilmworksL
Genres: Mystery, Fantasy, Romance, Shoujo
Duration: 23 min. per episode
Rating: PG-13 – Teens 13 or older

Summary:
This story takes place in a fictional town, in a fictional country, in a fictional world. One morning, a young lady awakens to find that she has lost all her memories prior to that morning. Her life, her relationships, her very name—all gone. All that’s left is a cell phone with numbers and names she doesn’t recognize and Orion, a young boy that only she appears to be able to see. With Orion’s guidance, she struggles to make sense of herself, a boyfriend she doesn’t know and the thousand and one little things that make up a daily life. But with no memories left, the only alternative is to forge new ones, even if that means leaving old loves behind.

(Source: Sentai Filmworks)-MAL

First of all, this review was initially posted on MAL because I got slightly ticked off at the low ratings Amnesia got so yes, I’ll be one of those people that gave a high rating to Amnesia. Why? some of you may ask. Simply because Amnesia is NOT.BAD. Not as bad as people tend to label it.
First fact about Amnesia: it’s an otome game (dating simulation for girls) adaption, people!
Girls are finally getting more fanservice and smexy bishies! The focus on it it’s quite new so nobody can and will invest that much into smexy bishie animes for girls as they do invest in smexy girls with big boobs animes for boys! (I’m expecting Free! comments to pop out anytime now lol. That’s the recent exception xD) But Amnesia did good even with the low capital!IT HAD A STORY! I’ve seen adaptions that are really bad, with no story, no development, no anything and I recognize it, but Amnesia doesn’t deserve a 2 or a 3. The setting is nice! The art is nice and quite original! The music was the best of the season! The characters are a bit sketchy and hard to get through but they’re not stereotypes. The heroine is a dead fish with no emotion, a wooden board,yes, and I’ll never say otherwise, but it’s no reason to use inappropriate terms to describe it as a series.

Story – 7
With all the time traveling we got last year this comes right at the right time. It has a good concept. The story started off with a lot of potential and continued holding on the suspense factor till the last episode. Why are you people complaining that we didnt understand anything till the last 2 episodes? Maybe the ending was rushed, yes, but do you like plots where you know everything from the first minute of the first episode? I personally enjoyed making theories about what the hell is happening while drooling over some bishies and have my heart thump because of some sweet, cheesy lines I’d never recognize I like in real life. The explanations we got in the last episode was quite well made and we slowly managed to connect everything piece by piece. The last regression clip to when the heroine first died was nicely made too. It would have been nicer if the heroine seemed more “alive” in other aspects. It would have made everything more enjoyable to follow.

Art – 7

Am I the only one that remained astounded by the character design? I was sad the quality seemed to drop sometimes though, like there started to be too many closeups, the characters stopped moving that much and it all went static like in the last episodes and sometimes the guys seemed taller than how they usually are which made me make fun of them quite a lot. Example: Ukyo and the trees in the alleyway, Ikki in the hospital room, Ukyo when laying down. But each and every one of the guys made my heart beat with their originally colored eyes and their especially cool outfits.

Sound – 8

Great! just great! If i could i’d buy the soundtrack. I’m addicted to the ending and opening of this anime. The first time I actually abuse the replay button on my mp4 in a while. The background music was on and off, it didn’t leave a big impression sometimes, but can’t discredit it either.

Character – 6

Well, the are not stereotypes. They start off as stereotypes but they’re not and the most obvious example is Toma for very obvious reasons, obvious reasons that probably paralyzed me in my chair having an amused and/or surprised “oh God” expression on my face. The guys were all characterized pretty beautifully. I had a problem with Ikki at one point because his “world” didn’t seem like having a conclusion to his problems. It’s like the bad fangirls got a small victory there and I disliked it. His path ended abruptly after Shin’s “world” had such a sexy conclusion and Kent and Toma got slapped a bit by the reality of facts.
The ther problem is the heroine. And I once again complain about her. She has no will of her own, no actual impressions, average amount of feelings. If I could dress a doll as the heroine and replace her with the doll then you won’t even notice the change. She just goes from “eh” to “oh” and then “O-O” and then “staaaaaaare*. I hated how Orion was removed from almost all the anime. He could have made her a little bit more enjoyable, like in the game. Where, I might add, the heroine was voiceless till Orion disappeared in the end, so that might explain her dullness in the anime.

Enjoyment – 7

Counting how Amnesia was the only anime that managed to keep me waiting in anticipation each Monday for the raw version, then Yes I enjoyed it.

Overall – 6.5

It tried to follow the otome game as much as it could afford. I liked how all characters had their route animated. FINALLY. And all the jumping in time actually had sense so every fangirl had their love love scenes with their favorite guy and everybody’s happy. Anyway, I’d like to ask of those who read this review…please don’t bash it too hard. Amnesia it’s really misunderstood and underrated. Somebody that didn’t play the game might find it harder to enjoy it as one that already played it. I also felt disappointed at some scenes, but overall, it is not a failure with no sense at all to deserve a rating from Bad to Horrible and Pathetic. Try looking at the bright parts of it too and not only at the bad parts. Sure, you can express yourself and say what you didn’t like, but my point is there just HAS to be something good in everything and it’s worth mentioning and given the appropriate credit for it, while considering all the factors.