Title: Amnesia, アムネシア
Producers: Brains Base, Sentai Filmworks
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Shoujo
Duration: 23 min. per episode
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.
Fansubs watched: Commie
And so the big leagues are out to play. Amnesia is the adaptation of the game- no, it’s not based on Amnesia the Dark Ascent, even though that would be interesting. It’s based on the visual novel for the PSP-long live the PSP but please Japan adapt the Vita- and focuses on the main protagonist having a loss of memory, hence the title: Amnesia. Also, it features a reverse harem and some Shoujo like elements.
In the first episode, we pretty much get the gist of the series’ setting, premise and cast of characters. We meet the main character who so far has been nameless- either a callback to the Visual Novel where you can rename the heroine or a touch towards the amnesia device. We also meet her harem of good looking men- all shown in the opening of course. All the guys have the usual harem trait for different deres. The harem- as of my understanding so far- consists of: the dark haired aggressive Shin- who dresses like a goth, the kind blonde and wholehearted Toma, the scientific smartsy Ken who evidently doesn’t have enough belts, the Byakuran look and act alike Ikki- who also seems to have some power, Orion the flying super powered loli, some green hair Sephiroth look alike, and the manager that looks like Aizen.
The episode is all about when the girl wakes up from some accident and remembers nothing. Throughout the whole things, she is confused and reacts in a reasonable manner. There are a couple cringe moments when she tries to do something but forgets how to but the most part is quite well formed. Since many of the characters are introduced, we don’t know their relationship with her other than they work at the same place, and Toma and Shin seem to be good friends. Of course, the way things are unfolding- with I assume the villains appearing at the end- it’s kept me in interest. There will be confusing moments for a while until things are clear and we all go ‘aha.’ So far, we only see snippets of the harem’s characteristics and possibly some of their powers. Orion so far seems to be the cause of the memory loss. His character so far seems to provide some guidance for her but his character doesn’t seem to have anything special.
The animation so far is gorgeous. There seems to be a massive ‘card suite’ theme going around with the hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs motif appearing and defining each character. It reminds me of some areas of Alice in Wonderland to an extant. Also, what is with their eyes? They seem to have colourful eyes with actually a nice shade of multiple colours. The entirety seems to like the shades of colours and a more saturated hue- to emphasise the card theme I guess. Also, in touch with that motif are the character and clothes designs. I mean, WOW! The main character looks very pretty and each of the harems have their own unique style to portray their card. The clothes are all cool, colourful and filled with wonderland textures. And the harem’s hair are all wacky to say the least, but the heroine is showing some good taste.
Oh, and the music is great too. The BGM is sort of like a music box, which ties in well with the amnesia, memory and mystery elements. It’s beautiful. Also, the opening and ending titles are all visually striking, once again with its colours. The songs too are quite enjoyable and bring a remarking taste to the anime.
It may seem to be a typical reverse harem, Shoujo anime as of now, but the story, mysteries and the main heroine all seem very interesting and draws me in. Next episode please.
