Amnesia... What a Head Ache

I go up and down with my love and disinterest in anime any more. I just can't seem to get into as many titles as I use to, or rather most of what's easily accessible holds little interest for me. The few that have caught my attention over the past couple of years all seem to fall into few small categories.


*Slice of Life
*Music
*Based on Otome Games

The shows based on girl's video games have been more of my most resent choices, but they have one major problem. They don't really have an ending. Since the games are based on the player's decisions the out come varies. Every fan girl has her favorite and it creates essentially three possible out comes if an anime is produced.

1: They want the main character to end up with their favorite, because they are the obviously the best choice. They want to cheer for their favorite and see him end up the winner no matter the situation.

2: They HATE the main female character and want them to stay away from their favorite because he belongs only to them. Who cares that he's 2D, he's still hot and dibs have been placed. Touch and you will die. Seriously some fan girls can be very possessive of their bishies.

3: They don't give a crap about the girl or who they like best. It's all about shipping! I'd also like to throw out there that I hate the term shipping, it was pairing when I discovered the world of fan fiction and in my eyes it will remain so. Shipping is what you do with mail, not characters..... well unless you're buying figures but that's different. Any way most of these shows are designed for pairing and naturally the fan girl brain is going to have a hay day. Generally endless matches can be made, some more favorable than others, but more often than not it's guy on guy action rather than with the heroine of the series. As long as there are fan girls there will be yaoi.

But back to my point, since they have no real end they leave me wanting more. Personally I want to see the heroine end up with someone, even if it's not my choice for her. I just finished watching Amnesia, and though I did enjoy it, the ending left me disappointed.

WARNING: if you have not watched the series and don't want spoilers stop reading now. I'm not holding back this time around.

The show was a little hard to follow at first since our heroine wakes up with no memories on August 1st. She starts to understand where she is and who the people around her are only for some kind of accident to happen and then she wakes up and it's the 1st again but everything is different. The same people are there but her relationship with them are different and sometimes they even act differently. It's all a mystery to find her real memories and sort things out.

I actually have a few complaints about this series. First of all being the cloths. Yes they're kinda cool but who really wears that stuff every day? That and other than their work uniforms they don't really wear anything else. Do they just have a closest full of the same club gear? I get that they wanted to associate each guy with a card symbol and a color, but they took it a bit far. They all look like they belong in a visual goth punk band rather than college and high school kids that work at a maid cafe. Yes you heard me they work at a maid cafe on top of it all. Though that doesn't bother me so much.

The other thing that bugs me is that each of the guys have some personality issues all around. Shin is the first "boyfriend" we encounter. He's kinda cold and calls the heroine an idiot a lot. He's also still in high school and studying for his college exams so he's pretty busy most of the time. He's probably the most normal of the guys though, he just is very impatient and is tired of only being seen as the child hood friend. Other than wanting to be seen as a man, his big hang up is that his father accidentally killed someone, so those around him wonder if he's a killer too. Maybe if he stopped dressing like he stole his cloths from Harley Quin he'd be taken more seriously.

In the next world our heroine wakes up in she's dating Ikki. He's a nice enough guy, even carries her bag for her when they're out. He's a "butler" at the cafe they both work at. His biggest down fall is that he's a playboy. Or so it would seem any ways. He's got a large fan following and they're not above bullying those who get to close to their idol. He also never seems to date anyone for more than 3 months at a time. He's pretty jaded and admits that he doesn't understand women to our heroine. We learn that he wished to be popular with girls when he was little and that his jumping form girl to girl is actually the fan club's fault. They have a pact to only date him for three months so they can all have a turn, and make daily reports to the group about they time they spent with him. Ikki is clueless to this and started to figure over time that if they're going to leave any way what's the point of being in love, playing around is fine. Our heroine makes the change in him since she doesn't seem the same as the other girls. She actually disliked him at first so he saw it as a challenge. Over the first two months he actually started to love her, but he knows that the fan club is an issue. Oddly enough Ikki's look doesn't bug me too much. It's still a bit eccentric, but not as bad as Shin's. If it wasn't for his bitchy little fan girls causing her trouble he'd be a pretty good match for our heroine.

Next up on the dating block is Kento. He's a math guy, who's kind of awkward since he bases life more on calculations than emotions. Communication is a big issue with this guy. He's kinda quite and doesn't really get how feelings work. That aside though he understands that he likes our heroine, who if you haven't figured out by now is never given a name actually, and has started dating her. He's actually very calm when he finds out she doesn't have her memories and is surprisingly open to the idea of supernatural causes. Kento's very hard to judge since his expression never really changes nor does the tone of his voice. I guess they were going for a lab coat feel with his jacket, but really do you know any one going for their masters in mathematics that dresses like that? I don't think so. It's an awesome jacket but not for 24/7 wear.

Finally we have Toma. I went into this thinking he'd be my favorite for her to wind up with. He's nice and worries about her a lot. He looks out for her well being, trying to shield her from bullies and such. He too was her childhood friend along with Shin, so he's very close to her. Then they threw a freakin' curve ball. He's way too protective. Some one pushes a flower pot off a ledge a few stories up trying to hit our heroine and that set's him off. He insists that for her own good she stay at his place until things cool off. While he's out she goes to a near by store on her own and he scolds her for not listing to him. Then he starts drugging her so she's sleeping most of the time, partly to keep her safe and partly to keep her to himself. After she realizes about the drugs he starts locking her up in cage, a large dog kennel that he's filled with plush toys. What the hell Toma! You were supposed to be the good one. Truth is he does feel bad about his actions and knows that it's wrong, but he doesn't know how to shield her from the escalating bullying by Ikki's fans. He and the other girls were under the impression that our heroine and Ikki were dating, when in truth Ikki was helping her sort out her feelings for Toma. She'd always loved him but didn't know how to get out of the "little sister" zone with him. So they both like each other and despite his terrible actions she still wants to be with him. Battered woman much? Well I guess he never hit her, he just incapacitated her.... either way I still didn't see that coming.


And now for the true twist. NONE of these were supposedly her real world. There's one more party we see several times in each of these worlds. His name is Ukyo. Sometimes he's good and some times he's literally killing our heroine. Who the hell is he? Another boyfriend. Technically the first boyfriend. As we meet him for real he saves the heroine from dieing on several occasions, but there's still something off about him. He's got duel personalities. His true self wants nothing more than for her to live. In their world she died in an explosion on their college campus. He couldn't bare with the lose of her and he wished to go to a world were she was still alive. As he was jumping worlds he found that he didn't exist in them and as such the world tried to force him out by killing him over and over again. She was alive but he couldn't be with her. A part of him started to hate that is she was alive he couldn't be. As a result that part of him would take over. It started killing her in the various worlds so that he didn't have to die any more. His true self would still feel guilty and want her to live and so the world jumping continued. This time he was determined to see her to live. So he warned her of danger and told her to keep her distance from him. If she could stay alive until the 26th she'd be fine. Ukyo means well I know but I don't like him. His bad side got shown first and dirtied his image to me. Even if he really does love the heroine I don't like the idea of her with him. Sorry Ukyo, get a hair cut and some psych work and maybe then I won't mind you with her.

Long story short our heroine lives, Ukyo dies for her, but she stays with him till the end. Since his wish was finally granted the game could end. She's told her memories will return to her and she can go back to her world. she goes through a door and it opens to a white space with five doors in front of her. Such a bullshit ending! She's given the choice of who she wants to be with but you don't get to know what she picks! It just ends with five white door each with a symbol representing the guys. Oh it pissed me off. So now I'm left up to my own devices on what the out come was. Open ended stuff is a cheep way out without the risk of pissing off fan girls. Well guess what you're indecisiveness pissed me off.

I kinda feel bad about it, but I still would rather see her with Toma or Ikki. Maybe just work on some control issues and ditch a fan club.