Amnesia Final Thoughts--*Throws Casually Off a Roof*

In case you had any hope that this would be the otome adaptation to break out of the spiral of mediocrity... Keep moving. There's nothing to see here.


Scenario: You wake up without any of your memories and find yourself in a cafe staffed by hot guys. A magic floating fairy who only you can see tells you that you can't let anyone know that you have amnesia because somehow that will turn you into a vegetable. Do you:

A) Check yourself into a hospital anyway because you're seeing a floating fairy person and that can't be good
B) Tell the bishounen what's going on because they're apparently good friends with you and could probably help you work through this
C) Do what the fairy and everyone else around you tells you to do with no regard for logic, personal opinion, or self-preservation, and continue to do so for twelve episodes

If you answered C... That's this show in a nutshell, and you'll probably enjoy it much more than I did.

 
Amnesia never really changed from its first episode. It threw out some interesting ideas with its premise, but it was clear that it hoped the audience would ignore the holes in the plot as it focused on the hot guys instead. There was nothing particularly wrong with this at first; the show is an otome game adaptation, the entire point revolves around hot guys. However, the flaws showed up very early, starting with the heroine. As far as self-insert characters go, she really takes the cake. Like I mentioned above, she seems to blindly follow what the people around her tell her to do, with no semblance of a personality or opinion. Things happen to her, or around her, and as the centerpiece of the show and the object of the harem's affections, this makes no sense. She doesn't even have a name! I realize that she's the product of the game industry, but it just doesn't make since in a TV show. I'm not projecting myself into her, I'm wondering where her brain went.

 
This is made worse by some of the guys in the show. For a while, the main plot progression is that the heroine is randomly thrown into alternate universes, and in each one she has a different boyfriend. This works well in term of adapting individual routes from the game, since each character can have their own arc and then we'll be on our way. ...At least, theoretically. The first two guys get two episodes each, which seems to set the precedent. But then third guy only gets one episode, and most of it is spent talking about the invisible fairy and jumping between worlds, i.e. clarifying the premise. Then the next arc throws all of that out the window and gives three episodes to completely adapting a route that made me want to throw my computer out of a window.


This guy, Toma, is a controlling, manipulative jerk who justifies his actions by saying that he did it all out of love. If this defense was offered in court, he'd be laughed all the way to jail, because that does not even remotely justify drugging someone and then locking them in a cage. And while I don't want to get into victim blaming, the heroine has her fair share of facepalm-worthy actions during this arc too, completely ignoring numerous red flags (including the fairy point-blank telling her that she was drugged and needed to get away from Toma), and deciding to stay and listen to Toma's sob story at the one point he lets her out of the cage. No rational person would act like this, and while that sounds like a silly thing to demand from a show featuring dimension hopping and fairies, this arc just made me sick to my stomach.

 
The final arc starts out on a much better note--the heroine actually has *gasp* opinions, and some basic questions about the premise are finally answered. However, that doesn't stop the eventual influx of silly logic and poor decisions, resulting in a non-ending where we don't find out what the heroine's true memories were, or which world (and by extension, which guy) she goes back to. While I know that the majority of reverse harem adaptations are really just extended advertisements for their games, the blatant "Which one would you choose?" at the end really rankled me, especially after the direction the final arc chose.


In summary, this is a frustrating anime to watch. It was harmless enough at first, if a little brainless, but the combination of a main character who was the cosmic equivalent of a rock that everyone loves/hates and the large amount of time spent on creepers doing creepy things out of "love" sent my tolerance of it shooting into the sun. You know you're watching a bad reverse harem show when you start missing Arcana Famiglia and even Hiiro no Kakera. I am tired of this stuff being marketed towards my gender, and I'm tried of entertainment portraying possessive jerks as guys girls want to get with. I can't recommend this to anyone unless you're looking for an ironic watch and some laughs, since with that arc no one should ever watch this show seriously. Just be aware that the laughs will be less of the UtaPri variety (where the show is kind of aware how dumb it is and plays with it) but more of the "Wow, these people are really stupid" kind.

Images from Crunchyroll.com. Title is in reference to this scene.