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Mnemosyne - Mnemosyne no Musume Tachi -
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Animation - 6.3 |
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Sound - 8.0 |
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Story - 6.7 |
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Character - 6.0 |
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Value - 6.5 |
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Enjoyment - 6.0 |
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Average - 6.5 |
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Avalanche |
(2008-11-22 13:16:04) 2008-11-22 13:11:12 |
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| Average |
6.2 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
6 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
6 |
| Mnemosyne was arguably the most talked about series when it started early this year (2008). The series premiered on a Japanese channel called AT-X which had completed ten years of its broadcasting; this OVA series was made to commemorate that event. But that is not why it had received so much attention. It received attention because of the high profile female seiyuu who were involved in this series. Noto Mamiko (Enma Ai from Jigoku Shoujo, Nina Fortner from Monster), Rie Kugumiya (Louise from ZnT, Shana from SnS), Rie Tanaka (Chi from Chobits, Sugin Tou from Rozen Maiden) and a host of other high profilers were involved. And the fact that the series contained a lot of lesbian, BDSM and sexual overtones simply took the internet anime community by storm. Let’s face it – mainstream seiyuu are not involved in such mature series so often. But then would it be any good?
The series is about Rin Asōgi, an attractive female private investigator who is immortal. Accompanied by another attractive immortal female (who is – to put it bluntly – a legal-loli), Mimi, she takes up oddball jobs. But then, there is always danger lurking just beneath the surface because of their long and shady past. A person called Apos is tracking them and he wants something. It starts out rather well – there is action, suspense, style and oh-just-a-little-bit of lesbianism. What more can a guy ask for? xD
Come to episode two, and it remained good but a tad less. By the third episode, it started to go awry. By episode four, it was starting to become a mess. And by the end of episode five, it had gone… to hell. So what exactly went wrong?
If there is one thing hard for series with stand alone plots, it is to keep the viewer coming back for more. One way to do that would be to make the stand alone plot so damn good that the viewer is compelled to come back. Mushishi did that part quite well. The other way to would be to introduce an over arching plot. This way while one story gets finished, the main plot keeps going on. This incites the viewer to come back. Jigoku Shoujo used this technique.
Mnemosyne uses the second technique. I’ll give credit to the writers of Mnemosyne in trying to make it work, but their attempts don’t make the cut. While the stand alone plots were decent, they were certainly not spectacular because they kept jumping all over the place. Suddenly there would be action, suddenly a sex scene would pop up and suddenly a bad guy (from a previous episode) would gate crash causing the plot to loose its focus. Characters would be spoken as if we (the viewer) know the character since a long time back. What’s more – the cases Rin handled were not that immersive either. It was not something which would keep me on the edge of my seat, nor was it something outright boring. It made me retain a tepid interest in what was going on but just that. And the main plot just advanced by an inch during each of the first four episodes. So what was I to come back for?
Anyways by the end of episode four, the main plot finally started to show its true colours. Alas, it was so weak that it collapsed even before it began. And the blame for that lies solely on one character – that would be Apos. He is arguably the weakest villain I have seen in any series in the past one year. He has no motives (well, he does have one but it is so silly that I felt cheated when he finally revealed it). Things which are shown throughout the series have (the character who Rin keeps talking to in the first three episodes, the immortal girl Apos keeps stabbing and some others) have zero consequence – and in case they do, they account for so little that it does not seem worth it. And while the plot progresses with a rapid pace, there is no telling why it is all happening in the first place. Even more, the characters do not progress. So the same character that Rin fought in episode one, is still fighting in the same way in the last twenty minutes of the show. Why? Beats me… There could be a higher motive but it sure escaped me. Oh and the ending is cheesy.
In the end, this was something with a lot of potential but lost out because of not that great script writing, very bad presentation and a very weak villain.
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| Average |
5.6 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
0 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| Mnemosyne might be one of the most brute titles I've ever watched in my 10+ years of watching anime. If you find yourself at all turned off by watching characters shot, raped, tortured, and overt sex scenes (including homosexual pairings of the female persuasion), please do yourself a favor and DO NOT watch this title. If you find yourself intrigued with the storyline (which is what lent me to start and finish this series accordingly) proceed at your own discretion, provided that you are also over 18 years of age, because I wouldn't advocate any audience younger than that watching this.
There's an obivous aim towards the male demographic that's noted for this series, but given the moniker this series was based upon (and the fact one of my friends, who's female, recommended this to me, I decided to let curiosity out the bag).
There were a lot of things that turned me off of Mnemosyne initially. Considering the overtly controversial scenes and settings in which it presents itself, one could aptly confuse this for a hentai title. That's not quite true. It more or less lends itself as a mature title that presses the envelope while attempting to develop a greater story beyond its premise, and perhaps that's what lent me to finish the anime OVA set to the very end, alongside a friend's insistence that it wasn't just glorified sex and violence for show. (Actually, to refute her statement, it is, but I'll digress from that to focus on what Mnemosyne has to its credit).
Mnemosyne is indeed taken from Greek mythology, regarding the goddess of memory that slept with Zeus for nine nights and conceived the the respective nine muses known in the mythological realm for their gifted graces in the arts. Yet, this is by no means a "graceful" series if taking this interpretation in consideration, as it takes the moniker and presents it in a violent struggle between two immortal girls and a realm that avidly wishes to destroy them.
Asogi Rin, alongside her colleges Mimi and Koki Maeno, work in a series of randomized supernatural cases in a private detective agency. Violent murders and mysterious underhanded operations are afoot, and Rin struggles through multiple deaths in light of her immortality. In the prescence of mysterious spores, women who ingest it become immortal, while men become vicious angels who feed on the immortal women. The secret behind that revelation is what the anime consistently examines.
Oddly enough, I found something to like in these characters personality wise...but their development is far too loose to fully come into them at heart, and the way they're presented does come into stereotypical progressions. I won't say this is a fault of the series length, because the series shows exactly what it intends, but creates and leaves far too many dangling threads in character development and plot progression, supplementing it instead with such graphic displays that it masks what fruit the series has to bear. It's like having an overabundance of sour icing on what could be a potentially decent cake.
Rin has a typical cool, collective personality, and has beauty and enough of a mysterious demeanor to make her interesting and worth following throughout the series. However, there's not much else to her given most of the series focus is within an action/supernatural realm, and I expected the series to give her a little more definition as the series progressed. She has the potential to be funny as well (see episode 1 when she accidentally sets off one of the sensors...that was actually funny - "Don't say anything or I'll kill you!").
The characters that really intrigued me weren't Rin or even Mimi to be honest. Maeno, despite being a secondary character and third wing to the girls in the agency, was probably the only character I found myself feeling for throughout the series. After losing what he calls his "existence", he joins Rin and Mimi in helping around at the agency. It might be possibly because he's the only one that's "human" consistently followed through this series, even when the series shows his life as a family man. Not that Rin and Mimi weren't made to be like humans, but they seemed so carbon copy that their emotions never really came through as strongly as Maeno, especially when he discovers what Rin and Mimi truly are. The role he comes to play in the series also notes him as one of the stronger characters offered here...potentially...but there were obvious reasons here that I didn't like his character on all points.
Yet the story the series tries to develop is subverted to an extent by its own overt messages: again, the sour icing on the cake example comes to mind. Even if you're open-minded enough to look past it, there are some scenes, within any audience you might find yourself in, that are bound to make you uncomfortable (I had one too many in this series). Another, more technical issue: time passage is not that well noted here. I won't say much about it in order to keep some events from being spoiled, but there is a difference between two episodes where so much time has passed by that the characters age and not even a speck of time passage is visibly noted, only inferred, which may confuse some viewers as to the time jump.
Animation standards were decent, but a minor quibble I had was noting the character design (wasn't to my personal preference). There weren't any inconsistencies as far as I noted between episodes, and the fluid action scenes and backdrop settings were gorgeous, so I ranked it highly on that note.
Music I liked in some parts of the BGM within the episodes, and while the OP/ED are good in orchestration, the vocals by the group are downright cheesy and shrieky, even for metal music. VA work for the series is decent considering the characters and the overall thematic of the series, but there wasn't much emotional connectivity for me to latch onto in the series for it to fully hit home.
You'll note that I'm purposefully not ranking Value for this series because I cannot give a set opinion. It's hard for me to recommend this series unless it's for audiences who can stomach the content involved and provided its graphic nature, it's unlikely that I would ever watch this series again. Granted, for the mature (meaning content, not story intensive) action/sci-fi/thriller crowd, it may provide a decent watch, but the series didn't fully convince me personally. There wasn't much I could take from the series, and I could simply say it just wasn't my cup of tea at all, even with an open mind to speak from.
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Pakxenon |
(2008-07-21 04:23:04) 2008-07-21 04:00:08 |
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| Average |
7.8 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
9 |
| Character |
8 |
| Value |
8 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| What better way to celebrate a 10-year anniversary of a TV station than to have a 6-episode 45-minute-each OVA broadcast of the hottest and most violent anime since.. NOT Bible Black; sorry, this one usurped you. Mnemosyne (hot off wikipedia: a titan in Greek mythology who slept with Zeus; also is where the word mnemonic comes from) is the story of Asougi Rin, the owner of Asougi consulting who is also immortal and is constantly being chased by a red-haired weapons maniac. Throughout the ~70 years this anime spans is an immersing story about the Yggdrasil tree and its connection to everyone in the show. Although its plot is typical, Mnemosyne never fails to entertain with its violent scenes of killings, sex, torture, and rape, all fronted by an emotional and mysterious story of love, immortality, and loss. It even has lesbians! Of course, this is only recommended to those who can stomach all of the above and more of the horror genre. The only thing that bothers me is the overusage of the Yggdrasil legend (I think its only because the word looks cool) and the mediocre animation quality, but everything else, from the sadistic villain to each sex scene (in particular, the one in episode 3), should keep you awake trying to finish it.
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