What would a Comrade watch in December?

Yes guys I know Impz is a bit burned out at the moment…

Well after much prodding from Impz I finally blitzed through Myself; Yourself and ef~a tale of memories. I also finished Mass Effect my first Mass Effect play through with a level 50 Vanguard and completed all the side quests, so it was high time I got back to work. While other bloggers have covered this far better than I, unlike the rest of the blogosphere, am made of pure malice. That said I found Myself and ef to be enjoyable for less than right reasons…

Myself; Yourself

Well I guess he did not take his wife’s infidelity very well…

Since Stripey was touting this about as a must see with his track record that included the ill fated cabbage love I was looking forward to ripping this apart as a great disaster. Suffice to say I was wrong.

Nana was a hateful creature, I found her negativity off putting. Honestly I would have left the bitch stew. I had a bit of sympathy toward her but when she ran to her room and cowered during the fire instead of getting the fuck out, I just wrote her off as mentally defective. Heck even when I was in elementary school they taught us fire safety. Her parents were really something though. As bad as hitting a woman is Nanae deserved it. She slept with her hubby’s best bud, yet still married him then lied to him so that in the end he was a chump raising someone else’s kid. If she didn’t want to abort then she could have declined to marry Tsumuhiko or divorced and eloped with the sickly Sakuraba. Nanae was not in the right for the deception and trying to build a bond between Nana and Kaoru behind Tsumuhiko’s back. Perhaps I am crucifying the victim here but the dishonesty made it all but impossible for the situation to resolve in a civilized manner. Nanae should have fled the home to some place safer after the news had broken out. Nana should have called the cops, but I am not sure whether or not in Japan that domestic abuse is even taken seriously given how many other things the Japanese authorities ignore. Nevertheless Nana a middle schooler did not bother to call the cops or the fire department.

Sakuraba foolishly waited until he lay upon his death bed to confess. As a dead man he could not have been any help to his treacherous lover Nanae or his spawn Nanaka. Tsumuhiko suffered a double betrayal, that of his wife and that of his best friend. To ask him to show mercy and forgive was pretty much beyond reason since Tsumihiko only had one person left to avenge himself upon. Neither Nanae nor Sakuraba owned up to the truth until the end. In those years since Nana’s birth they could have chosen to be honest but they opted to use deception.

Still it was decent enough anime though the Watasuki Twins, Hoshino, and Aoi stole the show, once they were gone or sidelined the Sana and Nana resolution felt a bit bland outside of the domestic abuse.

M:Y ending was strong, but lacked a vital thing: impact. Sure, we found out why Nana was so psychologicaly traumatized, to the point of doing the /Wrist; we also found the scar on Sana’s wrist caused by an suicide attempt (which anyone with decent deductive skills knew since episode 3) but…..just it? No more juicy details about the twins? No development of Aoi-chan, which was kept to a corner during the whole show?
Probably the producers are keeping most of the material for the upcoming ps2 game but in the end, M:F ending felt like watered down and consequently the deserved final impact was toned down a lot.

ef~a Tale of Memories

He’s looking at you, kid.

I had some apprehensions at watching this but I decided to go for it in the end. I am glad I did since Chihiro and Kei shined throughout and Renji exceeded my expectations. My only gripe was that while the two story lines were well done, I didn’t like Miyako and Hiro. Hiro was a douche bag for trying to do everything and getting nothing done at all. Besides he chose the irresponsible and desperately clingy Miyako instead of the infinitely more awesome Kei. Since Chihiro found her happiness and Renji I will forgive Kei for being a jerk to Chihiro as kids. After all Kei was a kid at the time and that driver should have been more careful at that hairpin turn. Besides we all have done some spectacularly stupid shit as kids.

Miyako is really something else, lazy, and she stinks of desperation and petty jealousy. No doubt if Hiro spends time with their kids she’s going to get jealous. I don’t like jealous bitches, and during her voice mail blitz I was laughing manically at her breakdown. She was all but defeated by Kei’s shower gambit (or as I prefer to call it Kei’s Backhand Blow), voice mail deletion, and with the help of fate Operation Uphold the Promise. Miyako tired to seduce Hiro into breaking his promise and damn near succeeded. Only by having revenge intercourse was she able to weasel her way into Hiro’s heart, a dishonest and lazy tactic. Kei on the other hand used elaborate deceptions in her shower gambit, and she never did give up her virginity in a sick display of desperation. Miyako to me is slutty no good bitch who’s continuous crimes include drawing breath.

While Renji and Chihiro were simply darling together, I have a few misgivings about them having intercourse on the school roof. Seriously that place must have been terrible and unromantic since I can tell you from experience that lying upon concrete at night even when fully clothed can get bone chillingly cold and uncomfortable. I lament having to see regions of Chihiro that would have been otherwise covered. I don’t rue them for having intercourse but I’d lynch the director and animator for cheapening an otherwise wondrous and palatable development. Still since Renji and Chihiro worked it out in the end I can and do for give them for lying together on a school roof. If Renji wishes to honor his bride to be; he’d do well to choose a better location in the future with extreme prejudice.

Since the beginning that I’ve realized Ef – A Tale of Memories was going to be a masterpiece and the final episode didn’t let me down on that expectation. First of all, it gave something which most plots tend to forget and that I discussed before on the M:Y part of the post: Conclusion.

Everyone had their issues dealt with and their goals defined, giving the viewer a sense of accomplishment and acts as a reward for the characters, who endured all the conflicts depicted on the anime.