Preparing for more effing ef
Get out your eyepatches, yarrrr
As you may have heard, a sequel to the popular visual-novel-turned-anime ef: a tale of memories is coming in the next few weeks, hopefully to power us through the fall season angstily. ef seems to be a touchy topic: some people find it a perfect case for attempting to give an anime series a handjob, while others condemn it as artsy pretentiousness. In preparation for the upcoming ef: a tale of melodies, here are some nice election-year-ready arguments you can use around the dinner table when dealing with both the ef-ignorant and the ef-haters among your family and friends.
“I don’t like visual novel adaptations.”
This is probably the hardest one to start with. ef has all the trappings of a VN story. The girl with the tragic yet mysterious problem, the love triangle, the childhood friend, the mysterious stranger who observes the situation, and most of all, the wrenching melodrama. But you really have to boil it down not to what makes a VN what it is, but what makes it suck — and what ef does to counteract that.
- Two stories, two males, three females. There’s your character roundup. Compare that to, say, a Shuffle! or even a Clannad, with a single male protagonist going up against a virtual Hinata Inn of girls. In ef, all characters are actually characters, not just potential pairings for a male lead. Essentially what I’m saying, a VN adaptation doesn’t necessarily mean a harem show.
- The tsundere, the genki girl, a loli, the space cadet genius, blah blah, you won’t find them here. Miyako’s a little crazy, but like True Tears’ Noe, she’s a believable kind of crazy that you may have met/dated/gotten 100 voicemails from before.
- It offers something different than just regular unrequited love or fake-ass distant courtship. I get so damn tired of these chaste anime kids who can’t even manage to hold hands. ef’s characters kiss, call each other out for corny lines, and even enjoy a little bit of the old in-out. That’s refreshing.
- Speaking of refreshing, try this spoiler: Show ▼
- How many VN adaptations have the elements of suspense and darkness in ef? Not many, I’d wager, and School Days spent its first half being shitty.
“It’s all style and no substance.”
Well, it does have style. I suppose that means that most VN adaptation have no style and no substance? Fine by me, you go ahead and watch those, I’ll watch the one with style.
“Everyone thinks it’s so deep.”
I don’t see how that’s the animation’s fault. TV anime usualy lacks depth. Even Kaiba didn’t have that much to say in the end, though it said it well. So when something comes along that even implies a little depth, it’s latched onto by fans and the blogging world pretty quickly. Not the series’ fault if some people projected too much depth onto it. Perhaps the style seemed to imbue ef with a hidden meaning or depth that it didn’t really have. Either way, even if nothing was behind it, ef was provocative, and I don’t see how that’s bad.
“The animation is distracting.”
Touchy subject, so this one is multiple choice:
- I find your breath distracting.
- Your MOM’s distracting! Hooooo!
- Give it a chance, it just becomes part of the show eventually and it’s not distracting anymore.
- That shit was necessary. Without Shin Onuma and Shaft’s self-conscious “artsiness” (as an art-ignorant Philistine like yourself may call it), we’d never have The Phone Card Scene, one of the most harrowing and nail-biting bits of (melo)dramatic anime ever made.
“There are no lesbians.”
There are in some versions.
Anyway…
For a VN adaptation, or for a dramatic anime in general, ef works pretty well. It did away with some of the more standard symbols, shortcuts, and easy routes that anime romance often follows, and it did so with great style. This time around, we’ve seen all the tricks that ef had to offer, so is A Tale of Melodies going to have the same impact? Probably not, but under the stylistic uniqueness and the head-spin factor, A Tale of Memories was a very good, well-executed story that stood up to multiple viewings, and that bodes pretty well for its sequel.
- otou-san out!
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I didn’t get the joke. I suspected you were trying to make a pun on ef being touching, but in that case it was giving the viewer a handjob, not vice versa.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
You give me too much credit for witty puns. Sadly, I’m not that funny. I just meant that if ef were a human instead of an anime, there are fans out there who would gladly give it a tug.
September 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 am
ef is pretty damn good. The ending was like vomiting candy onto a pile of corpses and being like: “Look, candy!” But in any case, it was amazing. I honestly didn’t find any cliches in this anime. I mean, it’s all been done before, love triangle (see: every show?), memory loss (see: 50 First Dates), but in ef, I felt like it was all knew because the characters were so well done. It’s not even that they were that complex (read: had-fifty-billion-complexes-and-also-were-robots-yes-I-am-looking-you-Eva) but their sort of simple issues — insecurity, abandoment, writers block — made them more real.
That’s just about the love triangle though.
In the memory loss story… Holy God. Those were some of the best characters I’ve ever, ever seen. On par with Eva, definitely (not in terms of the show, just as far as the characters go).
That being said, it’s not like, anime canon or anything. It’s not seminal or revolutionary, although its direction is pretty orgasmic. It’s just an arty, metaphor-laden drama. One of the best dramas I’ve seen in the medium. Watch it. It’s good.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 am
The Phone Card Scene was indeed one of the most harrowing and nail-biting bits of (melo)dramatic anime ever made.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Great post.
I think pretty much the same thing as you do on the first ef series (although I’m one of those people who probably read too much into it!) - as Ted said here, the storytelling is so well done that originality isn’t an issue.
I suppose the art style really helped gain it some of the attention it got from the viewers but as much as this in turns baffled and amazed me, it was a good old fashioned romance story about characters I could care about.
It’s been said many times already but that phone scene was absolutely superb. Anno-esque, almost. ^_^
September 4th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Ted - It’s funny that realism in the characters is such a strong suit of the series when another strength is that it has such an overall fantasy feel to it. I agree that it probably isn’t anime canon or whatever, but it comes closer than most of the genre.
Martin - I’ve never seen anything described as Anno-esque, but I suppose it’s apt. Although anything truly Anno-esque would have to demonstrate just a little contempt for humanity (and the viewer…)
September 5th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
A friend introduced me to ef by saying it had a terrible story, but was so pretty it could be forgiven. After watching it, I have to say I kind of see where he comes from. I wouldn’t call it revolutionary - when you boil it down it’s just a memory loss plotline (not the first time that’s been done) and a love triangle (certainly not the first time that’s been done either).
Not even regarding the style, the plot is still executed very well. For a visual novel adaption, this alrealy elevates its status. Throw in the animation, style and panache it has, and it makes it a very, very good show indeed. Like you said, it doesn’t muck about with issues that other shows of this type think are serious business, which makes it much more realistic. It really ramps up the drama when it wants to as well.
I don’t care how many times it’s been mentioned - my heart was in my mouth for that phone box scene. The music, the words, just everything about it was pure class.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
PS: For all the love the phone card scene gets (epic), My favorite scene in the whole thing is the 1000(or so) message scene. I’ve always been a fan of the extended stills and the characters (kanji?) piling up is so perfect for capturing her situation; just an amazing scene. It reminds me of Kaworu’s death scene from NGE.
November 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
[...] by on whack-tastic visual effects alone; there was a gripping story there. The Anno-esque (thanks Martin) phone card scene would not have worked without a character like Miyako there to support it. Now [...]