Ranked #4161

To Heart: Remember My Memories

WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S HOLY HAPPENED TO THIS SERIES!!!

The original To Heart is rather enjoyable. It's a nice slice of life show that gets misnomered as a harem romance. This extension on the other hand, should never have been made.

The story in Remember My Memories is set around a year after the end of To Heart. Multi has left, Hiroyuki, Akari, and the rest of the cast are still pretty much the same. Hiroyuki is pining for Multi though when she suddenly comes back to school, only for everyone to be told she has the robot form of amnesia!?!?

Okay, I'm not going to harp on about the rest of the story, which in itself is pretty much standard fare. The creators decided to turn what was an enjoyabl slice of life show into a true harem romance/drama. The only problem is they failed abysmally.

The art and animation are sorely lacking in Remember My Memories. Gone is the naturalistic character design and the nice watercolour stillframes. In their place the animators saw fit to make the faces more angular (pointy chins abound in this show). The animation is decidely jerky, and the colour palette has been changed to make the show more "cheery" (failing miserably at this as well).

The sound is another area where a lot of corners have been cut. There's no mellow BGMs in this show, and the effects are sometimes random. The voice acting in this show has also dropped in quality (even though the same actors were used - how the hell did they manage that?). Ichijou Kazuya (the voice of Fujita Hiroyuki), must have been up all night smoking and drinking before recording this series. In the original To Heart his was quite smooth and well defined. In Remember My Memories he sounds like he's desperate and screaming all the time. The other voice actors are no better, which makes me think that these changes were intentionally added to "heighten" the drama (when all it did was make me want to kill the characters or kill myself).

The characters are the main reason why the show is a huge let down. As I pointed out, the voice acting was a major disaster, but the character flaws don't just end there. The creators have tried to make Remember My Memories more "dramatic", and with this in mind they have turned the characters into an abomination of what they originally were. In the original To Heart Hiroyuki was a kind, sensitive (if somewhat absent-minded) guy. In Remember My Memories his character comes across as annoying, whiny, selfish, angry (in other words, he's a brat). Akari was originally a gentle, caring girl, and although they tried to keep those traits for her character, they spoiled it by making the show "dramatic". Akari's character flaws are highlighted in many of the "dramatic" moments of the show, especially towards the end of the series. The supporting characters also suffer from this "drama", as many of their characteristics and personalities are just plain annoying now.

I'm not going to recommend this show to anyone except a complete masochist.

If you're a fan of the original To Heart, or even To Heart 2 (which, even though I didn't enjoy it as much as To Heart, is still miles better than Remember My Memories), then do not watch this show- ever! If you like a good story, romance, drama, great characters, great animation and sound, etc, then avoid this at all costs, and go watch Kanon or Clannad, or even Da Capo.

I'm not going to say anything good about this show (so those of you who liked it, don't hold your breath). It's bad - end of story. This series is to To Heart what The Phantom Menace is to Star Wars.

I'm not going to insult anyone who liked Remember My Memories, but I will say this - compare it to any other show of it's type and Remember My Memories loses in every department.

If I could sue the creators for making this pile of ...., then I would happily do so.

Oh, and for those of you who wonder why I didn't drop the show, I should point out that the show has to rate as a 1 or 0 for me to drop it. Remember My Memories may be bad, but it's not the worst I've seen (which is it's only saving grace). read more

To Heart provided us with a lovely first series, only to then collapse under the pressure of "newest animation technology", with awful characterization, pathetic try to have an actual dramatic story and in general, not being the slice of life it used to be.


~Story~ (3)

Remember the good old times when first season of To Heart was actually about this guy meeting many girls, and spending these days helping them, earning new friend, and in general doing nothing but being the main character of slice of life anime? Well screw that, we have an interesting story now, do we not?!
So some idiot in charge of this anime decided a whole 2nd season should be dedicated to a robot, an android if you will. Why in the Hell would you dedicate a story, potentially feeling of a main character, and attention of all other characters to a stupid, lifeless piece of metal?
So yeah, Multi losses memory, what a surprise, and we spend the rest of eternity bringing memories back, and whoopty doo, it works, and this is the most boring anime in the history of universe.


~Art~ (1)

Remember the watercoloring in original To Heart? Screw that too, we have awesome animation technique or whatever that will make our characters look like monsters of Silent Hill. They look so deformed in comparison with original, with they pointy features, huge glassy eyes, lack of any human-like feature, really. I remember seeing them was the first time my jaw actually dropped.


~Sound~ (3)

OK OK, music aside, I don't even want to discuss, it was pretty generic, but let's talk about voice acting.
Boy, oh boy, how I want to melt Multis' metal head on the surface of the Sun. I want to kill Akari and hide her body, but most of all I want to torture Hiroyuki until his voice either gets normal, becomes girly, or he just becomes a mute.
And that, by people, is just how awesome the voice acting is.


~Character~ (1)

How do I even begin. Our main character is a bloody robot who has a crush on our sexy protagonist. That is bringing the rate down for about 98%.
Hiroyuki is such a pain in the tushie. He always turn out nice and darling, although he is constantly yelling on everyone, especially Akari, and is eternally angry about every little thing, and is always right in this way or another, fighting for justice. As I said, he is a pain in the tushie.
Akari remained pretty much the same, only she became much more of a background character, which is a pity, because she can be sweet.
All in all, the cast is horrible. They tried to lighten things up with supporting characters showing up, some of them maturing and such, but it was so briefly, there was barely anything to enjoy.


~Enjoyment~ (3)

It began... OK, I suppose, putting aside the robot thingy, and going along with supposing Multi can feel and stuff, but it just became so painfully obvious, cliched and bloody ridiculous, that by the end, you can feel no more but shame you even watched this.


~Overall~ (3)

To Heart the original series is quite good, though not considered so by everyone because it has a very slow pace and very non-obvious romantic atmosphere. So, as its sequel, To Heart ~RMM~ failed harder that Higurashi's ecchi anniversary celebration... on the second thought, maybe not.
Go watch H2O or ef, or something, it is surely better. I recommend True Tears for those who like a little drama.

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