Ef could really be thought of as two tales combined into one, as it follows two different sets of protagonists in their struggles to overcome their life problems. Hirono, an unmotivated high school student and fledgling manga artist, often has to have his longtime best friend Kei pick up the slack for him and make sure he keeps up with his education. One day however, Hirono encounters a girl named Miyako who frequently attempts to drag him away from his studies, which not only angers Kei for distracting him, but also starts to fuel her jealousy, as Miyako and Hirono increasingly become more attached to each other over time. The other tale focuses on Kei's sister Chihiro, who had suffered from a serious accident early in her life causing her to only retain the last 13 hours of her memory along with the memories she had prior to the accident. As a result, she continually has to relive the pain and realization that she will no longer be able to accumulate memories for the rest of her life. Through a chance meeting with a boy named Renji however, she is presented with a glimmer of hope that the remainder of her existence may not be so miserable as predicted. And that more or less sets the stage for the majority of the plot to come.
I really liked the idea of having two different plotlines essentially running parallel to each other with a completely different cast of characters placed in each thread. It's an interesting way of presenting the narrative that is rarely explored in anime or most any medium for that matter. Unfortunately though, it missed a huge opportunity to explore this concept to its fullest potential by eventually having the two plotlines intersect, which would open up interesting possibilities for the two sets of characters to share insights with each other. For example, Renji struggles with his future not knowing what he wants to do with his life. In contrast, Hirono is already living out his passions as a manga artist. Having the two characters eventually cross paths would have allowed Hirono to offer up some advice for Renji in helping him discover his passion, and likewise Renji--being the more sensitive-minded protagonist of the series--could have helped Hirono understand Kei's feelings better, but none of these possibilities are ever explored. Instead, we are only given a handful of situations where Kei and Chihiro occasionally exchange text messages on their cell phones. Consequently, this leaves the whole dual-plotline aspect of the narrative feeling mostly superfluous, and it just left me wondering why they didn't simply tell the two stories as completely separate anime. Since there was so little attempt at linking the two plotlines together, there wasn't much point in presenting them together when they have no real impact on each other. It merely breaks up the flow of the story unnecessarily. This problem is especially exemplified in the first episode. Because it has to spend time setting the stage for two sets of main characters instead of one, the introductory episode just ends up feeling like a series of jumbled random events that fail to hook you into the story and don't even find enough time to establish that Chihiro has a disability yet.
The problems worsen for the series when we examine Hirono's story arc, which mostly rehashes typical love triangle tropes and doesn't do anything particularly interesting with them. Further adding insult to injury, neither of Hirono's love interests are very likeable characters, nor is Hirono himself for that matter. Miyako mostly comes off as selfish and clingy, with very few if any redeeming qualities at all. She has no real hobbies or personal interests that make her unique, and she shows no genuine concern for Hirono and his problems beyond any that pertain to herself, which really makes me wonder why Hirono finds any interest in her at all. Kei is at least a slightly more palatable character, being that she has a talent for basketball and she makes an effort to look out for Hirono, but when her jealous side starts to kick in, she can be almost as cruel and selfish as Miyako. On top of all this, Hirono is painfully bad at recognizing Kei's feelings, and his inconsiderateness similarly makes him unlikeable. The one good aspect to this story arc however was the revelation that Kei had where she realized that she waited far too long to express her true feelings for Hirono. It's something that I could relate to in my own life and it is well-handled in that it shows how people continually delay saying things that need to be said thinking that there will always be a more appropriate time in the future to do so, but in reality that ideal future will never come and there is no better time than the present. All things considered though, this story arc was mostly underwhelming in its execution.
Thankfully Chihiro's story is significantly more worthwhile, offering up more relatable characters and a satisfying conclusion, along with its much more in-depth exploration of the anime's key theme: memories. Watching Chihiro struggle with her memory problems was heart-wrenching and engaging, and Renji, unlike Hirono, actually gives a damn about the things he does and the people he affects; making the characters on this side of the plot a hell of a lot more sympathetic.
Even in spite of Chihiro's tale offering a better story though, both sides of the plot suffer from still more narrative problems. Very little actually happens from episode-to-episode, with many of the characters often trailing off into long bouts of small talk, monologues, and introspections that aren't particularly enthralling or justifiable in wasting your time, and considering that this anime is only 12 episodes long as it is, there really shouldn't be any excuse for such slow pacing. These tedious moments are often further exacerbated by the animation, which seems like it's trying to pass itself off as being "artsy" with experimental abstract techniques, but what it's really doing is just allowing the animators to be lazy and take a break. For instance, at one point in the plot Miyako has an emotional breakdown on the phone when she realizes she can't reach Hirono, so she proceeds to leave a very long series of messages repeatedly begging him to answer. Not only is the dialogue lengthy and monotonous here, but it's all set to an entirely static backdrop with nothing else but text appearing on-screen. We never actually get to see Miyako's facial expressions the whole time, which would have added much more dramatic effect, aside from being more interesting in general than having us stare at a static background for an uncomfortably prolonged period of time. As for the art and animation overall, it seems merely passable when it's doing its job and feels like it's trying to take shortcuts when it ventures into the experimental like the example above. The color palette has a sort of "washed out" effect to it which creates a melancholic atmosphere that was likely done as a stylistic choice to differentiate the anime, but as an unintended side effect it makes the visuals look more dated than they actually are.
As I have only seen the dub, I cannot make a comparison between the two audio tracks, but I will give a brief overview on the quality of the voice acting. If you're a frequent dub watcher, you'll probably recognize that most of the voice cast from Clannad is present in this series, with experienced actresses like Brittney Karbowski as Kei, Monica Rial as Chihiro, and Luci Christian as Miyako. On the whole though, the quality of the dub doesn't quite stack up to Clannad's; in part because Greg Ayres feels miscast as Hirono, who sounds less mature than he looks as a result. Monica Rial also tends to be cast in a lot of moe roles when her voice is far from moe, and unfortunately this is another one of those cases. She is a talented actress, but much like Greg Ayres, she is frequently misused. Regardless, even if Ef had a better dub, it would have done little to alleviate the bigger problems with this anime.
Ef: A Tale of Memories attempts to explore many interesting and relatable themes dealing with love, jealousy, memories, and loneliness. Though sometimes it succeeds, the pointless use of dual plotlines and the often uneventful pacing take a severe toll on the narrative, aside from Hirono's story arc being mostly disappointing to begin with. I can only recommend this series to enthusiasts of the genre, as Chihiro's tale may be just enough to satisfy, but for a more casual romance viewer like myself, it's difficult to justify the time spent.
