We have Teiichi Niiya, our main protagonist. He is the silent observer who does little to move the plot forward. Teiichi is the one who awakens Yuko-San from her slumber, thus creating a bond between the two.
Yuko Kanoe is the Dusk Maiden. Yuko is the "first girl wins" character and is utterly devoted to Teiichi. The two of them are the "official couple" pretty much from the first episode onwards. For the series credit, though, it is mentioned multiple times that this is because no one had ever touched or even paid attention to Yuko until Teiichi became aware of her, so it kind of makes sense. Yuko's split personality and psychological repression, causing her amnesia, is the main plot device and the main cause of our characters is to find out about Yuko's past.
Kirie Kanoe is the tsundere one, who is the only student besides Teiichi who can see ghost Yuko. Kirie joins the rest of the main cast on their quest to find out about Yuko's past for no apparent reason other than she has no friends and wants to hang around Teiichi for god-knows-why, since the viewers are exposed to absolutely nothing that could have sparked her romantic interest. Kirie is used as a narrator for audience, since our silent protagonist is oblivious to basically everything happening around him and needs to be talked through.
Momoe Okonogi is the moe one, mostly acting as a comedic relief. She is used to create both fun and tension, since she is the only main character who cannot see Yuko. Momoe is obsessed over Teiichi, constantly trying to make a move on him, which often leads to sticky situations since Yuko is usually always glued to Teiichi ("haunting him"), thus sparking jealousy.
We have a high school setting, (unwanted) harem, fan service in the form of gratuitous boob shots and boob grabs. We have the swimming pool episode and the culture festival episode. Even though there are attempts at being genuinely spooky from time to time, those are the times when this show truly falls on its face. I do believe this show at its core tried to emulate what, for example, the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya did. The spooky and unnatural elements of the show are sprinkled upon, used to create ambiance, while the real focus of the show is in character interaction and the funny bits.
The problem is that unlike with Haruhi, there is pretty much no depth to these characters whatsoever. They are what they are: card board cuts. There is no character development happening and characters' motivations are justified very poorly, if at all. This is a shame because towards the end I was still feeling involved in this series for one reason or another, and felt that the characters could have been given a proper background and some distinctive traits along the way.
The best thing Dusk Maiden had going for it were the character interactions between Yuko and Reiichi pawing each other, Momoe freaking over the seemingly otherworldly occurrences and Kirie getting worked up by the couple's insensitive behavior because she's the only one who can see them getting frisky. Even though the plot lacks meat and is delivered poorly, the humor worked for me. The series is only 12 episodes long, so if you have some tolerance for stupid BS and fancy humor and some mild fan service (and you have seen every other anime that deliver on these things), Dusk Maiden of Amnesia could be worth a try.
