The dusk maiden of amnesia is a 2012 anime series that's based off a manga of the same thing. It follows a group of students and a ghost that mysteriously died 60 years ago and how they investigate paranormal activities and try to find out how the ghost died while a interesting romance develops. Despite being a very serious sypnosis there is actually a significant amount of comedy in this series and that is both good and bad at the same time.
Dusk maiden of amnesia has a fairly well executed story. A lot of the time it follows the escapades of the paranormal investigation club. What I thought was unique is that the ghost is the president of the actual club. One major problem I had with the story though was that it can sometimes be confusing and it avoid the goal. Like this makes the plot progression unfortunately kind of poor.
Another big issue I had is the poorly timed comedy. When the show is trying to build an ominous atmosphere within a scene all of that built up immersion is broken when random fan service or comedy is added. Though the transition becomes better in the second half. The second half of the series is undeniably better due to it being overall more engaging and it actually cuts to the point.
One last gripe is the ending. The ending was ok but I felt that there was one scene that would have made the ending way more memorable. But than I felt they took the wussy way out and just gave us this ending that lessened the impact. But it could have been a lot worse. One positive thing is that the school setting doesn't just feel like a cheap back drop. There is some meaningful world building and lore that makes the setting more fascinating than other school set anime. There are also some well intergrated themes in the anime.
The characters in this show are the most impressive part of the anime. For the most part they all have solid development and they enhance the story very well. The main protagonist, Niiya, has an interesting dilemma within the story and has an excellent relationship with Yuuko and the other characters in the story. Yuuko was a fascinating heroine and she has one of the greatest examples of eternal conflict I've seen in a long time. Kirie started out as kind of bring but she develops nicely over the course of the series. Okonogi unfortunately is not as interesting as the others big still has a good relationship with niiya. An interesting note is that Yuuko reminds me of senjougohara from Bakemonogatari.
That actual music of this anime is pretty decent. There are a few standout tracks but where it really gets good is the opening and ending scenes. These songs work well with the themes of the entire anime. The voice acting was also good and I had no complaints with how the seiyuu portrayed their respective characters. The animation was very pretty and had a sense of gloss and polish. However the background characters were all black silhouettes and this came across as kind of lazy.
In conclusion The dusk maiden of amnesia is an intruiging mystery anime with some great characters and an addicting quality. However there were some incongruencies I had with the narrative and background art. But for those who like mystery and ghosts this one is worth a watch.
