EF a Tale Of Melodies Anime Review
By: Azrael Anacleto aka Cyranical
Have you ever wanted to watch and see what happens to one of your favorite anime of all time? Have you ever been real excited since one of your favorite anime is getting a season 2? Did you feel you're heart get pumped with joy, since you will get to see what happens to your favorite story and characters. Well I know I certainly experienced this with EF a tale of melodies the sequal to my top 7 anime of all time EF a tale of memories, but what do I think of this sequal to one of the best pieces of media that I have ever seen ever, we'll tune in and you'll find out. Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Cyranical and welcome to my EF a tale of melodies review, let's get it!!!
Ef a tale of melodies is the second season and continuation of EF a tale of memories, like the latter it is managed by studio Shaft and based of the visual novels EF the first tale and EF the latter tale. It tells the story of the supporting characters from memories, those being Himura Yuu, Chihiro's guardian, Amamiya Yuuko the former's lover, a girl that has suffered a tragic past at the hands of his poster guardian after being separated from Himura at the orphanage they grew up on. The first story is told in the past since the events have already unfolded, and it serves as the backstory for why Yuuko and Himura are always in the churches of both cities named Otowa despite being on different countries, one being in Germany and one being in Japan, despite this not being mentioned in memories it is highlighted to the viewer here in melodies. The second story takes place in the present timeline where Kuze Shuuichi a dying violinist and best friend of Himura meets the carefree and passionate 16 year old girl Hayama Mizuki aka the girl that has a crush on Kei in memories, the two then fall in love and everything goes into disarray as soon as Kuze's secret is revealed to Mizuki, and also since this story is practically encouraging ahem ahem pedophilia, a 30 year old man and a 16 year old girl great job anime, also don't worry the first story also has rape and pedophilia in it since the teacher is around his 30's as well and Yuuko is 16 , the anime must really love fucked up shit ha, anyway Imma go into further detail into this at the negatives section later, onto my expectations and positives first.
When I first started watching Ef a tale of melodies I had a lot of expectations for it, since if you've been following me recently you would know that I have updated my top 10 anime list of all time on my myanimelist account, and on the updated list I have memories as my number 7th anime of all time currently at the time of this review, personally that's an amazing feat for an anime to land on my top 10 list after my immediate completion of it, well done memories, this just speaks volumes of how good memories is as a romance anime, so everyone please check it out and you won't be dissapointed, now about Melodies, let me just make this clear, did it live up to my expectations, well yes and no, it fulfilled it's purpose of serving as a backstory for the supporting characters, since they are actually very important in the visual novels even though they are unplayable characters they act as our narrator's and catalyst for beautiful stories like Renji and Chihiro's, I guess in a sense melodies also lives up to definitely looking and feeling like a part of the anime series, since it has the same mood, atmosphere, symbolism and same set of characters, yes it definitely feels like it's a part of the franchise rather than being a weird sequal that feels disconnected with the original season like Fireforce season 2 and Cocoon of Caprice does, now let's get on to why it did not live up to my expectations well it had the same problems that season 1 has where the other story was way less interesting and worse than the other one, like don't get me wrong Hiro's story wasn't bad it was just way worse than Chihiro and Renji's, but with melodies I can't say the same since Himura and Yuko's story is not that great but when you put it next to Kuze and Mizuki's pedophilia story it looks like a masterpiece, also this season has a lot of unecessary drama in it, that's all I'll say since if I don't stop myself I'll pretty much go in depth here which will not be efficent for the negatives section, now since I'm done with my expectations of the series let's move on to it's positives.
First things first it's really good that melodies doesn't feel disconnected or out of place in the series, since if it does then that pretty much negates it's reason for being made, plus it would look really bad since EF is a story that focuses on continuity and it's characters, if season 2 ended up not being about the side characters from memories then it would be a disaster since yes in theory new stories could be good and a lot more interesting, but that's not EF's identity, Ef specializes in simple almost vanilla like slice of life stories that are very dramatic and have really good execution, for example EF is the only anime that can make a generic love triangle story look investing, interesting and actually way better and more complicated than it actually is, this has been proven by memories specifically Hiro's story.
Now melodies has all the elements that made the original great, and that's why it's not a bad anime, it's actually good, but compared to it's predecessor it's looks average since it's trying too hard to be good if not better than memories which it failed miserable at.
It has great animation courtesy of studio Shaft, and has that same effect in season 1 that when a character is feeling worried or is thinking about something real deep then it goes for dark colors and it has objects in the background associated with the character themselves, if they're feeling happy then it's the opposite the colors are all cheerful and vibrant which in turn makes the series way better to watch, furthermore highlighting it's mood and atmosphere and of course what the character's are experiencing and going through in their respective stories, in a sense the symbolism and color highlights make the characters and the story feel a lot more alive and investing for the viewer.
Next up we have new elements, now these elements are stuff I've already talked about in the review, and they create new drama, now it doesn't make the show good, in fact it hinders it, but I'll go way more in depth with that later, though I will commend them for trying something new since memories is a tough nut to surpass anyway, so I appreciate the innovation coming through for their part since they are trying to make a better anime or a show that is as good as the first one they had made.
Next up we have the OP and ED's they are decent, not as good as the first ones but they still have that EF vibe to them, now I only listened to them for 3 times and here's what I have concluded, the ED is way better than the OP which yes there are some anime that are like that but they are very few, but for me personally that list has been growing lately and I'm glad to see that melodies join the list of anime that have way better ED's than OP's.
Finally we have the final positive Himura and Yuko's story which is practically the saving grace for this anime since yes it does have good production, but let's face it good production does not automatically mean good anime, since we have shows such as his and her circumstances that have bad production and animation quality, but are still really good story and character wise. Now let me go through why Himura's story practically carries melodies, it's the better story out of the two, and even though it isn't as good as the past stories, it still looks way better compared to Kuze's story, and Himura's story suffers less from the new elements, those elements being artificial drama and sub conflicts that may or may not have been intended by the makers of the show, now his story does have the rape tidbit with it being revealed that Yuko his love interest and childhood friend that wanted to be his sister, but since he felt bad about using her as a replacement for his real sister that died along with the tragedy of his town, he rejects her which causes her to get adopted by a near relative that then dies then their guardian status get's transferred to Amamiya sensei, now Amamiya Sensei is a character that I still don't understand to this day, like how fucked up is this guy in the head, sure he serves as good conflict for Himura's story, "but besides that what's he's purpose?" This guy raped and physically abused Yuko because she started growing and didn't look like her sister anymore, like what bro, seek medical attention man, he claimes that the rape and physical abuse is punishment on Yuuko, the fuck is wrong with you man? He's also really cunning and gives Yuko a knife that he says can be used to kill him anytime anywhere , this psychological tactic then causes Yuuko to not reach out for help nor contact authorities about her unfortunate situation, "like what excuse me, if I was in her shoes even with the knife and shit I would still have reached out for help like what, that psychological tactict sucks anyway and seems like a risky one since if the people in this show used their brains then they would have been able to put two and two together that something is happening to Yuko especially Yuu and helped her sooner, also Yuko would have just killed this guy in his sleep no? Anyway all this stuff is not really much of a big deal in the story, or atleast that's how it's executed, which is a positive for this anime personally, let me explain it a lot better.
The rape and pedophilia aspect of the story is mentioned and shown in order to create drama and make Amamiya sensei a stronger antagonist, along with the circumstances that have plagued the two main characters in the story, those being Himura and Yuuko, now yes this guy legit commits physical and sexual abuse on an underage minor from a day to day basis and that's seriously messed up and immoral, and yes the reason this guy has for doing so basically boils down to him being crazy and psychologically damaged, but the anime somehow manages to make that less of a big deal, it somehow makes it look like a stepping stone for the conflict of the story, and at the end of the day upon further reconsideration this is based of a japanese visual novel anything is acceptable and possible, even if it's severaly messed up there are some people that like these types of things since they are degenerates with weird taste, now I don't know if this makes me sound lika a hyprocrite but I think the rape and pedophilia aspect this story has makes it more interesting and flavorful, since it has achieved it's initial goals, first it has managed to be a good and interesting story, while it also made Amamiya sensei a strong antagonist, I hate that guy so much btw screw him I hope he burns in hell, anyway to summarize my point, the story adds an interesting and sensitive tidbit to it to make it a little bit more spicy than usual, that in turn helps it stand out of the other story, btw the other story does have pedophilia written all over it but it does try to hide it just fails miserable at it, unlike Himura's story.
Aight we're finally here the negative's section, now I know I have hyped out this section a lot but I don't know if I can deliver since I've already spilled out a little bit of what I wanted to talk about in the Himura story rant, but however it turned out just know that I'm already tired and I still need to revise and do a grammar check for this review, and I have ranted already about the negatives without intending to, don't get me wrong I will go in depth and all, but if it comes out as repetitive or less hype than I envisioned it to be then yeah I've already warned you. Let's get started, first of all let's go with the big fish first, why is Kuze's story lackluster compared to Himura Yuu's, imma also adress the new elements that I have talked before which is unecessary drama and subconflicts while I adress this negative.
Now Kuze's story I could care less about it, not only is it's execution weak, the main characters are also weak, like Kuze and Mizuki are not that interesting, if anything I'm more interested in Nagi and what Chihiro is up to nowadays, but instead we get a pitiful guy that put's up a font that he's not scared of death and that he's ready for it, when in truth he's super scared of it and it frightens his very soul every second, his facade is so weak that a 16 year old girl is able to break it so easily. Then there's Mizuki, this girl is your average cheerful girl that is still searching for her path in life, which is natural since she's only 16, but come on she's not that interesting and she's so boring, like her whole thing is being cute right, but in memories she was not cute at all, in fact she's annoying and in melodies it also feels like that, no scratch that she's even more annoying than usual, like it's to the point where she makes me cringe a bit every time I see her in my screen, also some main heroine she is, have you ever seen a heroine with less impact and screentime than her, come on melodies man full yourself together you had so much potential and you wasted it ha.
Moving on the production quality of Kuze and Mizuki's story is not as good as Himura and Yuko's story, like yeah the story is there, but it feels lackluster compared to it's other counterpart, the two stories should be equal right that's the whole charm of EF, it's what it does, it goes for two stories and executes them both well that they make a simple love triangle feel like an absolute masterpiece of a romance story that it is easily able to surpass other shows of the genre, but how come the Himura story got two full episodes dedicated to it, but not one full episode was handed over for Kuze and Mizuki, it feels like the studio itself is ashamed of their second story since they found had it had pedo tendencies in it, now they just want to scap it, because it feels like they themselves feel ashamed of this story, like how are you able to mismanage the right amount of screentime for each stories, if you were able to do it perfectly for the it's predecessor, it's like they either hated Kuze's story or they just already stopped giving a fuck altogether.
Let's talk about the final negative so that we can move on to the pros and cons section shall we. Aight so it's about the new elements that they added right , unecessary drama, now let's talk about what the purpose of adding new elements are in correlation to making the finish product good, new elements are added in order to spice things up and help the story out a bit more right, they're added in order to make the show a lot better, but how come they did the opposite effect of what their purpose was, then what's their purpose, it ends up being nothing since they didn't do their job, they come off as a hindrance instead, let's start off with Kuze's story this guy is legit a shallow character, so shallow that even added drama elements can't save him. He put's up a font that he's not scared to die, but in reality he's very scared and he curses the heaven's on why they had to give him a heart disease and why can't he just have a normal long life like all the people around him, yet when people like Mizuki figure him out, he pushes them away because he thinks he's preventing the damage that way, that he's not making them feel attached therefore preventing them from getting hurt with his death right, but since he's so stupid like normal people are he doesn't realize that people are already attached to him, and that they are getting hurt even more by seeing him sad, seeing him bear the burden along, seeing him distance himself from them, what an idiot, he's not deep as a character at all he's a normal person at the end of the day, like I came here to watch unique and interesting characters and stories right, instead I get weak heroes and heroines like Kuze and Mizuki, do you realize how dissapointed I am right now, isn't this japanese fiction where everything is possible and people are interesting and out of the ordinary, like what is this you're showing me instead, a lame story with shallow leads, like come on man, I came here to watch and relieve my boredom of my boring life and this is what you give me a boring male lead with pedo tendencies and a lackluster execution of a story ha, whatever, I'm over it.
The pedophilia tidbit is implied but not heavily right, it's supposed to be lowkey and the show is trying to conceal it right? How come it's so blatanly obvious if you have good observation skills like me, a critic, or is using you're brain as a viewer, like come on did shaft just did a terrible job of concealing it, okay so the show has a mood and atmosphere that avoides it right, but how come as a viewer it's too damn obvious that the show itself is contradicting it's own mood and atmosphere and is blatanly advertising the story is about pedophilia. What the actual fuck melodies?
Then with Himura's story we get this subconflict that is constantly brought up that it feels like it's the main conflict, that's right were talking about the" oh I didn't mean to use Yuko as substitute for my dead sister, but deep down that's actually what I wanted all along even though I keep on denying it whenever it is pointed out to me everytime, I have a problem of getting through my past and not being able to move on from it" I mean yeah that's his character even when Yuko herself asks her to forget about him and be happy with someone else, he's still not able to do it after all these years, yet when people asks him about it he says I have forgotten all about the past. Shaft come on, this subconflict worked the first time around, but it won't work if you keep on bringing it up every single godamn time, it loses it's value over repetition, just please notice you're anime's problems and fix them before showing your finished product on T.V.
Lastly what's up with Kuze's ending, the operation that allows him to live for three more years wasn't even shown. His ending was just adlibbed, oh here's a scene that's actually lowkey Kuze's ending, you're never seeing him after this again btw, the said scene goes like this, Himura and Kuze talk then he casually drops a oh I'm doing exercises in hopes of them helping out my condition. Excuse me what is up with this no effort ending, isn't the ending of a story supposed to be really important, why did you just butcher it like that, now I don't like the cheezy power of love cures Chihiro's memory problem ending that memories had, since if platitudes healed people's problems then everyone would be a doctor, but Imma just chalk it up to japanese literature I guess, since I liked everything else about memories, but with Kuze's ending I would have liked the Mizuki's love was strong enough to cure Kuze's heart disease ending a lot more no matter how bullshit it is compared to what we have gotten, jesus christ man.
Pros:
-Still has the same elements that made EF a great series
-Decent OP and ED
-Himura and Yuko's story hard carries
-Good animation
-Himura's story has a decent ending
Cons:
-Has way too many problems
-Leads for second story are very weak
-Introduces unecessary drama
-Introduces subconflicts that hinder the show
-Has pedophilia and rape in it
-Garbage ending for Kuze's story
-Not nearly as good nor as entertaining compared to memories
-Both stories are decent but aren't executed as well as in memories
Overall EF a tale of melodies is a decent second season to a really good anime, too bad it has a lot of problems that are hindering it from being as good if not better than it's predecessor, the show itself can be described simply with the phrase wasted potential. If you're looking for a really good romance anime then I recommend Ef a tale of memories, check it out you won't be dissapointed, it's an absolute banger, also I don't really recommend contuining to Ef a tale of melodies unless you're really invested in the characters and the story. I give EF a tale of melodies a 7/10 for my overall anime rating.
