“I am Drunk” First Impressions – Tasogare Otome X Amnesia *hick*

Well, Blindability challenged everyone to write a first impression on a show of her choice. So, she chose for me Tasogare Otome X Amnesia, or Dusk Maiden of Amnesia. It doesn’t matter to me which title is better, because they’re both forgettable. Here’s a warning: I read some of the manga and I despised it, thus making it hard for me not to be biased about this episode or for me to make any sense (especially after the 14th Vodka shot).

 

When looking at previous anime made by Silver Link, you’ll find two series that feel  like they were done by Shaft. Of course, I’m talking about Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu and CubexCursedxCurious. Both series were directed by Shin Oonuma. He indeed worked on some Shaft series, mainly as a co-director alongside Akiyuki Shinbo. There was one show, on his track record, that caught my attention and it was Natsu no Arashi, which was a very funny series about time-travelling ghost cafe maids.

Basically, Oonuma took the same style of execution from the first episode of Natsu no Arashi and incorporated it into the first episode of Tasogare. Instead of the starting at the beginning of the story, which is the meeting between Yuuko and Teiichi, Tasogare Otome X Amnesia starts at a timeline, where the Detective Club has all its important members, and shows a scene twice with a different view.

The show starts off in the Detective Club room with the annoying Okonogi Momoe writing a report for the club. Objects are starting to fly without her noticing. DUMMMMMMB!!! When Teiichi Niiya appears, weird stuff happens in a way that Okonogi thinks he can read her mind. When the final member, Kirie, appears, they all talk about a mysterious case of an elevator starting off by itself.

8 minutes into the show, it rewinds back the entire scene in another view. This time, the ghost, Yuuko, is completely visible. She’s pretty much trolling, which causes Okonogi to misunderstand Teiichi is reading her mind when he was only answering Yuuko. Oh yeah, Yuuko is also the club president and she’s also responsible of the elevator case, as well as nearly all supernatural cases in their school.

You see; when Natsu no Arashi made the replay thing, you could still get something new out of it. In Tasogare’s case, you get none of that. The ghost thing was far too obvious in the first part. It could have worked if it was a light novel. Sure, it got me a few chuckle when Yuuko was trolling, but I didn’t feel it needed to be shown twice.

Why Okonogi got so much air time is a mystery to me. She’s was too annoying for me to handle, without my vodka. She’s not funny!! SAVE ME VODKA!

The best thing about this episode is arguably the Opening, “Choir Jail” surprisingly sung by a newbie called Konomi Suzuki. It’s a surprise because it felt it was sung by Ali Project‘s chorist. It must be the vodka kicking in.

Tasogare Otome X Amnesia, by its story and its cast of characters, will not be able to a particularly good anime in my opinion. Trust me (or Trust my vodka), I read the manga. It’s “meh” at best. However, with Shin Oonuma as the director, if this Silver Link anime is visually creative like a Shaft anime, it “may” become a decent show. You can’t deny the show looks good. That’s a positive, I guess.

Let me kill some expectations here (and you can stop reading if you want). Those looking for horror is not going to get what they expect, even if the last moment of the episode contradicts what I am saying (look at the picture above). Tasogare Otome x Amnesia is really just a dramatic love comedy that pretends to be horror. The main thing about the manga is that, whenever something supposedly scary happens, the story turns into a drama about love. The pseudo-horror part is just there to spice things up with the romance between Yuuko and Teiichi. And I’m not expecting that to change in the anime.

Will I blog this?

Don’t make me. Seeing how I went through 14 shots, I don’t have enough vodka bottles for that. Besides, I got better things to do, like counting cats in Kimi to Boku II for people looking to drink Vodka when doing a marathon of that show.