Tasogare Otome X Amnesia is a story where a boy, Niiya Teiichi, who hears about a ghost story in his school that resides in the older parts of the building. On investigation he meets a female, Kanoe Yuuko, and to his surprise is the ghost of the story. However, Yuuko knows nothing about her past and Teiichi become determined to find out.
Story
When first hearing the premise of the story and the way the anime starts, you may make the assumption that it is lighthearted and not that much would be taken seriously. However, getting further down in the back story of Yuuko you find out how much of a dark past she has and the ways she is dealing with them for the past 60 years.
The concept of a ghost looking for what in the past she regrets or is hanging on to in this world isn't that original of an idea. The thing that kept me interested in this anime was the way they presented the characters and there involvement in this mystery of Yuuko's past.
With that said the flow of the story is a bit jarring because it can have a few episode with some heavy story elements, with a dark tone, and then the next episode is very comedic and upbeat; living the previous events feeling not as important as it was presented. I guess this is to break up the flow of the story, but it being only 12 episodes I got just a little bit of shock from the quick changes of feeling in each episode.
Overall I really enjoyed what got I from the darker parts of the anime and the "comic relief" part had its moments, however they felt out of place. The only thing that really made me sightly disappointed was the ending, mainly because it felt like it was forced to a happy ended when it could of been left much more heartfelt and meaningful of a story.
Art
Just like the flow of the story, the art style changes with the mood it is conveying. The average look and feel of the anime is clean with a ton of bright colors and crispy flowing animations. Compared to the heavier parts where the art changes to a lower contrast, with most of the characters presented as almost shadows and the animation feel jagged almost demented.
This drastic difference in styles works well as a standalone peice, however also contributes to that weird feeling of context switching between the opposing perspective within the anime. Regardless, I can confidently say that the art is really well done, thought out and it kept me immersed in the story.
Characters
- Kanoe Yuuko (voice: Hara Yumi)
- Kanoe Kirie (voice: Kitamura Eri)
- Niiya Teiichi (voice: Yonaga Tsubasa)
- Okonogi Momoe (voice: Fukuen Misato)
The meat of the story is centered around Kanoe Yuuko, a teenage ghost who has been dead for over 60 years. Being a wondering spirit for so long, she has developed a great loneliness because of her limited, if at all any, amounts of human interaction. That being said she become attached to the people that can interact with her an anyway, however being a ghost makes humans interpret Yuuko's presence in different ways, but it ends up to be mostly fear. So when someone comes along and isn't afraid of Yuuko she becomes attached and very reliant on him for comfort.
Being the main focus of the story, she is the one that changes the most, but it isn't that noticeable since the change is more about her accepting herself for who she is. Overall, Yuuko is a pretty solid character that has an interesting back story that justifies all the quirks shown, before her actual background was presented.
Looking at the name itself, Kanoe Kirie is related to Yuuko, separated by two generations. Kirie pretty much serves as Teiichi's guide, she consoles Teiichi throughout most of the development between him and Yuuko. Being a guide didn't make her a flat character at all, she had some spice to personally that made her stick out for the aways sweet Yuuko. Kirie has her light amount of tsudere, which I'm not a fan of, but it was subtle enough that it wasn't annoying. Her harsh but caring approach to guiding Teiichi really did make her stand out and compared to Teiichi and Momoe, I liked Kirie more.
The only male lead and Yuuko's love interest, Niiya Teiichi is one of those standard male character you see in most anime. He is really nice and cares a little too much about everyone, however he does have his selfish side when it comes to Yuuko. In reality, Teiichi felt like a device used to tell a story to because of his genericness. As a consequence I wasn't a fan of him, but I guess you could say he was a decent observer and not much of a character.
The comedic relief of the cast, Okonogi Momoe isn't there most of the time and the weakest the four, in terms of character. She pretty much follows Teiichi around when ever she can and gets scared quite easily, despite her interest in the occult. There really isn't much to say about her simply because she contributed nothing to the series besides the role of the oblivious one that "makes a funny" sometimes.
Overall
I don't like giving things a score so I'm just going to wrap this up with give it watch. Some people don't like very serious topics in their anime, however I think Tasogare Otomoe x Amnesia really does a good job showing the progression of a character in torment work her way though. For a twelve episode anime it had good pacing and fleshed out Yuuko enough to not feel like it was lacking.