FunBlog

ef–a tale of melodies provides a neat answer to one of the main objections that I raised to it’s predecessor ef–a tale of memories. Unfortunately it strikes me as the sort of answer that creates more problems than it solves.

oni visual novelApparently there are two identical-looking Japanese cities called “Otowa”, one in Japan and one in Australia. No explanation is provided as to how this came about; even the characters sound a bit disbelieving as they explain it. Did the Japanese, perhaps, decide to build duplicate cities when they colonized Australia in 1945?

This does indeed solve one major problem: we now learn that Kei lives in Japan while Chihiro lives in Australia. But the more I think about this the more problems I see. For example, both cities must have been devastated by earthquakes at about the same time, and rebuilt in the same way. How likely is that?

Furthermore Yuu Himura and his church have to exist in both cities simultaneously. Is he a supernatural being? Or does he have an identical twin brother?

Maybe this is all part of a brilliant master plan by the writers. On the other hand, maybe the writers just realized what a monstrous plot hole they had created when they first combined two separate visual novels into a single anime, and are now engaged in the wildest backfilling operation in history in an attempt to cover it up.

This is the time of year when anime bloggers are busy posting their “Top 10 Lists” or other listings of the year’s best and worst. I’m not really in a position to do a top 10 list. I don’t watch nearly enough anime to make a meaningful judgment about which of the 120-odd shows broadcast last year were the 10 best or worst. I’ve seen only a minuscule sample, and from that I’d have to exclude any shows that haven’t ended yet, since the ending often makes all the difference.

What I will do is list some shows that made a significant impression on me (not always in a good way.) If your favorite show isn’t listed below and it ended in 2007, it’s quite possible that’s because I haven’t seen it.
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