It’s been a while, huh. I hope you didn’t forget me. On that topic, it’s time for another Rising Sun, and this time, I’ll be reviewing something out of my comfort zone: Amnesia.

Amnesia, which aired in Japan in the winter of 2013, is the anime adaptation of the visual novel game Amnesia: Memories, which is available on Steam for $30 (rated Teen for suggestive themes and language)

The series revolves around a nameless protagonist who realizes she has lost all of her memories prior to Aug. 1. In the confusion, she meets a spirit named Orion, who wants to help her recover her memories. But he warns her that if she goes to the hospital, chances are favorable her amnesia will escalate and kill her. And to make things even more complicated, time keeps resetting and the relationship with the four young men she’s acquainted with is constantly changing.

The story is really intriguing. I don’t really watch romance shows all that often, but Amnesia puts a nice spin on the genre that makes it pretty alluring. To make things even better, all of the major characters are round and have many character traits. They all have their moments where they don’t act in agreeable ways, and that gives the show a sense of realism you’d assume adding spiritual elements like Orion would take away.

Of course, I’ll admit the show is pretty confusing at times. I think the aim is to make you think “What is going on here?”, so you can more easily sympathize with the nameless protagonist. Why is she nameless, you might ask? Simple. In the game, you can give her whatever name you want, since she’s supposed to represent you in this situation. So to keep this idea intact, the anime doesn’t give her a name. In other shows, this seems pointless, but in a visual novel based around the loss of memories, it works.

Turning to the aesthetics, I really like the feel of the show. The character designs are unique and memorable, and you can easily distinguish the characters apart. On top of that, the character designer used a playing card motif in the male characters, a motif I don’t see all that often, so it’s a breath of fresh air from the conventional anime characters. The animation, isn’t consistently good, however. Most of the time, it’s really good. But when it fails, such is in a close-up shot of the protagonist falling off a cliff, it fails hard. From the studio that made the Kyoukai no Rinne anime, one of the best-looking recent anime I’ve seen, this is a bit of a disappointment.

The music, on the other hand, is more consistently good. It’s not memorable by any stretch, but it succeeds in capturing the mood of the scenes, mystical, intense and soft. I’m not looking for a soundtrack that I can hum along to after watching the show. (Even though if that happens, it means it is an extremely good score, like the kind Yuki Kajiura puts out) Come to think of it, there were a few times where the score took on a Kajiura-esque direction. Continuing on with the music, this is the first time since the Madoka Magica movies that I mentioned the vocal music, but I feel the best piece of music associated with this show is it’s theme song: Zoetrope by Nagi Yanagi. It’s so good, I put a video of the opening credits in the review so you can listen to the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPqphxKapm8

The Japanese-language voice cast is another strong point of the anime. I personally prefer dubs (which why I’m disappointed that Sentai Filmworks didn’t put the dub of this show on Hulu) but I will give credit where it’s due that the Japanese cast has a strong handle on the characters. Kaori Nazuka (The nameless protagonist) genuinely gives the impression that she is a quiet girl confused about a world she doesn’t recognize. The boyish voice of Hiromi Igarashi (Orion) suits her character, and while I don’t expect Orion to have many appearances in the later part of the series, it’s a treat when he does appear.

So getting to the point, if you like romance, mysteries, computer games or all three, give Amnesia a shot on Hulu or Crunchyroll. (The show is also available on DVD, complete with an aforementioned English dub.) And since I’ve heard the game is packed to the brim with content, I don’t think $30 is too much of a loss if you choose to support whatever brilliant mind came up with this show. I know I want to play the game. (Maybe I should review that too.)