Apr26
Just when you thought you could forget about this series…
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Don’t get forget about Amnesia just yet! …Even though I completely forgot that I had written this post. I think I said this would be out, what, a month ago? I have the game summary here just so you can see how much they left out of the anime. …Or if you dropped the series early, this is why you should or shouldn’t go back to watch it since they followed the game pretty closely, but still left a ton of things that would have made it better out. …Or you could just substitute watching the anime for this review, you might get more out of it. |
The heroine (who has no default name, nor was given one in the anime) suddenly wakes up to find herself in between worlds and missing all of her memories. However, she’s not alone since a fairy named Orion is there with her profusely apologizing since it’s apparently his fault that she has no memories and that the two of them are now fused together. …I don’t know how that works either, but it happened. The heroine (who has no personality whatsoever) says it’s okay though and so she has to choose a world to exist in from now on and to get memories back from. However, she has to be careful about how she goes about it since she needs to proactively and constantly get them back or else she’ll loose them all and wind up an empty shell. …So in other terms, it’s a bad idea to let anyone know that she has amnesia since they wouldn’t be able to find a cause (since it was caused by a fairy and that isn’t exactly easy to explain that and sound sane) and sitting in a hospital wouldn’t help her at all.
You’re probably familiar with the characters due to the anime, but I’m going to explain them over again anyways. …This post turned out way more sarcastic than I intended it to be, but I think I got out the serious things I wanted to say while blogging the anime. Oh and another thing is that I skipped the normal endings. Only the ‘good’ ones are mentioned here because I was lazy and other games constantly distract me.
The heroine’s childhood friend #1 and …deadpan tsundere? I don’t know. I wonder if they told Kakihara to act with as little emotion as possible, because Shin had the most monotone voice I have ever heard. It worked out okay overall, but at the beginning, Shin was just a really boring character. Anyways, he’s younger than the heroine, doesn’t sugarcoat his words and he likes to call the heroine (and Toma) idiots (… though to be honest, they more often then not deserve it).
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The heroine awakes finds herself in a hospital already injured and some guy kisses her. …Okay, that sounds really blunt, but yeah, that’s what happens. His name is Shin and he’s the heroine’s boyfriend. When she’s discharged, Shin realizes pretty quickly that the heroine isn’t acting like herself and tests her on things she should remember… like his name. Obviously she can’t answer correctly, so that facade is blown pretty fast. But on the plus side, Shin doesn’t send her to the hospital and instead blames himself for her memory loss since apparently it’s his fault that she was in an accident. He takes her around her school and workplace and lets the others know that the heroine has absolutely no memories about what the hell happened to her. Sawa (the heroine’s friend and coworker) explains that they went on a trip and the heroine fell off a cliff and almost died (well, okay, her injuries weren’t life threatening, but she would have bled to death if not found in time). People are kind of suspicious about Shin’s part in it since he was the last person with the heroine before she fell and her injuries were suspicious (not to mention that his father murdered someone), but she insisted while being treated that it wasn’t Shin’s fault.
I guess I should mention that all throughout this, Shin is trying to help the heroine get readjusted to life through a healthy mix of blushing when she does something cute and calling her an idiot. He does try though in his own way and the heroine can tell that his IS concerned for her. She gets back memories of when he asked her out (which involved her saying that she didn’t think of him as a man and him saying that he’d change that if they went out) and so she decides to try going out with Shin. …Again. Shin’s happy though and while he wanted to hold back until the heroine got her memories back, he kisses her anyways.
…Aaaaaaand just when things are finally going okay, the police drag off Shin since he’s still considered suspicious. To try and help the situation, the heroine does a little investigating of her own and asks the people present on the trip what happened. Rika is surprisingly helpful during this. From what she learns, it was Ikka and Kent who found her unconscious, where her memories are telling her that Shin found her. Something is definitely off there. Shin comes back finally and he hugs the heroine since they’ve been away so long. Dear lord is it adorable (I mean, just look at him).
He’s been productive in his absence and assures her that he didn’t push her off the cliff. There was another culprit behind it all and they just need to figure out who it was. So they get all of the people who were there at the time together back at the villa where the incident happened under the guise that they’re going to clear Shin’s name, but in reality they’re there to find the real culprit. Shin does some investigating he takes the heroine out into the forest one evening to try and get her to remember what happened that night she fell. He cornered her against a tree and asked why she was rooming with Sawa instead of him, her boyfriend. Him saying this brings back her memories of the night of her accident and she realizes that she ran away embarrassed since Shin was so forward.
So really, she fell off the cliff herself. Shin didn’t push her, but he pressured her into running away, thus why he felt guilty. Back to the present, she lets Shin know that she has her memory from then back. Due to someone (maybe accidentally of purposefully) almost pushing Sawa down the stairs, the heroine sleeps in Shin’s room while he stays awake holding a bat for a weapon. The heroine remembers about when they were children and they got lost in the woods and Shin did something similar by saying that he’d protect her from a distance instead of holding her hand (since if something attacked he couldn’t protect her properly). Long story short, he’s not always eloquent about it, but he is thinking of her in his own way. Shortly afterwards they return home (after Shin does more investigating).
The true story? After the heroine launches herself off a cliff, it was actually Toma who found her first and started to carry her. However, she mistook him for Shin. He kind of flipped out about that (since the heroine chooses Shin over him), dropped the heroine, injuring her further (nice going) and then ditched her body there because he was guilty about what he did. Luckily Ikki and Kent found her afterwards. Oh and pushing Sawa was an accident too, but he didn’t want to say anything then because that would make him suspicious. Shin calls him out on this and once again, Toma proves himself way more rational than he is in his actual route. The two talk things out and Toma peacefully turns himself in to the police so they leave Shin alone. He was even planning on turning himself in if Shin got arrested for real and the only reason he didn’t say something at the beginning was because then the route would have 2/3rds less content because he didn’t want the heroine to know about his feelings for her. She actually remembers it was Toma though and this is the final important memory she gets back (I assume she’s already remembered everything else). Orion leaves and I proceeded to cry uncontrollably (and continued to do this in just about every route). So Toma is basically foreveralone and Shin and the heroine get their happy ending together.
Ikki’s the popular guy with more psychotic, possessive fangirls than you can count, but he doesn’t tell them to go away because them forming a fan club keeps them from straight out murdering each other. Isn’t this game wonderful? He’s not exactly a play boy though (he just looks like it and having girls clinging on to him practically 24/7 doesn’t exactly help this image) and he’s been dating the heroine for about 2 months before the game starts. The fangirls are due to his… uh, magic eyes which make any girl he sees instantly fall in love with him.
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The heroine starts off rather weary of the guy (who wouldn’t be) since she comes out of her place for a date with him to find bitches clinging on to him. However, he acts perfectly nice to her and tells her on occasion that he loves her and that it would be nice if she’d return those feelings. As with every route, the heroine works at Meido no Hitsuji and this has nothing to do with anything regarding Ikki, but this world has the greatest version of Waka. Here he acts like they’re in a war zone or something and make them repeat”The customer is the enemy!”, which probably isn’t the best way to run a service business, but it was really damn entertaining.
The confusion with Ikki continues since he acts caring when he’s with the heroine and pretty cold when he’s in front of the fangirls. The heroine too has told her friends (aka Sawa) that she doesn’t think highly of Ikki at all when they first met, so it’s a mystery as to why she’s even dating him in the first place. So the heroine gets back memories regarding when they started dating (which is because they both admit that they’re interested in one another), but apparently it’s too much for her or something because she faints afterwards. She wakes up to some guy she doesn’t know (Toma) taking care of her and then Ikki shows up. Ikki asks who the other guy is and the heroine is in a tough spot because she has absolutely no idea either. However, she answers that he’s her older brother (though I was sorely tempted to pick the “Pervert! Call the police!” option), so Toma introduces himself and explains his relation to the heroine. In this world, he IS actually (kind of) related to the heroine since her playboy father actually married Toma’s mother at one point (he’s move on to wife #4 since then though, what a guy). Kent (Ikki’s best friend) came too and he gets Ikki to remove his retarded looking mask (which he wore to get the fangirls to bugger off). Ikki’s obviously jealous because Toma’s been taking care of the heroine instead of him, so he gets everyone to leave and he takes care of the heroine himself. He keeps mentioning a time limit, but like most things this route, the heroine doesn’t ask about this.
There’s a part here somewhere where Ikki explains (drunk, because his life sucks) that his girlfriends all dump him after 3 months and that he used to date seriously, but everyone left him so he tried to stop caring. He felt like his life sucked until the heroine came along and she’s kind of thawed out his frozen heart. They go on a trip planned by Rika, the (equally bitchy) head of the fangirls and that’s where the fun begins. ….When I say fun, I mean the fangirls acting like bitches. They do an organized test of courage, only the heroine’s partner disappears and the fangirls plan on ambushing her while she wanders around lost. Luckily, Ikki finds her and the two spend time together under the stars instead of the heroine getting her ass kicked. He explains that as a kid, he made a stupid wish on a star to be popular with girls and for whatever reason, it worked and Ikki has had to deal with crap for the rest of his life. Orion explains that a deity must have granted this wish, but more on this in Ukyou’s route.
So more angst with Ikki and his fangirls and how Ikki can’t keep a girlfriend for longer than 3 months continues and the heroine’s father finally shows up. This guy is the whole reason Ikki’s eyes didn’t work on the heroine. Er, to be more specific, they DID work on her, but then she was reminded of her own playboy father so that brought her back to reality. He’s gone through 3 wives already and he wants the heroine to move in with him and wife #4. However, Ikki is around when this happens and introduces himself to her father. He wants the heroine to move in with him (since the father’s house is apparently really far away and inconvenient to get to) and while he’s not happy about it, her father lets the heroine have a choice in the matter.
By now, she’s definitely in love with Ikki and he’s most definitely in love with her. Conveniently, the heroine gets more memories back here and it’s basically all about the rules of the fan club. Apparently you have to join a certain amount of time before you can date him and you have to send in daily reports about how the time spent with him went. Good god, I have never felt more sorry for this guy. Orion and the heroine agree to tell Ikki about her amnesia. He’s kind of surprised, but at the same the it explains a lot. The heroine had ignored these report requests because she couldn’t remember anything and didn’t bother asking anyone about them, thus why the bullying increased. Yay. She had started to genuinely like him, but then she suddenly started acting weird due to her memory loss so Ikki was getting some really mixed signals. He tells her that he truly does love her though and that he only acted cold to her as protection because his fangirls are all psychotic. …Orion disappears around this time since he can trust Ikki with the heroine’s future.
Anyways, the heroine tells Ikki about the fangirls, Rika and the stupid rules the fan club follows and so he calls the fangirls on it at Meido no Hitsuji and tells them to leave him the hell alone from now on. Ikki also punches a hole in the wall to get his point across (…which impresses Waka lololol) and the fangirls all leave. So with that ordeal over, the heroine decides not to move in with her father and so she moves in with Ikki instead. Happy times follow, obviously the 3 month rule doesn’t apply to them anymore, etc.
Kent is the no nonsense glasses character who seems intimidating, but he’s actually just socially awkward. He’s all about logic and reason and I have to say that his route is the most adorable thing ever. He’s Ikki’s friend and the two spend their free time challenging one another to puzzles in a dramatic fashion. …Because that’s the only true way to display friendship. Hell, he even gave the heroine (grade school level) puzzles as presents, until Ikki told him that puzzles weren’t what he meant when he said that ‘guys should give their girlfriends homemade presents as signs of affection’.
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After figuring out from the heroine’s phone that she’s dating some guy named Kent (or really, just assuming since there’s not a lot to go by), they go meet him at Meido no Hitsuji. …Only, they don’t know which person he is, so the heroine sits alone until Kent finally goes to her and asks what her problem is. Through his words, the heroine can tell that they indeed are dating and they’ve fought recently, but the heroine obviously can’t remember any of that. It doesn’t take long for Orion to figure that they can’t tell Kent about her amnesia since he’d drag her to a hospital right away since he’s so logical about everything. As the two hang out throughout the days, Kent notes that the heroine isn’t getting angry at him like she used to. He generally ignores her since he has important studying and logic things to do, but he is obviously happy to see the heroine opening up to him a bit, which apparently didn’t happen before. When she meets Ikki, he instantly becomes interested since his eyes don’t work on her. Fortunately, the heroine has Kent (who mentions here that the heroine has said that she hated him before), …which is good because I really couldn’t stand another route with Ikki’s fangirls out for blood. Everything is pointing to the fact that the heroine didn’t like Kent, but really, she doesn’t do much about this. Kent definitely notices something odd, but doesn’t push the issue. Mostly, he just blushes at the heroine’s sudden dere-ness.
Memories come back about how Kent used to be some sort of teacher for the heroine and how they definitely did not get along from the start (since the heroine was an emotional person and Kent had the compassion of a rock). However, Kent’s obviously changed since then and he tells the heroine that he genuinely wants to be with her and does ‘illogical’ things like getting jealous over Ikki giving her attention. They go to see fire works (which Kent is late for since he forgot, but then he quickly rushes over) and there’s more adorableness. Meanwhile, there’s drama with Mine since she seems to like Kent and is jealous that the heroine’s dating him. …Only, that issue is quickly solved when the heroine figures out that Mine likes Waka instead. Waka and Kent are kind of similar in personality (or rather, Waka doesn’t speak much and is kind of intimidating) and so when she heard the description of the heroine’s boyfriend being a difficult person, she assumed the heroine was dating Waka. ….Yep.
Which brings us to Kent finally bringing up the question as to why the heroine suddenly changed so much. During a pool trip (in which he drags the heroine into the water because he’s afraid people (including himself) will stare at her in her swimsuit xD) she asks him if he prefers her before or now. Of course, he answers ‘now’, but then changes it to both since they’re both her. Her memories aren’t really coming back, but at least the relationship is going somewhere. Finally, it’s Ukyou that tips Kent off about her memories since he’s apparently a regular customer, yet the heroine said herself that she didn’t know him. He finally confronts the heroine about the fact that she has no memories. …And then admits that he’s scared that she’ll remember the time that she hated him. At first he had hoped that the heroine’s attitude had changed because of genuine affection for him, which is why he had avoided bringing this up for so long. Finally, he tells the heroine about how they met. He was a math tutor or something for the heroine (which she joined because Mine was after Ikki or something, but Kent came instead) and he saw her walking her dog every day. Eventually, he asked her out and the heroine accepted it as a challenge because she was angry at the fact that he figured that love was a deception of the brain (lololol).
For some reason, after this, the heroine getting back memories is super strenuous and she collapses pretty much every time she gets one back, causing Kent to act concerned and ask “ARE YOU ALIVE?” almost every time. Normally, I’d say that he was overreacting, but then again, this is the heroine. She finally tells Kent about Orion (since he sees her often staring into space when nothing’s there and he wants to know why) and meets his parents. There’s not much content-wise other than these events, but I guess I should mention that Kent is leaving to go study in London at the end of the month. The heroine’s know this since the beginning of the month, thus the push to get her memories back since Kent, the key person, will be leaving. Because he’s awesome though, Kent even has a plan for that, having the heroine star in a movie about her life or something so she could use it as a device get her memories back even without him. …They never get around to using it though since the heroine is hit by a car.
No, she doesn’t die. Instead, she remembers that she actually liked Kent (but was too tsundere to tell him). Plus one day her dog, Kuro, was hit by a car and instead of being comforting, Kent told her that she should have trained it better and such. (…In truth, he was actually kind of jealous of it since it was always with the heroine when she talked with Kent too.) The heroine just wanted to cry though without logic or reason and so she told Kent that she hated him, which is what haunted him throughout the whole route. Orion leaves. The heroine awakes to Kent sitting with her in the hospital. He ditched his presentation (which is what was going to get him to London) because he was concerned for her. She’s the most important thing to him. He apologizes and admits that he couldn’t understand her attachment to her dog and the heroine apologizes for her behaviour as well. Finally, sometime later in a park, Kent, the guy who thought it was impossible for relationships to last, asks the heroine to marry him. …Or at least he promises to someday propose properly. So a year later, the two go to London together (Kent managed to apply again and brought the heroine with him) and the route ends with some Engrish (which actually isn’t that bad).
The older brother figure towards the heroine and childhood friend #2. Uhhh… what can I say? He’s really protective towards the heroine. Really, REALLY protective. I honestly don’t know what to make of his character since on one hand, there’s the cage thing, but on the other, his route was hilarious. His route is worth playing for the laugh value (man, I have a horrible personality xD).
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The route starts off with the heroine collapsed and some guy runs up concerned about her. She remembers his name, Toma, and much to the chagrin of Orion (who’s become invisible since the heroine remembering Toma’s name is apparently a very important memory), he takes her straight to the hospital. She has to sit there for a couple of days and like Orion said would happen, her memories grow fuzzier again, allowing Orion to be seen by the heroine. She lets Toma know that her memories are a bit confused at the moment and so he takes care of her the next couple days reexplaining everything to her.
The heroine notices that things are off though like sometimes she’ll come out of her house to see her mailbox filled with crap, her phone will have scary text messages (Toma gave her a new phone, but she finds that the old one works still when Toma accidentally leaves it lying around) or people will attempt to drop flowerpots on her head, push her in front of trains, etc. She also notices that she meets with some guy named Ikki a lot and they (the heroine and Orion. …Or, mostly Orion because the heroine doesn’t really talk) speculate if he’s her boyfriend or not, but then every time that Toma says that he’s not interested in the heroine that way, she feels a pain in her heart. Finally, she asks Toma straight out if they were dating and he says yes and gives some halfassed excuse that he didn’t want to overwhelm her while she memories were all confused.
She moves in with him for protection though he still acts more like a brother than a boyfriend. Orion and the heroine notice that Toma has been doing things like cleaning her mailbox from the crap people put in there, but don’t confront him about it since technically, going outside is dangerous for her and she was investigating this behind Toma’s back in the first place. After some girl attacks her (which is an overly dramatic way to say ‘cuts her hair’) right in front of Toma and he finds the heroine outside her place, that’s where his yandere side kicks in. At first it just starts by him drugging her food so she sleeps most of the day. To make things more confusing, Shin contradicts what Toma’s been saying since apparently the heroine says that she didn’t want to see Toma before and that they aren’t actually lovers. After Shin comes to visit and reveals this, that’s where the cage part starts.
What, you don’t stick your loved ones in cages? If anything, the anime downplayed the hell out of this route because it is SO much creepier here. Logic says that Toma was probably trying to play the villain here purposefully due to his guilt about the cage, but really, that was some creepy as hell acting done by Hino Satoshi here. So he cages the heroine, but tells her not to worry since he’ll let her out for showers and such. Every time he lets her out though, he also handcuffs her (obviously so she doesn’t run away) and occasion, he’ll bring her puzzles or something (though the plus side here being Orion’s sarcastic, exasperated comments). One time Toma wakes up and freaks out that the heroine is in a cage, and then goes “Oh wait. Right. I did that.” Fun times indeed. However, during all of this, the heroine keeps insisting that she believes in Toma since he promised her in their childhoods that he’d protect her. Also during this, she keeps regaining memories about the circumstances around who she really likes. …It’s pretty damn obvious that it’s Toma that she was in love with, but this is the heroine we’re talking about so it takes a good couple days of her sitting in a cage and Toma thinking that she was in love with Ikki before anything useful happens.
So she (or rather, Orion) notices that she can completely remove a side of the cage and so she gets out, gets run over by a motorcycle and then decides to go back into the cage. …Don’t ask me where the logic in this is. Toma of course, notices right away and then suddenly goes into SUPER CREEPY yandere mode. Before anything really bad can happen though, the heroine snaps him out of it and then he notices a plot convenience diary that somehow opened in all of this. In it is the heroine’s ramblings about her feelings about Toma. She was planning on confessing on the day he found her collapsed, but we all know how that worked out. …If Toma is a obsessed siscon, then the heroine could probably be considered an obsessed brocon since she’s been writing down her thoughts about Toma since who knows when. Plus thinking back to the other routes, his is the only name she remembered all by herself.
Anyways, rather suddenly, everything is okay now. He’s actually been doing something productive in his spare time (aka gathering evidence against the fan club) and Toma gets the fangirls to apologize for the shit they pulled now that his yandere side is now suddenly gone. He tells the heroine that she has horrible taste and that she shouldn’t forgive him, but she’s been basically stalking him (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but’s it’s pretty damn close) for most of her life anyways, so things kind of work out well.
…You know, the game opening gives his name as ‘Ukyo’ but then gives him the ‘u’ character right at the end of his name where everyone else is just 2 kana. Why the ‘u’ at the end if they’re not going to use it? Did they really need to make every guy’s name 4 letters when romanised? …Perhaps this is the true mystery of the route. …Anyways, yeah. Ukyou has multiple personalities (one that wants to kill the heroine and one that doesn’t) and his route makes the entire game depressing. …But then doesn’t. I also apologize in advance for the text wall.
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Since the heroine wakes up with no memories and from her student I.D., her and Orion can tell that she’s a college student. So they go to her school, only to be stopped by a panicked Ukyou who says that she absolutely must not go in there today. You can ignore his advice here, but that just ends in a fiery death. Yes, you can die on the first day. ISN’T THIS FUN, GUYS? So basically if you have the opportunity to go against something Ukyou says, DON’T. …Unless you’re like me and want to see just how many ways they could come up with her to die. Anyways, the heroine is pretty honest with Ukyou, saying that she doesn’t remember him at all. He wonders if they’ve actually met before and wanders off. After the heroine goes to her part time job (at Meido no Hitsuji; where else), and meets all of the other characters, she runs into Ukyou again and they exchange phone numbers (so the heroine can call him if she’s ever in trouble). While walking together, Ukyou tells the heroine that they actually met a long time ago (okay, March) in Kobe when the heroine was on a graduation trip (they don’t mention this at this point of the game, but basically she comforted him about his dead grandfather). He moved away from there though and coincidentally met the heroine again where they are now. He keeps mentioning something about her memories being missing because of something, but suddenly, flower pots are after the heroine’s life again and Ukyou needs to save her. So that conversation is quickly forgotten.
The two go for a walk the next day (which is basically him dragging her around and asking if things that happened in the other routes are happening now). They finally rest at a shrine and he tells her not to go near the well, so what does she do? She goes near the well. After yet another near death experience, Ukyou finally tells the heroine that this world is out to kill her. However, she’s not alone because he’s going to try and prevent that. The heroine starts getting back memories of spending time with Ukyou, but something’s weird because Orion says that they couldn’t be memories of the past since he couldn’t see them. After several more days of Ukyou giving the heroine advice on what and what not to do (which, notihing happens since she listens to him), weird things start happening. Or kind of weird since Ukyou sends her a text saying to go to a specific place and then send another one telling her not to listen to what he just said. She also wakes him up while he’s sleeping in weird places in public and gets strangled by him (which doesn’t last long) and Ukyou explains that when he first wakes up, he gets… wild. Which is why he doesn’t want to sleep at home since he lives alone where in public, someone will stop him. Obviously, this is suspicious behaviour all around, but he tells her that he loves her more than anyone (including himself), which kind of softens things. …And there’s also the fact that the heroine isn’t really that proactive about doing anything about the insane people around her.
However, it’s just not Amnesia without the drama, so Ikki invites the heroine out to see fireworks, Ukyou tells her to go since he’s trying to avoid being with the heroine alone, and the fangirls find out (which has no effect at the time, but it comes back to bite the heroine later). However, the heroine cancels on Ikki anyways and spends the day trying to find Ukyou. …Which she accomplishes. He hugs her telling her that she’s foolish but we already knew that. They also go to a festival (along with all of the other characters) because he’s worried about the heroine dying in a bunch of stupid ways like choking on a candy apple or falling into a pit. …Only looking back, you realize that one of them actually probably did die like that before making both more and less funny.
Anyways, this whole time Ukyou has been really worried about the heroine all the time and he’ll do things like hug her without realizing and then pushing her away embarrassed since she technically doesn’t know him (and he’s tried to kill her on multiple occasions. He definitely loves her, but he’s afraid of getting close. Near the end of August though, the heroine tries to visit her school again only to be stopped by Ukyou. After that incident, she has a dream about the school being on fire. But more importantly (for now at least) the heroine spends more time with Ukyou and regains a bunch of memories of the fun times they had before. Finally, he tells her (and she gets a memory) about the time he confessed to her at the end of July. She invites him over and for once he accepts (after he hands her pepper spray, a taser, a bunch of other self defence items) probably because he knows that the time limit is running out and he’s leaving soon. At her place, the heroine learns that Ukyou knows about parallel worlds too and that they were supposed to meet on August 1st. …Only with that memory, she gets a vision of the college being on fire (this time she knows for sure that this didn’t happen in this world) and asks Ukyou to stay since she definitely doesn’t feel well. Again, surprisingly he agrees and handcuffs himself to the table so he doesn’t try anything (killing her or otherwise) xD. …Only the heroine uncuffs him and says that she trusts him. …So the poor guy stays awake all night.
In the morning, Ukyou finally explains that in the original world they were from, the heroine was caught in an explosion at the college on August 1st and fell into a coma only to die on August 25th. This is why the world is trying to kill her since it’s her fate to die here on August 25th. Though he also mentions that (probably) due to her amnesia, the world hasn’t trying as hard to kill her as it usually does since she’s not entirely herself. It’s probably due to Orion accidentally fusing with the heroine as well, but Ukyou doesn’t know about that part (and asks her not to tell him since his psycho side would find out about it as well). Before he leaves, he tells her not to leave her apartment building at all the next day, the 25th since that’s the day the world will try to kill her the hardest. Finally, it’s last day and the heroine recovers a really vivid memory of the fire and how she lost consciousness in Ukyou’s arms.
The heroine is also told by Orion that her’s and Ukyou’s fates are the opposite of one another’s. If she lives, he dies and vice versa. Either Ukyou would die to keep the heroine alive, or she’d die and Ukyou would commit suicide starting the process over again. This is the only world where they can simultaneously exist together since apparently Ukyou doesn’t even exist in any other one (or the heroine wouldn’t exist and die instead) and the world tries to kill him instead. So every other route before this? YEP, he died a horrible death. EVERY TIME YOU PLAY AMNESIA, UKYOU DIES. DO YOU FEEL GUILTY YET? One day, his other personality emerged and said ‘screw this why do I have to die?’ so thus why he’s out to kill her….So then the heroine runs off (against Orion’s wishes, not that he can do anything about it) because she doesn’t want to abandon Ukyou like that, even if it means staying alive.
As a note, the heroine gets along really well with Rika in this world. Like, best friends well. She didn’t even mind that the heroine was going to see the fireworks with Ikki (plus she knows that the heroine is immune to Ikki’s eyes). WHAT IS THIS. Ukyou was just as surprised as I am, but like he says, it’s good that they’re not enemies in every world. Unfortunately, the fangirls are as bad as they are in every other route. It’s not an issue of sharing (since Ikki tries to be fair here) so much as they want him all to themselves. As the heroine tries to find Ukyou, she runs into them and even though she’s BFFs with Rika, the fangirls still hate her guts since she’s friendly with Ikki (they even covered her in paint like 5 year olds earlier in the route). The heroine accidentally pisses them off more by telling them that they have no lives are going to hurt Ikki more than her and like any rational human being, their thoughts turn to murder. Okay, not really, but they lock the heroine in a shrine, and proceed to light fireworks in there to injure her. However, the heroine can’t catch a break and the entire shrine goes up in flames and the fangirls run away claiming to have nothing to do with the whole thing. The heroine calls the fire department, but of course they’re useless so after a touching scene with Orion saying that he’s not going to abandon her, Ukyou saves the day. Suddenly, it starts to pour like crazy (which would have been REALLY handy like, 5 minutes before with the fire) and Ukyou and the heroine run aaaaaalll the way to her school since absolutely everything is out for their lives. However, the world has killed them both a ridiculous amount of times, so Ukyou can pretty much predict exactly what highly unlikely way it will try to kill them with next.
So at the school, Ukyou’s crazy side goes all out and to make matters worse, then the explosion that was supposed to happen on the 1st happens then instead. So the heroine and Ukyou spend 30 minutes (game time, because if it lasted that long real time, it would be ridiculous) running. Ukyou argues with himself during this saying that Neil doesn’t have enough power to send them to another world and that this one is actually the last resort and Orion finally understands what’s going on. Neil is a deity who kind of wandered off from fairy land or wherever Orion is from and was never heard from again. This is how Ukyou has been moving between worlds (since apparently Ukyou and Neil have merged kind of like Orion and the heroine) and Orion’s meeting with the heroine isn’t a coincidence at all (since he was sent to meet her to raise her chances of staying alive, not that he knew this). Finally, Orion tells her that since Neil is present, there’s a large chance that both Ukyou AND the heroine will be able to find a way to survive past the 25th since being in the presence of a deity can create miracles. …Just as long as both of them stay alive until the 26th.
So back to the present, Ukyou finally corners the heroine with a knife. She’s okay with that though since she tells Ukyou that she loves him and is more than willing to die for him. Only, he stabs himself instead of her last minute to save the heroine. …The irony of that being that it’s officially August 26th and both of them survived. The heroine gets really upset here until Neil (who has the most feminine voice ever) says that Ukyou’s wish has finally been granted. Back when the heroine died, Neil was the only one who heard Ukyou’s cries. While he couldn’t bring the heroine back to life, he instead took Ukyou to worlds where she was alive (…but then Ukyou died a bunch of times). …And then he was kind of stuck there since he was apparently attached to Ukyou until his wish was granted. This particular world was the ONLY one where both the heroine and Ukyou could exist so Neil used all of his power to rewind time, which is why the heroine’s regained memories weren’t really memories.
The heroine finally managed to survive in this world, but Ukyou’s only wish now is to vanish since he’s been through a lot of crap and also put the heroine through a lot of crap. However, the heroine forgives him and despite his protests about how he shouldn’t go back because he’s a terrible person, the heroine tells him that she’ll be by his side from now on. After more protesting, Ukyou finally accepts her forgiveness and the two return. Neil also apologizes about his part in this since he wanted to make people happy (but then things obviously went terribly, terribly wrong). Ikki’s eyes? I don’t remember it ever stating this exactly, but I’ve always assumed that those were probably Neil too. …Which led to the fangirls, which led to the fangirl drama in almost every route. So in short, pretty much everything here is Neil’s fault. You can’t hate him though, since he did stick with Ukyou to the end and otherwise, this thing would have ended tragically with the heroine’s first death. The heroine forgives him too since they did find happiness in the end.
In the end, Ukyou and the heroine are a happy couple and Orion and Neil show up as humans. The heroine has absolutely no recollection to who they are, but Ukyou does and he figures that this was the two’s punishment of sorts for this whole thing (turning human and such). Though it’s not too bad of a punishment since Neil was always curious about how humans acted anyways. Orion says something like “See you later Onee-chan and Onii-chan~” (which is the most adorable thing ever) and finally for the first time in the entire game, Ukyou’s story ends happily. Lord knows he deserves it.
Definitely not my favourite otome game out there (since the heroine is SO bland), but this was pretty much the perfect mix of dark, angst ridden romance that I like. Yeah, Ukyou’s route ruins the others for me (since he most definitely died in them and the heroine never even knows what he’s done for her), but that just makes his own ending feel like THE best one overall. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ukyou’s route is the OTP.
The music? Soundtrack wise, it was decent (I like it better than what was in the anime for sure). For the opening song though, it doesn’t even compare to the anime’s (though it did eventually grow on me). Nagi makes everything better. The art is obviously amazing and after a while, you don’t even notice that Shin is wearing mismatched thigh high boots or that Kent is in a trench coat. I liked the variety in the sprites too and while the lip synching wasn’t accurate whatsoever, the sprite placement was cool (if Shin and Toma were in a conversation, they would make it look like Shin was facing Toma and Toma would be placed slightly more in the background to make it look like there was room depth).
For me, Ukyou’s story the best (and I always love a good psychopathic love interest), but out of all of the characters though, I found myself liking Mine. Not only because I really love her outfit, but her petty shallowness was actually a mix of adorable and hilarious. One day she’d be ignoring the heroine for being Ikki’s girlfriend and the next she’d be supporting them because that meant that she could have Waka and Shin to herself (because obviously two good looking guys are better than one). And then of course, the initial impression of her would be proven wrong since she’d worry about the heroine when the fangirls (or any other accident) might have harmed her. Mine was just a great character. Screw the heroine, this game needed more Mine. Rika was actually pretty funny too when she was the heroine’s friend (…not when she was sending the heroine death threats in other routes) with her overly …sophisticated(?) (I don’t know how to describe it other than she used the ‘watakushi’ pronoun and other language like that) speech and “ohohohoho~” laugh. Waka was just awesome throughout. I didn’t mention it at all, but in Ukyou’s route, it’s like all of his other personalities are combined, so he’s this kind yet intimidating individual who is rumoured to have been part of a secret assassination squad in the army (and he does things like say he’ll ‘take care of’ anyone harming the heroine or threatens Sawa with death if she messes up again… with a smile). I dunno, the route choices were all interesting characters too, but I didn’t have a chance to talk about the side characters above.
The only other thing I have to say really is that Orion’s character was POORLY translated to the anime. He’s just so much more useful and funny in the game. He was like the ray of light for every terrible situation the heroine found herself in and basically her only source of moral support. His goodbyes actually meant something every route. It’s a shame that the anime ‘goodbye’ didn’t quite get that same emotional reaction for me.
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University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.
POWUH: 800-899 and Flying Sage with 856 comments
Interesting to see what the source material was like. Thanks for the post!
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
No problem~
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I saw the whole anime so I at least have to pay a little tribute by checking out the source material. Listening to Nagi’s OP “Zoetrope” was worth watching the episodes. I’m sure you forgot because you were busy with other otome games. After seeing Devil Survivor 2, it’s surprising a name wasn’t chosen for the heroine. For me, the the choices for her would be between Shin, Ikki and Ukyou. They seem to have a deeper bond with her than the other two.
Persona 4, Arcana Famiglia, Amnesia and now Devil Survivor 2. Looks like a lot of stuff is being animated (particularly games) and surely some that are closer than most think. I’d be overjoyed if Bloody Cross got an adaption but the only recent news about it is that it got licensed.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Zoetrope was probably the best thing to come out of the anime. Ahahaha I’ve been busy with other games in general (finished Black Rock Shooter the Game the other day; it was alright). My guess for the heroine’s name was that they wanted to make her as blank as possible, so that anyone could fit themselves in there. As for the choices, Ukyou’s a given, but I’d also say that she had a pretty deep bond with Toma (since she followed him pining over him around since the beginning of forever.) Unfortunately, he turned out to be a psychopath.
Summer has 2 more~ Danganronpa (which is my favourite game ever and you’ll see why) and then another otome game adaptation called Brothers Conflict. As for that particular bit of news… I knew there was a reason I liked Yen Press. That’s awesome!
POWUH: 500-599 with 543 comments
Omg, so perfect, sounds so right based on what was in the anime.
It seems like Kent’s route is still goofy and cute, although I think his very serious face ruins it a bit for me.
Wow, I get the feeling I would feel guilty if I played Amnesia. I read all those walls of text to see how it compared with my memory of the anime. Seems like Toma was even worse, but if she was stalking him…
I’d say the choices for her are Kent and Ukyou in my opinion. Shin is too wacky, and Ikki -while he turns out nice and all- couldn’t even figure out the fan club’s workings on his own. With those eyes of his, he could have forced someone into telling him.
Neil and Orion got some good punishments, I wish they had that in the anime. All the trouble they caused was pretty annoying.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Yep, Kent’s route was the cutest. …Or at least it had the least heavy content compared to the sheer ANGST in Ukyou, the tension of there possibly being a murderer (or at least, the heroine’s suspicious injuries) in Shin’s, the fangirls of Ikki’s and the cage in Toma’s.
…Yeah, I certainly felt guilty. And then I played it again a couple months later to write this post. I apologize for the walls of text. I really do. OTL But I’d rather not cut too many parts out and then end up with 5000+ word posts. Yeah, having the heroine be kind of creepily obsessed with Toma was probably their way of distracting away from the fact that he threw her in a cage. “Hey, he did this. But look, if the situation was reversed, she might have done the same thing.” … Maybe.
I thought the solution to Neil and Orion was dealt with nicely. And hey, with the fact that they’re now human, there was totally the possibility for an Orion route in AMNESIA Later.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
I found some cutscene rips off the new Amnesia:Crowd game on Facebook.(spoilers!)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.534060353312359
For those of you put off by Toma, he finally gets a taste of his own medicine in this installment…muahahaha
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
100% approval from me. Enjoy your love cage, Toma.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Karma really is a bitch, isn’t it? What goes around, comes around.
POWUH: iLurker with 10 comments
Not really Show ▼
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
Ah, I figured it was something like that.
POWUH: Meta Team and Megane-chan with 3214 comments
…The cage aside, dear lord some of those CGs are adorable.
POWUH: 500-599 with 519 comments
Those cgs are so nice! *_* I like the end ones the best. Haha.
POWUH: iLurker with 9 comments
I’m kind of in awe many murder attempts and strangulation is sugoi for you, but yeah. Ukyo’s romance was horrible since it happened so fast it was contrived as heck. Doesn’t this guy have familly in that mansion? Didn’t care for his romance, thought he was just as bad as Toma. His psycho side is fun though.