Ef – A Tale of Memories is the first season of this romance show based on the PC game Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two.   The way the show is formatted is that there are two different stories taking up half
an episode each but sometimes they'll give one of them more air time than the other but anyway let's see what stories this show has to offer.   Storyline A is about Hiro Hirono whom is desperately trying to balance out getting his manga done and getting through high school.  During Christmas Eve on his way to visit his sister he meets a girl who is chasing down a mugger that took her purse.   The girl then takes his bike in a scene that reminds me of when Ash meets Misty in the first episode of Pokémon, he  then begins to then chase her down to get back his bike.   Hirono eventually catches up to her but when he does he sees the girl unconscious in the snow from crashing the bike.   Mystery girl wakes up with Hirono all worried that the girl might have a concussion and tries to convince her to go to the hospital.  Mystery girl refuses and convinces Hirono to hang out with her for the rest of the night.   The next school year begins and while Hirono is relaxing on the roof to then he is reunited with the mystery girl whom we find out is named Miyako Miyamuro and after a few episodes of him denying they are a couple they end up dating.   However Miyamuro has competition as Hirono's sister becomes very jealous and tries to separate them because she wants him all for herself (eww). (Click "Read More" to see the rest of the review).

Storyline B is about Renji Asou who is studying to be a writer, one day while relaxing at his favorite abandoned train station he meets up with a girl in an eye-patch and becomes curious about her.   Renji meets up with her again and finds out her name is Chihiro Shindou and that her dream is to write a book.  They get along pretty well but Renji gets warned by her guardian telling him that she has a condition where she has a memory span of thirteen hours due to being in a accident from when she was little.   Renjo continues to hang out with Chihiro anyway and the two decide to write a book but is worried that she might forget all about him.

There are many problems I have with this show, first one I have is with the story-writing as I find it very shallow and drawn out, they could of done the show in around eight to nine episodes rather than twelve.  Another problem with the show is that you never get a full episode that is good to watch as you either get one half of the show to be decent while the other half is just plain boring).  Some segments get so boring that it's frustrating to watch. The characters start off as very likeable but there comes to a point where something happens to try to make you feel for them even more but instead it does quite the opposite and makes them very hateable.

The artwork is very beautiful with a ton of nice detailing and the animation is really good also, especially in the credit sequences. However the character designs are very generic looking with little to no uniqueness in them. I find this very ironic as there is a scene where one of the female cast is describing a film she was watching as "very beautifully shot but the story was very boring". The English dub is good but not great but I have nothing really to say about it, it is what it is. The best part of this mess is the soundtrack as it's absolutely amazing to listen to and worth buying the soundtrack for the music but it's such a shame that the show it's attached to is terrible.

Special features are very basic with the usual text-less opening and closing credits but are worth checking out as they are very beautiful to watch. I did have trouble trying to work the language menu as it was very fidgety and no matter which button I pressed it refused to select the options (just like I did with Berserks menu). Overall while this show was very beautiful to look with a really excellent soundtrack, the story was very shallow and feels like a bad Jennifer Lopez chick-flick and just as boring as one. I do not recommend checking out this show.