Review of Amnesia

I am writing this review because there are certainly two different sides to whether or not Amnesia will be enjoyable for you, and I would like to offer a little more perspective into it after seeing this argument with 'The game was better, but the anime deserves recognition too.' I've rewatched this a few times since I first came across it as a newly made anime addict. Amnesia was a lot of firsts for me: reverse harem, romance, or just the first anime I ever watched through completely. What put me at a disadvantage is I went into the series completely trusting the synopsis that had beenprovided; a show covering an amnesiac and her many beautiful LI? Count me in.
Except the show wasn't nearly as simple as that.

Since then I've played through the otome game Amnesia: Memories it was based off, rewatched the show knowing the source material, and come up with my final opinion.

In this review I will be comparing the game and the anime as a way to explain my reservations. I understand that this might be an annoying thing to do for the fans of the anime, or a casual reader, but I really want to show you that this story is DEFINITELY worth forming your own opinion about because the two types of media are very different in how they present the story and I want you to choose the one that will help you enjoy the story the best.

STORY 3/10

The moment it became clear that the show was going to try and squeeze in hours and hours of character development for each guy's personal route within 12 episodes AND STILL TRY TO MAKE IT ONE COHERENT STORY is ridiculous. You'd need far more episodes to try and pull it off.
As a new anime fan last year, the idea that the MC was jumping from character to character without really acknowledging the LI that came before the current one made me very baffled, not to mention disoriented.
It is EXHAUSTING trying to keep up with a show that hasn't really explained anything about what is going on - instead leaving us to rely on Orion for random tidbits of information when relevant.

It is extremely frustrating to watch a show that constantly shifts what is true and isn't true due to the amount of parallel universes that are constantly being introduced. It's no wonder, when Shin's route (the first one you'll watch) finishes and the MC is suddenly taken to a completely different world, and takes everything in her stride that yes Ikki is now her boyfriend...? As a viewer, I didn't even realise that the anime included jumping from parallel world to parallel world (although I'm inclined to believe that this could be my mistake as well). I was extremely confused.

Any thoughts of satisfaction you might have had after investing yourself a few episodes deep (and thinking you were actually progressing the plot) is taken away, and suddenly you have to start from scratch, figuring out how this new parallel world works; who the MC is friends with now; who her enemies are; who works at the cafe with her or not... all these things change every few episodes as she goes through each world.
Nothing is steadfast, and when you binge this show like I did, there isn't enough time to process it and hence how I managed to watch a show that made me really uncomfortable and cramped with the pacing. Playing the game gives you a lot more breathing room to consume the story and fully understand what is actually going on.

And there is no payoff.
In the game as you might expect, you choose one single character route, play through it and depending on the choices you made, get a good ending or a bad ending *with that character*. There is a payoff to the hours of reading and playing you've put into the story - you get a snippet of what the MC's life is like after spending so long gathering memories and reforming relationships.

No such luck with the anime.
Trying to keep the spoilers to a minimum, the MC does not end up with anyone. We don't see what happens when she returns to her own world with her memories. And that is the frustrating thing when you end up spending around 4 hours trying to keep up with multiple storylines and the ending throws it all away and tells you that it never really mattered.

ART AND SOUND 10/10

I am pleased to say I cannot utter a single complaint about the art or sound. The OP and ED are GORGEOUS. The OP is something I end up listening to on a regular basis ever since I came across it, and even in the soundtrack there are some gems - Ukyo's Melody for example? I wish it had been in the game because it suited the general mood of the story beyond perfectly.
And you only have to look at the art to realise how wonderful it is. Amnesia probably has my favourite art in an anime ever and I love the style of each of the characters - especially the choice of colours. Aesthetically pleasing? Absolutely.

CHARACTER 2/10

This is where I get into my real issues with the show. The MC and Orion. You're gonna end up spending a lot of time with these two so naturally they have to be strong characters, or moderately okay characters, right?
Did the game do this? Without a doubt.
Did the anime? *laughs*

If you're wondering why Orion is even in the show to begin with asides from plot convenience at the beginning, that's how you know something is wrong. To give you an idea of his role in the game, Amnesia: Memories was very loose with their characterisation of the MC. In the game, Orion is basically the player's window into the world; and is the voice of narration for most of the game. He'd guide the player through scenes, explain the consequences of specific choices, and says his piece when Toma did that one thing and the MC forgives him anyway.
Until the ending has arrived, the MC barely says a thing, which I thought to be a very refreshing idea for an otome game.

But obviously, that leaves the writers at a disadvantage for the anime because they have to try and bring to life this MC character who was basically just a shell for players like me to hide behind to play through the game as.
Problems immediately arise with Orion in the anime - it isn't a game, so there are no choices to be made, and his comments about the current situation are brought to a minimum, making his character suffer dramatically.

When I watched the anime the first time through, I hated Orion. He was completely pointless, and I couldn't understand why he was around when all he did was argue that she couldn't go the hospital (this point is explored further in the game, but there are some routes in the game where even he ends up agreeing that a visit to the hospital for other health stuff would benefit her.) without explaining further.

Then I played the game, expecting to hate him (I literally chose mean dialogue options my first playthrough because I was that annoyed with him in the anime) and I ended up being in tears over him at the ending. It made me more frustrated rewatching to see such a vital character brought down due to the necessity of giving the MC a more active role in the anime.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if the MC wasn't so frustrating to watch.
Her speciality includes blinking cluelessly when asked a simple question and staying silent, staring into space, and asking Orion what she should do for the simplest of tasks. Again this comes down to the idea that she is barely a character in the game, and the writers probably thought they could get away with it in the anime because 'Hey, she has amnesia so what do you expect?"
She still had more of a personality in the game - emotional attachment to a character (Orion doesn't count in this example) and an incentive to recover her independent mind without constant mothering by Orion.

The guys in question have similarly annoying habits, and I actually ended up making a pretty intense workout routine (non-related but I wanted to hint at the idea for people rewatching anyway) everytime something annoying happened because something happened every few seconds i.e: Shin brooding for no reason, Orion stating the obvious, Toma and Shin fighting for no apparent reason other than to make Toma look like a nice guy and Shin the broody guy, all the guys acting very patronising (and then kissing them like right after), Ikki being fangirled over, or Kent being an arrogant know-it-all.

The game elaborates on these behaviours, why Toma and Shin fight, Ikki's loneliness, and Kent's obliviousness to the idea that he even said something rude and feeling a little insecure (before offering to fix said behaviour if it was too much).

That's why the short time spent on each character makes the show suffer so much. At the end of the show (with the exception of possibly Shin who I felt had the strongest route in the show) there isn't someone who you'd really want to see again with the MC anyway. They come across as very weak, frivolous characters with no thought behind them whatsoever when in fact it's the opposite.

OVERALL ENJOYMENT 6/10

I was conflicted rating this anime, because it had so much potential and it got reduced to a 12 episode waste of time, yet the game is so enjoyable that I keep thinking that maybe it's just in my head and I'll enjoy it if I rewatch it one more time which never happens. No matter how much I remind myself I disliked this anime, I keep coming back to it which makes me think that it must have done something right.

If you are new to anime, do NOT watch this first. Get some more anime under your belt, so that it doesn't leave you with a bad impression of the reverse harem genre, and try to watch it knowing what you're getting into.
I would suggest Amnesia: Memories - the otome game, for someone who is serious about getting into the story and character plots.
If you're just looking for a quick non-commital reverse harem anime to get through then you might just be okay.