Review of Amnesia
Overall Impression: A convoluted plot, questionable designs, and a memorably terrible protagonist add up to make this one of the worst shows I've ever watched to completion. I don't recommend watching it, even in the sense of gawking at a car crash. Positives: + If you like goth twinks, there are a lot of them here. + The ED is pretty catchy, I guess. Negatives: - A stupid and unlikable protagonist. Officially credited as "Heroine", the main character of this reverse harem series is so unbelievably dim-witted that you will be screaming at your screen in frustration every time she puts herself in mortal danger out of sheer idiocy.We're talking "toddler wandering into traffic" levels of self-awareness here, and that's not even an exaggeration since *she does that exact thing more than once*. She's almost more like an empty vessel than a real character, she has no personality aside from being meek and the plot revolves entirely around her even though there is just nothing there to get interested or invested in.
- A time travel/parallel worlds plot that keeps you in the dark for 90% of the series runtime and then exposition dumps the answers to all the mysteries all at once in the last half of the series finale. To make matters worse, key parts of the plot are contradicted by the eventual explanations you get, including the central explanation for the protagonist's titular amnesia. It's a confusing mess that executes the few good ideas it has so incompetently that you'll leave the series with more questions than answers, even though the ending is intended to be definitive.
- A common problem with visual novel adaptations, the attempt to mash all the routes together into a single coherent story in 12 episodes leaves a lot on the cutting room floor. The bulk of the story is the protagonist cycling through abridged versions of the routes for each of the 5 main male characters, but it doesn't spend enough time with any of them to give you an idea of who the characters are or build any sort of romantic chemistry between them and the protagonist. Once a character's route has come and gone, you'll barely see them again for the rest of the series.
- Hideous character and color designs make this series a pain to look at. Each of the main male characters has a Spencer's Gifts mall goth look that was a decade out of date when the series came out in 2013, and has aged even more poorly since then. The hair and eye color gradients are distracting, and when combined with the costuming, make everyone look completely ridiculous. All 5 of them look like when you create a garish create-a-character in a video game and they start showing up in cutscenes. It's impossible to take any of the drama seriously when all of the characters look so outrageous.
- Uninspired voice acting, especially from the normally reliable Kaori Nazuka in the main protagonist role. Her line delivery is consistently bland and unenergetic, and all 5 main male characters have identically aloof line readings as well. There's little to differentiate any of them as characters besides their hair colors and clothing.
- Without spoiling anything, more than one route becomes troublingly abusive, and the abuse is handwaved away for being done out of love or something similar. As a straight male that is very much not the target audience for this series, far be it for me to judge you if you're into that sort of thing, but it made me uncomfortable. If you're looking for a series with an empowered female lead, you're not going to find it here.