ef - a tale of memories.

[Buffalobiian]

"I can't come up with lines without drawing paper."

"Then take me to a place with drawing paper..."

That whole scene was, to memory, the best scene I've seen of it's type, in all aspects. Now that Miyako/Hirono is pretty much wrapped up, and Kei/Kyosuke is sort of predictable, I'm left hanging for what's going to happen to Chihiro/Renji. Agreed with Ryllharu, there's more to come. Did Renji really understand Himura's hint to take her story seriously?

Another beautiful episode. The only fault I can find isn't even ef's: four years--> four yours error @ 17:20.)

edit: In regards to art, I think one of the best, and most difficult things the artist has done is the black and white words indicating the theme or ideas of the coming scene. I can imagine how badly it'd turn out in other animes if "death" or "happiness" kept popping up, but in this case, it enhances it if anything. I'm a little sad that it's only a half season anime, but rather than drawing it out, making it short and ending with a bang like I think it will make it one of my favourites this year.

[DDBen]

Episode 9 was really good. The way the art was used in this episode was fantastic and this show has been doing nothing but growing on me after the slight hurdle of the overblown art in episode 7.

Miyako/Hirono ending up in bed like that was a very satisfying progression of the story and the kind you don't often get in this sort of story. Its just very nice to see how adult this story has become and how nicely its distanced itself from a bland high school harem/slice of life anime. Kei got what she deserved without question but we will still see her and Hirono have a confrontation about it in the future anyway although she's more then likely to end up with whatever video guys name is. I would be more satisfied with her ending up alone though as she really has a lot of growing up to do.

Chihiro/Renji are still the real stars of this though its nice to see Renji constantly trying to step up and do the right thing being he's clearly in such a difficult position. Despite his terrible hairdue its quite a compelling part of the story and I'm interested to see if they will resolve Chihiro's memory at some point or Renji will just gain enough resolve to stick with her until the end no matter what it takes.

[oyabun]

I'm glad the Hirono section is over.. Now the show can finally focus on Chihiro and Renji. For me their story is much more interesting.

[Buffalobiian]

Man, episodes this last month have been awesome. Since they've devoted the entire ep to Kei-Miyako-Hirono (maybe a bit of kyosuke), they'll be spending much of the next one on
Renji and Chihiro. I wonder if they'll really develop the Kei-Kyosuke relationship any further, or just leave it as if they've just sorta started.

[oyabun]

I hope not. It's the typical rebound guy anyway. Is this a 13 episode anime?

[shinta|hikari]

Speaking of which, I really hate that Kyousuke bastard. Reminds me of fucking Suzaku way too much. I mean, I get his concern for his friends, but punching him twice? He could have just talked some sense into Hirono, but since he was so pissed at seeing that Kei doesnt give a shit about him and only cares about Hirono, he justifies his desire to punch the lights out of him with his own "sense of right". If he is pissed at him for his own personal reasons, he shouldnt make it sound like he is doing the right thing.

Since people might object to this, I will clarify it a bit. Kyosuke acted out of his own selfishness, since if it was his concern for Hirono, he wouldnt have hit him (it just wouldnt make sense, since what Hirono did is perfectly normal, just that it hurt Kei but that is her own issue). It might be his affection for Kei, but that doesnt give him ANY right to barrage Hirono with punches or his stupid kiddy sermon. It was Hirono who introduced them in the first place. If he did all that and admitted it was because he liked Kei, I wouldnt have cared, maybe even approved of it a bit. But masking his selfish actions underneath a seemingly righteous facade really ticks me off. Damn hypocrite.

[oyabun]

I think he blames Hirono for not noticing Kei's feelings. Which is stupid because what you said is true that What Hirono's attitude and relationship towards Kei is pretty normal. I guess he was just frustrated and jealous of how Kei thought of Hirono.

[Buffalobiian]

Now, more of the beautiful ef.

ef- episode 11

edit: First half was nice and cruisy. Good contrast to the episodes we've been having of late, but it's fitting of the pace that Renji and Chihiro are living in. Never thought they'd do that on the rooftop. 0.0. But the last half, I'm lost for words. Heart was pounding since the novel finished. Who else was thinking Chihiro was gonna jump?

[oyabun]

Hmmm what an episode.. The first half was like a preparation for the sadness later on. And yeah I never though they will do that in the rooftop. Well backpains are nothing compared to what they have done Lol.... I don't think chihiro jumped. The entire note she have was her full memory of Renji. She was just saying good bye. No sense killing herself. There is really a big similarity with the farewell scene of Ef and My 50's date. Remember when Drew also wanted to erase Adam Sandler and she burns all the notes regarding him. It's the same buy Ef's execution was definitely better. It was just so sad... T_T

[Buffalobiian]

I don't think chihiro jumped. The entire note she have was her full memory of Renji. She was just saying good bye. No sense killing herself.

Yeah, I figured that at the end. I was thinking that after Renji read the story. It goes, the girl burned all the paintings, the castle and structure, all her memories and jumps...and Chihiro happens to be on the rooftop....SHIT...run Renji run.... But atleast she didn't jump. Now a happy ending is atleast possible. Yeah, I was thinking 50 first dates at the start of the series, but then that went away with all the tension and all. Now the similarity's back. If the similarities continue, I see a happy finale.

Well backpains are nothing compared to what they have done Lol....

Don't forget the wind chill

[Ryllharu]

I knew she was going to toss away the notebook, but I did expect her to burn it like the girl in the story did the painting, and then jump too.

It's tragic that Chihiro believes she doesn't deserves happiness. She always thinks she's hurting everyone. She apparently drove Kei off too long ago. Or at least forceably separated herself from her. She doesn't see that Renji has already seen the worst of it (one of her total collapses), has already felt terrible about it, and already been tortured by her when he flipped out at the sand castle. The difference is that Renji is hurt by how unfair life has been to Chihiro. He wants to bring her happiness, and he already came back for her. He's willing to endure the pain and suffering in order to make her happy, and be happy with her. In the light of her happiness, the pain means nothing to him.

I suppose if there is to be a happy ending, Renji will have to spend the next episode making her realize that.

[shinta|hikari]

or they can start again, and this time make her not want to forget about him.

[Buffalobiian]

I'm wondering how they'll manage to wrap this all up in one final episode. We have Renji and Chihiro to fix up, they've at least got to spend some time on Hiro, Miyako, Kei and Kyosuke, and this ep they furthered the story about who Himura is waiting for, something they haven't touched on since like episode 1 or 2. Is that gurl a phantom or something though, she seems to appear and go out of nowhere. Seems human enough though.

[Board of Command]

This series IS a masterpiece.

[oyabun]

It truly is.. Just a little annoyed with Kei and her rebound guy.

[Church]

Well, just finished it, and even though the game spoiled most of it for me :/ it was still amazing. Quite frankly, I'm speechless.
Did anyone else thought of Kingdom Hearts when Renji was collecting the missing pages? or any other RPG that has you going around collecting random stuff from all over the place.
And lastly, I was hoping the anime would develop Himura and Yuuko a bit more, as they are quite interesting characters, even when compared to the rest of the cast.
Well, now all that's left is wait for Minori to release ef - the latter tale. Which is scheduled for May 30th, 2008, not cool <_<

Oh yeah, almost forgot, WHERE'S MY EF OST?!?!?!? >:O

[Buffalobiian]

Oh yeah, almost forgot, WHERE'S MY EF OST?!?!?!? >:O

unfortunately, not till Feb, according to Nipponsei. Are you playing the game in english?

[Board of Command]

Froth-Bite released an SD version of this a long time ago. I stumbled across the HD version tonight and decided to crop out only the good stuff (ie. the incredible animation). For those who don't know, this sequence was done by the great Makoto Shinkai, and the style is very reminiscent of his other works.

[LOLWUT] ef - The First Tale Game OP

Video source from NNL. Cropped, trimmed and re-encoded by me. I can put up a smaller filesize version if you guys want. This one is encoded in an extremely (and excessively) high bitrate. It would probably look just as good at half the size.

[Buffalobiian]

How long is this OP? It's big enough for a good 7 mins of anime.

[Board of Command]

Original is a bit over 3 minutes, but the actual song portion is 2:11. That's why I said it's excessively large. I guess I'll put up a smaller one. Maybe around 40 MB.

---------------------------------

Here's the new version at roughly half the size. I did a frame by frame comparison and the quality is near identical.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mqjz6v