mnemosyne

Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi is an original anime by the studio Xebec.

The anime is a 6 part ova series spanning from the 20th century to the mid 21st century from 1990 to 2055. Which is about 60 years in the term of the timeline. The story was written by Hiroshi Onogi of the Rahxepheon fame.

The ovas are about 45 minutes each and it could be turn into an entire movie being watched in just one sit through.

The series is notable for its mix of supernatural,mystery,cyberpunk and action. In addition many elements of Mythology especially Greek, are also borrowed as well too and one of the biggest themes of the show is immortality and is it really worth it?

With the amnesia theme of the story, the name Mnemosyne means “memory” in Greece and with the main character recovering her memory as time goes by it really suits the nature of the story.

The character development happens bit by bit as the episodes progress.

Its all part of an overarching arch that tells the full story bit by bit.

The story focuses on an private investigator Rin Asougi who is one of the immortals who absorbed an orb from a special tree called “Yggdrasal”. These orbs are called “time fruits”.

During the period of the show Rin goes through multiple identities and often memory loss.

The Yggdrasil in mythology is said to be a tree of life.

In the series Yggdrasil orbs are small produced orbs given to select humans. For females they become immortal like beings while for males, they become psychotic winged beings known as angels. Also during intercourse, angels would kill said immortals as well.

Yggdrasil is not normally seen by regular humans.

The characters were pretty interesting. Rin Asougi’s cheerful and perky personality was really a front for a cold and calculating and vicious fighter. Rin also shared good chemistry with Mimi which counter balanced her optimistic disposition.

The cast isn’t large especially given the length of the anime with 6 parts.

The atmosphere was a mix of dark and edgy mystery and also supernatural and futuristic elements all in one unique blend and every episode has a unique look because of the different time periods it is set in. You can also see how different the world is and how much things have changed for the characters despite their immortality.

The action was really good as well too.

There was a lot of fanservice especially yuri elements in the story. The fanservice made sense given the elements of Yuri and also how immortals and angels would view each other in the anime and also their desires as well.

The voice acting was pretty good as well and so was the musical score. The opening and ending tracks in particular stand out.

The anime has a good amount of horror elements in it and its not really meant for the faint of heart and it gets pretty brutal.

The artstyle looked really good and the background designs were really nicely detailed. Shigeru Ueda of the Elemental Gelarde fame and even a couple of episodes of Serial Expiraments Lain worked on the series direction.

The animation was very well done and has aged well for the most part.

The story isn’t easy to follow and well, there were some parts of the story that weren’t fully developed.

It would have been interesting to see each time period having its own respective musical score to enhance the feel but its not there unfortunately.

It was a really interseting series.

It gets 5 out of 5 stars.

Fans of noir styled anime would really enjoy this series.