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Summary:
In the aftermath of Chihiro throwing her diary pages away, Renji visits all of the places where they share memories together. She of course isn’t at any of them, and even when Renji tries to visit her at home, no one answers the door. The ringing of the church bell that afternoon alerts Renji to the fact that it’s already been over 13 hours since he separated from Chihiro. In other words, she should have forgotten everything about the two of them by now. Renji then pays a visit to the church, and Yuu reports that Chihiro has returned to being how she was before she met Renji. When Renji asks, Yuu confirms that it’s really over, and he suggests that even if a miracle occurs and Chihiro recovers, her written notes wouldn’t return. Yuu doesn’t believe that there are miracles though – only inevitabilities and coincidences. Still, he’s not saying that Renji should forget and cites that shouldering the painful weight is only one way to live.
At home, Renji’s mother worries about him and reminds him about the future aspirations handout. Renji feels that he can’t do it since he can’t even think about tomorrow, and when his mother hears him say that he doesn’t want tomorrow to come, she suggests that tomorrow could be a better day than today. This reminds Renji of how Chihiro had said the same thing, and he runs out of the house in frustration. He happens to run into Kuze, and the two head to the beach to talk. Renji ends up asking Kuze how he can realize his dream, so Kuze replies that you first have to have a dream, and you can’t forget your desire. When Renji wonders about an impossible desire, Kuze explains that he’d have to wait for a miracle. Hearing this, Renji repeats what Yuu had said about there not being miracles in this world, but Kuze already knows the line. Kuze feels that at times, the result of an action becomes inevitable, overlaps with coincidence, and a dream can unexpectedly be realized. He doesn’t know if that can be called a miracle or not, but the one thing he’s sure of is that without a desire, nothing can happen.
Despite this talk with Kuze, Renji isn’t feeling much better by the next day. He’s surprised to find Chihiro sitting at the train station, but as soon as she asks him if she’s met him before, he runs away. Renji ends up on the school rooftop remembering everything, unable to forget about Chihiro. After a great wind blows past him, he notices a paper airplane flying across the sky, and he immediately realizes what it is. Following it all the way until it comes down, Renji makes a diving catch and finds that it’s the page of the diary with the photo booth sticker. On it, Chihiro had recorded her thoughts before breaking up with him, including how painful it was for her as she was writing this. The truth was that she wanted to stay with him forever and didn’t want to forget because she didn’t want to return to days of nothingness. She had even thought of him as her knight and prince, and she loved him. When he finishes reading all of this, Renji decides that there is something he can do, even though it’s probably futile, and that something is to collect all the pages that he can find.
Renji eventually returns to the train station, all bruised and scraped up from his efforts to get the pages back. He knows that he hasn’t collected enough yet, but he vows to get them all. To his surprise, Chihiro comments on how long 13 hours is, and though she has to forget about him, she can’t. She then rushes into his arms, and when Renji vows not to let her forget no matter what happens, Chihiro’s mental bonds are broken. In the aftermath, Renji decides that his first choice for the future aspirations handout is to be a novelist, and he starts writing a story about his original meeting with Chihiro – the encounter that lasted for less than 45 seconds. As for the others, Kei’s foot has healed, and she messages to tell Hiro and Miyako about it. The couple, who are living happily together, message her back telling her not to push herself too much with club activities. Kei then thanks Kyousuke for letting her learn to walk on her own feet, and Kyousuke manages to get the shot of her that he wanted.
The three couples eventually find themselves all looking up at the sky. Renji feels that it was thanks to Chihiro that he was able to find his dream. Hiro feels that he finally found the color he was looking for, and Miyako feels that she found a way of life with Hiro even though she hasn’t found her dream yet. Kyousuke feels that he understands now what kind of picture he wants to take, and Kei feels that she wants to continue running. And finally, Chihiro feels that she’s satisfied because her final dream was realized. Renji, however, tells her that this isn’t the end – it has only just begun because they walk together.
Ending:
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ED: 「悠久の翼 07mix」 (Yuukyuu no Tsubasa 07mix) by 中島裕美子 (Nakajima Yumiko)
So Chihiro miraculously can’t forget Renji. That’s it. He didn’t even need to collect all the pages. It was a very touching scene though, don’t get me wrong. I was just hoping for something more than what we got. After watching the episode a couple more times as I wrote up the summary, I started to appreciate it more. I’m still not entirely happy that it took a miracle of sorts to finish the Chihiro and Renji story (was hoping for a different kind of twist) and that this happened so quickly, but after listening to what Kuze said a few times, it feels a bit more acceptable.
The epilogue did a great job wrapping things up though since we get to see each of the characters happy and moving forward with their lives now. No big surprises there, but I especially liked how they came full circle with Renji’s story – it made me watch the beginning of the first episode all over again. I’m still not entirely clear on Yuuko and Yuu, and the mysteries pertaining to their two characters, but they’re admittedly minor enough to the story that it didn’t affect my enjoyment. I’m also ashamed to admit that it took me until this episode to realize that the first letter of each episode title spells out the word euphoric field, with the coda title dream finishing it out.
Final Thoughts: ef drew me in with its production quality (mostly the music), but early on, I wasn’t too keen on the story or the way it was being told with that split format. I thought the series had a lot of potential, but it wasn’t until episode seven’s masterpiece that I really started liking it. And now that I’ve seen the whole thing, I applaud SHAFT for doing such a good job, though I hesistate to call it the best of its type. Regardless, I’m looking forward to any future visual novel adaptations that SHAFT might do.
Happy End(?!)
And jeah first^^
Good stuff.
Hmm, yes, ok.
The third relationship somehow seems a bit unfinished, still a good ending I think.
Now looking forward to Ef – the latter tale:
http://www.visual-novels.net/vn/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=612&Itemid=2#jc_writeComment
So it’s a “we just had to randomly stick it in there since we don’t believe in the rationality and emotional maturity of our viewers” HAPPY BLOODY END…
*shrug*
…oh well…
its over already? wow i thought the show was going to have 13 episodes but oh well. Well i’m gotta plan which anime to watch for the winter schedule
end was…disappointing to say at least
Meh… so the psychotic stalker requiring a restraining order wins, and everything is wrapped into a `happy’ ending? Disappointing indeed.
What were you guys expecting? A nice boat ending?
So what’s up with Kei and that idiot Kyousuki or whatever? Does he ask her out or does she just agree to his little film thing. Which has to be some weird fetish for him, probably related to his mom etc.
@ all people saying happy end is bad:
Your life is so good that it’s boring or what? If you wanna bad end watch School Days or similar psycho stuff. If the good end would’ve been forced I’d agree that it’s not the best but here it fits perfectly. Moreover it seems you didn’t play the game 😉
@mutio
Kinda hard for most people to play a game that’s in JAPANESE!
Oh, and i’m not complainning about the ending btw.
I would of wanted something more realistic rather than a ‘miracle. It’s a bit disappointing.
Maybe I’m just easy to please, but I thought the ending made perfect sense and wasn’t a cop-out of any kind. It wasn’t artificially happy, and fit in exactly with the precident/explanations set in the show.
“13 hours is a long time, isn’t it?” she said. Chihiro resigned herself to her fate and thought it’d be all over simply by throwing those pages from her diary away. But it’d only work if she could actually bring herself to not think about him for 13 straight hours, and if he gave up on her as well. Their first encounter at the train station led Renji to believe that she had forgotten, which is why he thought he had to collect all the pages to fight his way back into her life. This was only her testing him, though. When he came back desperate to get her back, she realized that even with her condition, it’s not so easy to forget something she wants so badly to remember. She spent the whole show teaching herself to “cheat” her condition, but now she couldn’t find a way to make it work in reverse. So, basically, because he didn’t give up, and because she couldn’t forget, they were able to be reunited. I thought it fit in quite well with all they’ve been saying so far.
(P.S. Don’t miss the other small change to the OP. It’s minor, but important.)
Have not seen the episode yet looks decent…
I guess I was hoping for more Kei x Kyousuki to finish it off. I “never” expected a nice boat like school days because this is much different from school days anyway. I have to admit though did they have to do so much of Chihiro x Renji?
I was expecting them all to have happy end which in my mind a good end! So good stuff Shaft!
2 nice endings in a row this week . . . beats the shit out of School Days . . .
(Basically, all that to say there’s nothing “miraculous” about her remembering Renji. I think it’s just a poor choice of words on Omni’s part. Perhaps “conveniently” is more like it, but even then, it’s not at all without precident. She only forgets everything after a “full reset” (i.e. when she was sick).)
they are still in the friend zone! Those shots with the couples is from previous episode as hiro quit school and doesn’t have to be in uniform anymore. Only official couples at the end were ReijixChihiro and HiroxMiyako. I don’t know if this two can be counted as a couple though https://randomc.net/image/ef%20-%20a%20tale%20of%20memories/ef%20-%20a%20tale%20of%20memories%20-%2012%20-%20Large%2044.jpg
I am talking about Kei and kyousuke being in the friend zone!
relentlessflame: I’m being quite deliberate with the use of the word “miraculous.” I’m emphasizing the fact that my initial impression was that it all happened so quickly (conveniently even) that I couldn’t help but get a deus ex machina feel from it. We spend over half the episode on Renji struggling with all this, and then in the course of a minute and a half, everything is solved.
Awesome series is awesome.
@golthin
If that’s the case, I’m happy. That’s just one pair that doesn’t seem right to me, and forced. Plus the guys got a stalker/video tape fetish or something. He says he wants to make movies but I don’t buy it. heh
すばらしい use of music in this series and in this episode too in particular.
@gp
I think the producers didn’t make it official because they didn’t have time to show how it happens. Kei has a whole chapter for her in the original VN that tells how it happened.
The reason Chihiro can’t forget Renji…. her body also remembers him making it possible for her memory to keep Renji forever in her memories.
Maybe the ova episode 13th is all about Kei and Kyosuke since it’s left not totally finished.
Isn’t a happy end for me… damn it!
“Maybe the ova episode 13th is all about Kei and Kyosuke since it’s left not totally finished.”
I don’t think there’s necessarily any reason to believe that there will be an OVA episode anymore, since the “d” from “Euphoric Field” was the “coda” in this episode. They could do an extra episode, but I think this show has a perfect sense of finality after episode 12. If they were going to tell Kei’s story, I’d guess they’d need a whole new season, not just one episode (and based on the DVD sales, that may not be too likely… we’ll see).
I don’t like that pairing so I don’t care to know if it happens or how it happens. This show is now over, so it’s on to something new etc.
About Chihiro and Renji, reminds me of this saying I saw in a fanfic, and later applied in a manga:
“What the mind forgets, the heart remembers”
So what if it ends happy for Renji and Chihiro? The lots of anime endings seem to end badly or bittersweet. Its nice to see a happy ending for a change. Was a good series. Some episodes in particular where amazing.
@omniscient
“I was just hoping for something more than what we got.”
Just Expect LEss.
@GP
“@golthin
If that’s the case, I’m happy. That’s just one pair that doesn’t seem right to me, and forced. Plus the guys got a stalker/video tape fetish or something. He says he wants to make movies but I don’t buy it. heh”
Too much of the above not enough of what @omniscient wants but hey the dubDumbed will take it one more step in the dumbness, stalkers and other sight gags are OK, we got Adam Sandler, Will Farrell and some other idiot who’s name I cannot remember AND Chris Hanson over here.
Just finished watching the Chinese sub for #12. The paper plane being the ‘miracle’ was a brilliant touch. I am a bit disappointed the director didn’t delve into the question of whether love can exist without memory, but that would have been too much for the average anime fan. The ending scene with the 3 couple feels very forced, but I’ll forgive the director since he’s probably too exhausted from the brilliant directions in eps 11 and early part of eps 12. The OP also changed : song has switched to JP, and extra silhouettes.
Overall, EF is definitely the best romance anime this year (I would call Schoolday the ‘Anti-romance’ anime).
awww i cant believe this has come to an end, but by the sounds of it, it seems like Kei is in ok terms with miyako and miyako doesnt seem to mind that kei still keeps in contact with her guy hahah…..as for Chihiro and Renji’s ending, its the most unrealistic one out of the three couples…..but i’m excited to watch this LOL
I loved the ending (atleast it’s not a stupid trainwreck like SD’s ending, but I guess someone here was hoping for that *cough* ), and I loved the serie as a whole. This is probably one of the few game-to-anime adaptations that I really liked, thanks to SHAFT’s particular storyboarding and direction.
Damn. I should have watched since the beginning. I only started wayching since episode 10 was posted… I’m really regreting my actions right now.
I liked the ending. The last scene with the characters talking to the audience was a little strange, but it was within the spirit of the show: experimental. My only real complain is that I wish we actually got a kei/kyousuke ark, otherwise it felt a little tacked on to have them end up ‘together’, but I can see why there was no time to do that.
I guess the ending with Renji x Chihiro is open for a bit of interpretation, but for me, I saw Chihiro’s inability to forget about Renji *not* as a miracle that she recovered from her memory disorder, but as her constantly thinking about Renji (i.e. constantly refreshing her memory about him) and thus, being unable to forget about him. Chihiro mentioned in an earlier episode that she can remember something longer than 13 hours if she constantly thought about it. In this case, I assumed that this “thought” was her love for Renji.
I agree with what was said earlier though. The “miracle”, if any, was the fact that Renji came across that paper airplane with the last page in Chihiro’s diary. How it ended up as an airplane soaring through the sky *several days after* she threw the pages off the roof would be a miracle. It was that page that sparked Renji’s determination to do something about the situation and ultimately bring him and Chihiro back together.
Again, it’s open for interpretation, but that was how I saw things happen.
Awesome show and a very nice fairytale style ending to the Renji/Chihiro story.
Also, like many ren-ai games like it, you can tell there’s some sort of a divine hand that is guiding a lot of these stories.
I wonder if Renji hinted out that there may be a second season
Anyways, yeah I thought they would end it with them all in a possible chance of relationship, or in a relationship.
SO MUCH BETTER THAN CLANNAD, WHICH IS THE WORST SHOW OF 2007.
ef the latter tale was also told here, its the story of chihiro and renji, while the first tale is the story of miyaxhiroxkei and kyoxkei so don’t hold your breath for another season
Every one in a while there comes an ending that leaves you practically speechless… I can’t help but applaud this series for being such an amazing experience.
Some may think some parts were forced but I have to disagree… When you’re in love you will tend to do some crazy shit (I know I have lol), also when you’re DEEPLY in love that person WILL be on your mind 24/7.
If I could have a complaint (and it’s a minor one) they ended the series rather too cleanly, I don’t think further developing Kei x Kyosuke is enough to warrant a follow-up season, even with if they add Yuuko and Yuu’s story, but then again who knows?
This series was simply about three love stories (actually two since Kei x Kyosuke are just really “close” right now) but the brilliance lies in the execution, I’ve never seen anything like it, but I really hope to see more. 😀
happy end suxz this time =/
I thought this was going to be 16 episodes… what happened?!
Don’t feel bad, Omni; I just realized this instant that the “ef” in the title is also the initials of both “euphoric field” and “eternal feather,” the opening of the first game.
I think it’s fair to say that this series was worth watching just for its art and artistic value. While I can’t say I was comfortable with every segment they put forward, I don’t think they intended me to be simply cozy on my side of the screen. And what’s worse is that the work let me know that intent in no uncertain terms… but that’s a good thing. Ef was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous to the point of taking my breath away when it needed to be, and equally disconcerting on the other end of the spectrum when it (ostensibly) did not want to be friendly.
It made the art work with the story, the content. Other works obsess over frame rates and other such stuff for their own sake and seem to forget about artistry altogether… ef was able to restore my faith in the industry in that field. This attention to the art aspect makes issues like FPS seem absolutely trivial. Uniquely, the anime affords the viewer a sense of “space and time” to mentally maneuver in a manner that normally only a visual novel or a book would. And that is essential for ef, because there is an awful lot of stuff to think about that needs no words to be expressed in order to be communicated.
Very interesting to note how the furigana, which in earlier episodes used words that were not only different but even diametrically opposed at times from the kanji they were supposed to be “translating”, are now by the time of the final episodes either close to, complimentary, or correctly representing the kanji (物語 being one of them). So many visual cues make the anime worth watching more than once. Probably at least three times: once to capture the meta-narrative, once to find the all the nitty-gritty details, and at least once just to appreciate the art.
Note 2:
Himura Yuu and Amamiya Yuuko are anything but trivial characters. They are actually the mains behind the story that makes up “ef – a fairy tale of the two”. Yet another thing I like about the anime is how it conveniently summarizes essentially the first tale and the second tale in a way that is complete (from a story flow perspective) and yet leaves out plenty, plenty more meat in the visual novels.
“Otogibanashi wa hitotsu ja nai” (there is not just one fairy tale) being a catchphrase of the ef game, the anime effectively presents both together in a way that shows the relationships between two entirely different stories. ef – the first tale covers Hiro/Miyako, and Amamiya’s sphere (also set in motion in book 1-2 of the manga). The yet-to-be-published ef – the second tale will cover Renji/Chihiro, Himura’s sphere of responsibility (which we see more of starting in book 3). While the anime does a good job of capturing the overall narrative flow of the two, there are questions aplenty that can be filled only by its parent: the two-part game itself.
In the beginning of the story, we are treated to a flashback of a young Yuu and Yuuko, followed by a scene of them being reunited years later in the church. That prologue scene in the game appears in a briefer format in the last episode of the anime, but needless to say it is crucial. We can only assume that once the two tales are put together, we will find out just exactly what happened in the time Yuu and Yuuko were apart, why they’re reunited despite Yuuko’s “amnesia”, or if she’s actually even still alive… because that was one hell of an ominous PV that minori put out (directed by Shinkai Makoto).
That paper plane gave me chills the first time I saw it split into a million feathers, and it still does now.
>>I’m also ashamed to admit that it took me until this episode to realize that the first letter of each episode title spells out the word euphoric field, with the coda title dream finishing it out.
Don’t worry. I missed this ENTIRELY until I read it.
Shameless self-advertising again! My review can be found at animenfo and anidb. 12kb, second to my 14kb Lucky Star review. Enjoy.
wahh i think that was really good but i wanted to know if kei and Kyousuke go out in the future…overall this was a very good series ^^
masterpiece
i don’t understand how everyone thinks the reiji/chihiro ending is a miracle. to me it’s not. chihiro says it herself, 13 hours is a long time. in fact, too long to forget strong feelings. she tried to hide it from him the first time they met after the breakup, still thinking, she will forget soon. but seeing his efforts to revive her memory fully, she changed her mind, or rather, her emotions did their part. her behaviour is really very consistent, in that she told reiji about her dream to write a story in an early episode, but later denied it, because she was afraid to fail at her only dream (though i think, there’s more to that and she might actually have been afraid to fullfill it, since as long as you fail, you can try again and she failed as many as 31 times before). i think, what she really dreamt for was someone to help her break her mental bonds. now, i don’t think that she is miraculously cured or something like that. the problem remains, when she sleeps longer than 13 hours. but i think the point here is, that she gained confidence in two things. first, there is someone she can trust who is not family and thus obliged somehow to be there for her. second, no matter how much she forgets, her feelings and her personality won’t really change. she fell in love with reiji once, forgot, and fell in love with him all over. and he was in fact strong enough to go along with it.
so, if you ask me, no real miracles here. the “mircale” here is only the paper airplane, nothing more … the paper airplane sparks reiji’s efforts to regain her, no matter what. it doesn’t matter that the pages of the diary are not crucial to their reunion, what counts is that he decided to face her once more. the diary is a crutch, anyway. if you think about it, your memory changes, even if you have no memory defect.
Yeah that’s how I interpreted it too, it’s not that Chihiro can’t forget, it’s that she keeps on thinking back to those strong memories. She even said so herself that if she keeps thinking back to something she can remeber thinking back to it haha. Renji is kind of doing what Himura is doing now I guess, I’m pretty satisyed with the ending, mostly all the loose ends where tied up and there wheren’t an deus ex machinas.
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Kira kira is one of the highly regarded erogame of year 2007.
I played the trial version and it’s good, usually i cannot tolerate erogame because it’s full of text, but this one actually draw me in and make me keep reading.
Shaft did a really great job animating ef, it’s a great pleasure watching ef, so i hope that shaft will produce kira kira next.
The final opening sequence was great in terms of symbolism
In the English sung theme, the three girls were still bonded and disappeared into nothingness, like they’re still trapped in the past.
In the theme this episode, the three were disappearing but were ‘saved’ by their partner, and later showed them breaking free from their bonds.
That (coupled with the great voice for the OP) made me watch it over and over quite a few times.
it wasn’t miraculous. chihiro just couldn’t stop thinking about him within 13 hrs. no deus ex machina, period.
Don’t know if you guys noticed but the opening changed, both the song and the animation (you see added parts or different parts)
for my reasoning this anime is something like the history of
“the knight who fought many battles to protect her princess”
in a modern way
there are no dragons to kill or castle walls to climb
there are a lot of european and oriental influences in this anime
for example, the fact that renji is half german half japanese.
you can watch his has a really diferent attitude from any another
anime character, he is fast, good and warm talking,
also he is gentle and quiet.
and he does never give up, if there still a chance, he will keep figthing on.
for this, you can look at the diferent in cultures from japanese ,,,,and renji xD
if you cant find it out… look at hiro, or anothe animes like. true tears
where the progtagonist its such a baka xD
or all the staff in school rumble xD
to the one who wrothe the summari
it is not a miracle
she just cant get off thinking about him
when she finds out how she loved him and that they were gone to be apart
she just was remembering him all the time.
and if she brings something to her mind back and forth
she cant forget about it
just when she entered in a shock after trying to hold everything in her mind
…
is only that,, it is not a miracle, but training her mind by doing that,,, may help her someway