[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Mnemosyne 1: a sexy and sassy revival of the OAV (with added zombies)
A while back on the other blog I write for I lamented over the decline of the old fan favourite, the OAV. Y’know, those short straight-to-video series that the likes of AIC and Gainax made their names on back in the old days, but don’t seem to come around very often any more. They’re those shows that offer bigger helpings of sex, violence and visual shininess because they can: the budgets are higher, the schedules less punishing and the censorship is less of an issue. Mnemosyne, with its overt sexiness, real bloodshed (no NICE INK here) and visuals that you’d expect from a feature film, seems to be keeping the old tradition alive. It may not be the most cerebral or even the most original show on offer at the moment but that’s beside the point: it’s a slick, exciting and darkly refreshing break from the norm.
If you take the empowered female/wimpy male setup of Bubblegum Crisis, the gratuitous, cheeky nekkidness of Gainax and the contemporary spin on the Chandler-esque film noir detective fiction of Darker than Black and Read or Die, you’ve pretty much nailed Mnemosyne: it’s an action/mystery thriller with a brutal streak and a dash of the supernatural. I know it’s lazy to do the comparisons with anime X and Y in recommending a show, but if you appreciate the type of series that makes a conscious effort to entertain viewers with the old staples of fast-paced action and a keen sense of cool, you’ll get as much of a kick out of this as I did. While Speed Grapher tried to marry fan service with hard-boiled action but stumbled with the ropey visuals and ham-fisted moralising, Mnemosyne has little in the way of social commentary but combines the sexiness and the tension while coming out of it looking as cool as a polar bear’s unmentionables.
In the first episode, we meet Rin and Mimi, a streetwise, heavy-drinking private investigator and her perky sidekick; the latter is the typical pink-haired anime girl who reminded me a lot of Kiko from DtB but her employer Rin is potentially the most interesting. She’s some sort of immortal who is able to recover from any form of bodily injury which is a bit of a bonus when being stabbed, strangled, shot at and beaten up are all in a day’s work. The first episode has a lot going for it: zombies, dodgy scientific experiments, yuri overtones and missing cats all make it feel like some sort of gar R.O.D. episode, with BADASS instead of books. Did I mention the allusion to Greek mythology in the title too?
It’s early days but Mnemosyne gives an initial impression of being a case-of-the month week affair with details concerning the recurring characters being thrown in as and when the opportunity arises. The storyline of the first episode is forty-five minutes of what I’m sure we’ve all seen before at some point or another: the twists follow the old formula and in any case they merely work towards the next action set-piece but you know what? Sometimes that’s a GOOD thing.
There’s something really solid about Mnemosyne’s no-nonsense approach that delivers on things like gratuitous shower scenes where hair/hands/rubber ducks don’t hide the nipples, blood that actually looks red and gets spilt frequently, and generic bad guys who get taken out with a swift kick or deployment of garotte wire. It offers trashy fun to those of us who are mature enough to stomach the gore and violence but who are still immature enough to revel in it - it’s a guilty pleasure that nevertheless remembers to hold back when the excesses threaten to get in the way of the story.
In the good old tradition of anime shows that feature strong female leads, Mnemosyne’s heroine uses her feminine charm as one of her most potent weapons but is still able to kick ass with the best of them. I suppose you could argue that she’s a female gar character, which by the same token implies that the Huerrgh! factor isn’t necessarily synonymous with manliness (Re: an excellent series of posts at the Animanachronism concerning the nature of gar). Of course, the likes of Mnemosyne aren’t really intended to be subject to a great deal of over-analysis but it’s an interesting aspect that helps it stand out from the crowd. Aside from the smooth, fluid animation and the hard-edged rock soundtrack, this is a show that seems to successfully combine that sassy feminine cool with good old fashioned hard-boiled attitude. And it’s not set in a high school.
Posted on February 25th, 2008 @ 11:11 pm
I watched it as soon as it was released, was a decent watch, though I didn’t exactly understand everything that was going on… or was I meant to?
Besides that though the ending and opening songs are awesome. <3 Galneryus.
Posted on February 26th, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
@Lupus Inu: nope, I didn’t understand much either! It had me bemused in the same way that DtB did actually, but at six episodes I’m expecting it all to be cleared up soonish. In the meantime, there are plenty of zombies and ass-kicking females to pass the time.
Posted on March 1st, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
I don’t know. I found Mnemosyne deeply exploitive without much justification. Rin’s invincibility just seemed like an excuse to depict as much masochistic crap as possible and it left a bad taste in my mouth by the end. It might develop more substance as it goes on, and it is visually appealing, but after the first episode I felt thoroughly cynical towards it.
Posted on March 2nd, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
@Hige: it’s funny, but for some reason the fact that this episode made it clear that it was being exploitative made it somehow acceptable. There’s some sort of twisted honesty going on here in that it doesn’t pretend to be big or clever, but a throwback to the borderline-’video nasty’ (I didn’t really want to go as far as calling it that) OAVs of the late 80s/early 90s.
That isn’t to say I’ll be satisfied if the story goes nowhere later on, but in terms of setting the scene and providing 45 minutes of mindless entertainment this did it fine. I can understand where you’re coming from in terms of leaving a bad taste in your mouth though…maybe I’ve become desensitised to such things after watching thoroughly tasteless garbage in the past *Cough*Ikki Tousen*cough*